What do you wish you knew before you got a davit system?

Our 54' Hatteras has no davit. I want a dinghy, if for nothing else, to get street cred as I putter down the ICW. We are flexible on time as I don't think it will become a true pain point until next year when we can hit the Bahamas.

What do you wish was different about your davit? We have a huge flybridge area that would be perfect for a high crane, we have a small swim platform that could be modified to get a lift type. Because we will travel with a golden retreiver, we need steps going down the swim platform so we can't tie the entire area up with a lift, but we have a 17.5' beam so we have some space to work with. I want about a 12' RIB type with a driving console, should be about 600 pounds.

I expect I have read all of the archived posts about davits on the forum. There are a lot of the companies that are gone, but I have reached out to 4 of them for initial conversations.

I am open to all advice. I get dumber about boats every day. The more I learn, the more I understand that my level of having a clue is lower than optimum.

We are pretty fond of our dinghy butler. We had a hurley h3 on our Sea Ray. When we bought our Hatteras it had a Marquipt davit on it that sucked bilge water. We liked our HUrley but didn't have a swim platform large enough on the Hatteras. The Dinghy Butler is a pretty good and simple setup

http://www.thedinghybutler.com

The photo with the black highfield on the home page is mine. I sent a photo to them when the install was completed

I upgraded my davit from a manual fixed lift and manual rotation to a fully hydraulic davit. Huge improvement that I have not regretted. My dinghy is on the bow and I much prefer that to hanging from or sitting on the transom. I think that it is a better situation having the tender on the bow. Less to worry about when it gets rough. I bought a Steelhead and about 5 years ago it was 25,000 installed.

We had the dinghy butler as well. Easy enough to use. I did have an issue with missing and mismatched parts during install. Ultimately, we sold it after making a larger swimstep. Towing works better for us.

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Originally Posted by Timeless72

We had the dinghy butler as well. Easy enough to use. I did have an issue with missing and mismatched parts during install. Ultimately, we sold it after making a larger swimstep. Towing works better for us.

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The couple my wife and I follow on YouTube, Living on a Trawler Boat (onboardtangaroa.com), have a davit as well as a pair of J-hooks - But they seem to always tow. They have 2 tenders, one of which they leave on their mooring ball in BC. The other one they tow.

Nautical Structures has terrible customer service.

I agree. Stay away from Nautical structure they have the worst customer service. I ve had to deal with them for davit or platforms on boats i ve run…

Marquipt makes an excellent davit and their prices reflect it. That’s what we have that I bought used and refurbished. Their customer service is lacking. UMT makes davits and I’ve heard good and bad about the quality but the customer service is good. YRM has phenomenal customer service but I’m not familiar with their davits. However we have their chocks and other things made from them. Thier quality is top-notch. If I were starting from scratch installing a davit, I would definitely get hydraulic rotation. Especially if you’re running the tender all the way up to the flybridge. We have manual rotation and as long as there’s not much of a roll it’s fairly easy to maneuver however, once there’s any roll it becomes a challenge. I would also get a wireless controller if you are putting your tender on the flybridge. We have a 14 foot GALA center counsel with a 50hp Evinrude that weighs 783 with 9 gallons of gas+ required safety equipment. No overhand with a 18’ beam. Best of luck in your search.