Hi, Dik No doubt, the easiest, safest, and quickest way to go about it is as Mark suggested: a lift. However, if you are bound and determined to do it the hard way (time-consuming, laborious, and expensive if you don't already have the materials at hand) I've used a pair of small bottle jacks, lots of blocks of wood, some plywood, and cinder blocks. Gotta be especially careful with cinder blocks, using plywood to distribute the load over the *edges*, like on a basement. Also, the boat will be raised high enough that you need to brace against rolling to the side. Fortunately, the skeg is horizontal and the boat can be raised with it (being careful to *distribute* the load over a big area). Supporting from the skeg makes it much more stable than if jacking from the bottom of the keel because it is higher. Tod -----Original Message----- From: montgomery_boats-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:montgomery_boats-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of dik lang Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2003 2:12 PM To: montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com Subject: M_Boats: 17 center board I am a do- it- yourselfer most of the time. Ive got my Monty-17 on the trailer and now am trying to figure a way to raise ii enough to unstick and drop the center board. I plan on doing the full sandblasting, coating, and epoxy of the trunk and board. I have a few hair-brained ideas on how to lift the boat enough but am interested to hear if any one else has a sure fire way before I get in more trouble than my wife might like! Dik Lang Sweet Pea M-17 _________________________________________________________________ Get MSN 8 and help protect your children with advanced parental controls. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/parental _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats