We did it on our floating dock, with overhead cable lifts. In my opinion, it is the best part of our dock. Instead of an in-usable hole in the dock, you have usable space. It does add weight, so that must be designed into the capacity of the lifts.
The best part of decked lifts are that you can easily wipe down or clean the boat, since you can walk all around the boat. Another nice thing is that we drop the lift into 6"-12" of water during the summer and set up chairs on it (when we have large crowds, we take one boat out so that we have an open lift!).
Items to consider:
-wave action causes the lift to bounce more than a traditional lift, even if the deck surface is heavier than water.
-you need a track to keep the lift from moving around. Ours has four wheels that ride up and down in the track.
-the lift will need additional structure to support the decking
As stated above, ours is a cabled lift. I had some ideas on how to do it with a Hydro-hoist approach, but did not end up going that way. I felt that it complicated the design.
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