The first couple of times we lifted the donk, in Dutch Harbour and Falmouth, we had a chain hoist hanging from the boom above the aft end of the coachroof. There are photos on the /tng website if they haven't been corrupted by the bloody Viagra mob. The problem with this is that the hoist is angled forwards (towards the bow) as it passes around the coachroof coaming and down to the engine, so the lift is not vertical but pulling aft and hard against the coaming of the coachroof.
This means that to move the engine towards the bow to get it off its mounts and into the saloon, you must pull it against the backward pull of the hoist – tricky and a pain to do, with tackles everywhere and massive tension on them and having to ease the hoist at the same time.
So this time I pondered a bit and decided that a better way might be to use a couple of small tackles to suspend a bar, post, spinnaker pole or – in Berri's case – the jockey pole under the boom but inside the boat. To do this you do need a hatch somewhere in the coachroof, with one small tackle going up through it. The other end of the pole is suspended by the other tackle just aft of the coachroof. You need to be sure that the pole you use can support the weight of the donk from its centre while it is suspended from each end (I hope that makes sense). Berri's jockey pole is a hefty bit of tubing.
Then a 4 or better still 6 part tackle from the point of the pole directly above the suspension points on the donk gives you a vertical lift. Ever so much easier and you can get fine adjustments by playing with the two smaller tackles. It also allows you to tilt the pole slightly to assist the movement of the engine fore or aft once lifted. Worked like a dream. You can see most of the arrangement in the photos posted on the blog earlier. But here they are again
