The Glengarry—one of only a few all-wood boats still in operation along the St. Croix River—has been a hallmark within the community since it first launched in 1938. To survive its decades on the water, every fall the picturesque vessel is pulled out of the water, repainted and returned to pristine condition come spring.

Until this year.

Rising flood waters on the St. Croix had caused the Glengarry to rise in its boathouse, putting it in danger of smashing into the roof. To complicate matters, ice on the river prevented the crew from simply backing it out of the boathouse and floating it on the river until the water levels receded, leaving the only other option to lift it out of the water. Luckily, Vic’s was called in to help.

With only a week to plan, we found an efficient solution. Leveraging the Glengarry’s trolley system, we rolled the boat out of the boathouse until beams could be positioned underneath the hull and welded to the existing framework. This gave us a platform to make the lift without damaging the boat. We then used our Grove GMK7550 550-ton All-Terrain crane, with 352,000 pounds of counterweight and mega wing attachment, to lift the 60,000-pound boat at a 115’ radius and gently set it down on land on top of our wooden mats until it could safely be returned to the water.

It’s not every day we get called on to lift such a unique and historic object, and we’re proud of our team for coming up with a creative solution that will allow the Glengarry to be marveled at for years to come.