Global Projects & Case Studies

The Problem: Bigger Boats, the Same Old Lift 

"The beam span was the real constraint. A machine that can't open to 11.5 metres cannot lift a modern catamaran — full stop."

1.background

Phuket is Southeast Asia's largest yachting hub. Each season, hundreds of European and American superyachts pass through Chalong Bay for routine haulouts, antifouling, and keel inspections. The marina's dry-stack facility had served them well for years — until the boat sizes changed.

2.Conditions and limitations

Post-pandemic, the mix of visiting vessels shifted noticeably. Where 40-ft monohulls had once been the norm, 60-ft-plus catamarans now made up a growing share of arrivals. Some of these wide-beam vessels measure close to 10 metres at the beam. The marina's existing 50-ton fixed-rail hoist could not handle the weight and, more critically, could not open wide enough to straddle them safely.

3.the result of

The result was predictable: clients were being turned away. Boat owners were driving their yachts to Singapore or Langkawi, and in some cases simply not returning. The marina's management recognised the problem in late 2021 and made a decision — upgrade before the 2022 high season, or lose the market permanently

Why This Phuket Marina Chose a Chinese Boat Hoist Supplier

The marina evaluated several suppliers, including a European manufacturer whose equipment is well regarded in Mediterranean marinas. Three factors led to Yuntian being selected.

1.Exact specification match

The 100-ton "Yacht Hoisting Crane" with an adjustable span up to 11.5 metres covered every vessel in the client's target range — including the widest catamarans currently operating in Thai waters. "Yuntian's engineering team" confirmed the span adjustment mechanism and provided load charts before a purchase order was raised.

2.Mobile versus fixed-rail design

The existing fixed-rail hoist locked one strip of the yard permanently out of use. A mobile travel lift can lift a vessel, rotate it 90 degrees in place, and position it in a corner berth. For a marina working within a constrained footprint — as most Chalong Bay facilities are — this flexibility directly translates to more vessels on the hard stand at any one time.

3.Price and certification

Yuntian's quotation came in at roughly two-thirds the price of the European alternative,"That gap was wide enough that the payback period looked very different on paper — and the client noticed." Before they signed anything, their marine surveyor went through the certification documents in detail. That level of scrutiny is normal for a purchase this size, and everything held up.

Installing a 100-Ton Travel Lift in Phuket: Two Site Challenges

Challenge 1:Soft ground: reclaimed land at the transfer zone

Parts of the Chalong Bay site are built on reclaimed fill. A 100-ton Yacht Hoisting Crane at full capacity exerts significant point loads on the ground, and the client's team was concerned about differential settlement under the concrete.

Resolution:Ground load distribution study + reinforced slab

Yuntian's engineers produced a detailed ground-load distribution drawing. Based on this, the marina's local contractor poured a reinforced concrete pad at the transfer zone — two weeks' work, modest cost. No settlement issues have been reported since commissioning.

Challenge 2:Operator training: unfamiliar machine, language barrier

The marina's ground crew had only ever operated the fixed-rail hoist. A mobile travel lift with 360-degree steering and soft-sling boat-handling procedures is a meaningfully different machine. English proficiency among the crew was limited.

ResolutionTwo weeks on-site, bilingual instruction

A Yuntian commissioning engineer stayed on-site for two weeks."Most of the training ended up being hands-on rather than verbal — our engineer would demonstrate the soft-sling sequence, then watch each operator run through it. The language barrier actually pushed everyone toward a show-don't-tell approach, which probably worked better anyway."

Operators repeated the full lifting cycle under supervision until all crew members could execute it independently and consistently.

Delivery Timeline

What Changed After the 100-Ton Marine Travel Lift Went Live

Bookings recovered faster than expected

The numbers from that first full season were straightforward. Haulout bookings in 2022 came in around 25% above the marina's 2019 pre-pandemic level — and the uptick wasn't from new customers, it was from getting the old ones back. Wide-beam catamarans that had been going to Singapore or Langkawi were now booking in at Chalong Bay, because the equipment could finally handle them.

The yard got more useful without getting any bigger

The space improvement was something the marina team hadn't fully anticipated before the machine arrived. With the old fixed-rail hoist, every vessel on the hard stand had to sit along the track — one line, no flexibility. The Yacht Hoisting Crane changes that completely. Once a boat is in the slings, the operator can rotate it 90 degrees on the spot and tuck it into a corner berth. In practice, the usable storage capacity roughly doubled without adding a single square metre to the yard footprint.

Two years in, no leaks and no rust — and two more clients

One thing worth flagging for anyone operating near the coast: Phuket's salt air is genuinely hard on equipment. After two-plus years of daily use at Chalong Bay, there have been no hydraulic line leaks and no surface rust on the structural frame — which is the outcome you want, but not one you can take for granted with cheaper builds. The coating spec and the sealed circuit mattered.

The same operator came back in 2023 when they expanded a second facility nearby. That order was for a 50-ton yacht hoisting crane — smaller machine, focused on day-boats and monohulls. Then in early 2024, they passed our contact details to a marina on Koh Samui. That project completed without issues. We didn't ask for either referral; they came through because the first machine did what it was supposed to do.

The Koh Samui project, like the original Chalong Bay order, came down to one question the client asked early on: what else do you make for marine environments? If that's a question you're working through too, our marine crane range covers deck cranes, offshore cranes, and telescopic boom cranes built to the same corrosion and certification standards — most of what we've supplied to Southeast Asian marinas and port operators sits in that category.

Specifications at a Glance

HENAN YUNTIAN CRANE CO., LTD.

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— "If your site has similar ground conditions or a mixed fleet of vessel sizes, mention it when you reach out — it helps us give you a more specific answer faster."

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