There have been a few questions asked here about hoisting an AI or TI for storage out of the way.
I tend to use a trailer for transporting my 2 AI's and I keep them with the amas and akas together, cinched with a flat nylon strap with nylon clip fittings.
To do this you need 2 bits of gear -
1. Something strong enough or with enough mechanical advantage for any adult or strong child to raise and lower the AI bundled together weighing in at 52 kilos (115 lbs) - for that weight you will need a block and tackle with a 6 to 1 mechanical advantage (2 blocks with 3 pulleys in each) - I suspect you could use a 12v winch for this but I have never tried , and
2. A lifting harness for lifting the Hobie at 4 points, where they all raise and lower at the same rate.
The only package the come sold with both of those that I have found is the Harken hoister - Harken have always made pretty good gear and my only gripe with it is that is sold through ship chandlers here in Oz and at least double the price of the same unit sold in discount houses in the US - ordering it on the net to a US mail service and having them re-package it for a small fee works out ok.
So here it is set up under an eve outside my garage -
The 4 point lifting harness is closest to you and the block and tackle is furthest away - note that the 4 lifting ropes pass through a 2 pulley rope organiser in the centre and then drop vertically down to the floor. The block and tackle is beyond the rope organiser furthest from you.
So here is the rig set up to receive the AI with akas and amas tied together with lat nylon straps - I have attached some Hobie cradles to boards to ensure the correct load points are observed (170cm or 67" apart according to the manual)-
Ok and here is the AI raised above wheel height - this is convenient to take the wheels or or off, clean it, work on the Hobie etc -
Note their are 2 brown flat nylon straps holding the AI together - one of the really good and useful features of the Harken hoister is the automatic cleat that holds the load in position if you want to stop and do something like remove the wheels at some point of raising at lowering - here is a detail of that automatic cleat at one end of the block and tackle, showing the teeth that grip the tackle rope -
Here is the block and tackle fully drawn in - load fully raised - shortens from about 6 ft to about 18"
And here is the Hobie fully raised - to give you an idea of height the bottom lip of the garage door is about 6ft 3" from the floor and the Hobie is about 9" higher than that again so it is well out of the way - just to be safe I put 2 wide nylon flat straps (red in the picture below) to take the weight off the hoist -
In this series I had a long straight eve to run the block and tackle straight out on - in my other location under a car port it was only 5.5 m (16ft) long so I had to use a pulley to "bend" the lifting tackle around - picture below -
Note that the block and tackle is now diagonally off to the left and the extended lifting ropes go round a pulley at the front of the car port - see -
I had to buy the longer lifting ropes (4mm Spectra braid) to deal with the extra length required to go round the pulley.
Hope this helps anyone that is interested - best, Andrew