Do you already have a lift and are wondering if it will be up to the task at hand of lifting your new boat? Or are you looking at buying a new lift and trying to determine which size you need? If the the former, then I'd imagine a lift with a 10k lb capacity would be able to lift up the test boat just fine on the Grady White website that had a 9,400 lb weight to it. That weight also includes "persons, fuel, water, gear, engines & accessories", so I imagine you'd likely be able to subtract several hundred pounds for those things. So maybe around 9k lbs even or so without those things? On the other hand, I imagine that test boat likely had very little fuel onboard, probably less than 25 gallons or so, in order for it to get the best fuel economy numbers possible. With the 285 Freedom having a 214 gallon fuel tank, when it's full you could be looking at another 180-200+ gallons compared to the test boat, of which a gallon of fuel weighs 6 lbs per gallon. So, that could add another 1k+ lbs right there by itself. The test boat also didn't have items like a bow pulpit, bottom paint and so forth that are only going to add to the weight of the boat and have it go up from there. If you're considering the latter and which boat lift to buy, I definitely wouldn't spend what I imagine must be $250k-$300k+ on a boat, to then go cheap and try to save what I imagine is likely less than $5k-$10k or so with getting the cheaper/light capacity boat lift?
