mmcphee's Full Review: Garelick: EEz-In Boarding Ladders
My husband is the proud owner of a boat. Once in a while he will even take the family out with him, so long as we make time for him to fish. Of course our kids want to do more than just sit on a boat and relax, they want to swim and tube. To make things a little easier for everyone we purchased the Garelick EEZ-In Boarding Ladder.
What You Get Garelick EEZ-In Boarding Ladder comes in several sizes; 7" and 11" hooks are available depending on the boat sidewall. You also have a choice between the 36" 3- step ladder or the 48" 4- step ladder, all of which are 15" wide. We purchased the 3- step ladder with 11" hooks. The steps are plastic, all contact points with the boat are coated with vinyl and the support rails are 1" aluminum tubing. No weight limit is given for the ladder. Some Assembly Required Assembly is theoretically simple and only requires bolting the two standoff attachments to the lowest stair possible to make the ladder perpendicular to the side of the boat. However, do not rely only on the printed "Assembly Information" on how to do this. Make sure you look at the picture and its caption, which tells you to only bolt through the small square hole in the stairs. Because if you don't read the instruction that isn't part of the actual instructions, you may have to take it apart and reattach the standoffs. I personally struggled to tighten the bolts. I could get the nuts on only one full twist by hand before I had to resort to pliers and a screwdriver and a lot of force. The positioning of the bolt through the plastic step was awkward. It isn't something you want to have to do twice, especially since it is no easier to take the two assemblies apart and put them on a second time than it iswas the first. Do follow the instructions for putting the poly covers on the end of the standoffs; warm them for a minute in hot water and they will slip on easily.
Hey Dad, it Floats My daughters, Six and Seven find the ladder easy to use. They can climb in and out of the water with no assistance, the water runs through the holes in the plastic stairs so they don't seem to become slippery. It is even light enough for them to move around although is is best to have an adult slip the ladder of the wall and position it safely.
We find that the ladder does slip down some, depending on exactly where we put it along the hull. Since one of us is always watching the kids while they swim it is easy to stand guard if the ladder needs to be steadied when they are entering or exiting the boat. I think one of the reasons the ladder slips some is because we had to put the standoffs on the top step. I think it would be more stable it we had been able to put them lower.
The first time we used the ladder was almost the last as well. My husband took off, looking for a better fishing spot, with the ladder still hooked over the hull and dangling in the water. When we stopped again and the girls wanted to swim the ladder was no where to be found; it had slipped off the hull and, we presumed, sunk to the bottom of the lake. Fortunately, the ladder, with its aluminum tube ends covered with the poly caps floats! I spotted it floating about 50 yards from the boat and we zipped back over and pulled it out of the lake, no worse for wear.
The ladder is fairly easy to store when not in use. The hooks rotate and fold back toward the center, making them flatter than the ladder. The standoffs also fold toward the step, so they don't stick out quite as much. While the folding standoffs don't do much to make the ladder thinner for storage it does minimize what the standoffs can get caught on.
Final Thoughts While $50 does seem like a high price for such a small ladder, it has served us well. My girls are happy to be able to climb in and out of the boat so they can swim or tube. I was glad to discover that the ladder floats, although I don't think my husband will ever take off with it over the side again. I have no doubt that the Garelick EEZ-In Boarding Ladder will serve us well for years to come.
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