Long ago, in a previous life... the boat marina I worked at had a off road fork lift. We had 10' X 10' negitive drop & extra long forks made up on 4x6" steel tubing. We would sometimes extend the forks even further with wooden extensions in the hollow forks. We could lift outboard type boats out of the water on the forks and put them in in dry stack racks in the building. We could use it to pull motors... we'd walk boats back into the lift slip, put the forks under the flying bridge, with a cross beam & chainfall pull an engine, get it above deck level, walk the boat forward until the motor was over the cockpit (but not the stern rail) and lift it out free. I've been searching for an ID & photos. This is not ours but here's what the machine looked like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmm7qK-_eho

That thing is awesome. Looks like the modern day skytrak thing http://toolmonger.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/SkyTrak6042.jpg Neat seeing the stuff they had back then. Really like the way it operates in comparison to the skytrak.

A couple of times we pullled 6-71s with marine gear & wet exhaust at the 10' point on the forks. The old fashoned way was to build a temporary lifting scaffold on deck, lift the engine that far, set it down on planks & rollers, move it to the cockpit (without leaking fluids on the teak decks). And then figure out how to lift it from there. I had one mechanic (boat's owner owner a used car lot) who thought he was going to bring a GM V6 diesel conversions up a light duty floating dock. We were nice to the guy (mechanic) since the owner was tryingto screw him over by blaming him for the failure of the fresh installation. We had to explain to the mechanic that this was a boat. Boat was a leaker & almost sank on numerous occasions & new motors did not change that. The automatic bilge pump had failed, the boat filled so it was dangerously low in the water. We, the Marina workers, found it & put our pumps aboard & kept it from making like a submarine. What no one knew, was that it sunk low enough for water to flood back throgh the wet exhaust & risers & into a cylinder. When the owner hit the starter the next time, it fired one cyminder before it came up on a cylinder full of (sea) water, bending the connecting rods & etc. The owner tried to blame the mechanic & put the overhaul on him. (What a jerk!) We let the mechanic free the motor up & in one lift went from the engine room to the back of his truck. I think we charged $50 or $100 bucks (2 men, one on the fork lift & one aiding in steadying the swinging motor).