Post #72587 by boutiki on Mon, Jan 26, 2004 10:06 AM

When we brought home our 13 foot Kona Kai Tiki we used the Benzart method. That is, we told a bunch of friends to come to our "Raise the Tiki Party", promised them food and tropical drinks, then put them to work!

We got the thing home in a 24 foot Ryder truck. It got in there via a front-loader, but we were thinking ahead and tied furniture dollies to him. We got him out of the truck, then wheeled him from the alley into the backyard. Once in the yard, we tied ropes to the top, we had three people on top of the garage pulling the ropes, and the rest lifting and pushing him up from the ground. (I don't know how necessary the folks up on the garage were, but it was good to have them up there to stabilize the Tiki).

We had already prepared a cement pad for him to sit on and it seems to have worked out fine. In fact we were surprised how quickly and easily he stood up with enough people. We think the Tiki is carved from pondersosa pine and we estimated his weight at between 1500 and 2000 pounds.

Here are a couple of photos:
http://www.pegboardchicago.com/backyard.html