Jif Marine Telescoping Boat Stern Ladder - 4 Steps - 58" Tall - 400 lbs - Stainless Steel

Video Transcript for Review of Jif Marine Boat Ladders - Boat Stern Ladder - JIF95FR

Ellen: Hey, everybody. I'm Ellen here at etrailer.com and we're taking a quick look at the JIF Marine Telescoping Boat Ladder. This is to mount on your stern or the rear of your boat, and it should work for really anywhere that has a nice right Angle mounting surface. So typically, you're going to be on pontoon boats or anything else that has that similar design. I don't see why you couldn't also use this for a dock or something like that. Again, just anywhere that has a kind of right angle to attach it to.

So, this is probably one of the sturdier ladders that I've seen from JIF. It gives you just a really nice solid ladder. Part of that is because there's really only one moving part, and that's going to be this pivot point here. Everything else is welded together. So, there's really no assembly required other than just mounting it to the surface that you're putting it on a little.It works really well.

It has a little keeper to hold it in place. So, that holds together pretty well. As you can see, I had to use a pretty good amount of force to get that to come out. And I think it just makes a really solid attachment onto your boat. It is made of stainless steel, so it shouldn't have any issues with rust or corrosion.

Of course, if you're using this for any kind of saltwater application, it's a good idea to rinse it off with fresh water, just to keep that corrosion to a minimum. Over time salt will just corrode anything. So, it will take longer since it is stainless steel, but eventually that salt is going to catch up with it. So again, just rinse it off with some fresh water, it should be fine. And as far as the different availability with this, it is available in either a three-step or a four-step version.We're looking at the three-step today.

Everything is going to be the same other than just the total length. Obviously, the fourth or the four step will have an additional rung here or a step to it. I don't think it's going to make it any taller though. Whenever it's folded up here, it's just going to extend that length down whenever you're actually using it. So, as far as operation, you've got a little bungee here to keep the rungs together when it's not in use, kind of saw that keeper before. On the side is a strap to help lift it up and get it up from all the way down, so you don't have to bend over and grab onto the ladder. Just makes it a little bit easier to grab onto this and swing it up. And there's a little keeper to kind of keep that excess from bouncing around all over the place.This is the one thing that doesn't work or isn't as like nicely designed, it's just a little bit loose with that keeper. So, it's okay. But I don't think it affects the overall functionality of the ladder. We deploy it out here, can see how far this comes down. And it's a good idea to kind of push from either side. As you can see, it got kind of bound up towards the ends there, but if you just make sure you push on either side so that all the length has pushed out, it should work out just fine. All in all, I think it's a pretty nice solid piece. It does have some movement here at the bottom. That's pretty typical just because it comes out at an angle. No real way to avoid that unless you had a bracer going towards the surface. But on the back of your boat, you might not really have a good place for that anyway, because the hole is going to fall away.And this is going to be the portion that's should be in the water anyway, so I don't think it's going to be that big of a deal. As far as measurements, to make sure that you can figure out which one will work better for you. Got a bunch there to go over with you. So, most of those are pretty self-explanatory. Pedal height, it's going to be from the surface that it's mounted to the top of the handle. The fixed height, that's going from the bottom of this portion that stays fixed to the mounting surface or your boat surface there. So, that's how much it extends down off of that. As far as the bottom step height, that's going again from that mounting surface to the bottom most portion of the step. And that's 33.5 inches. We get that 43.5 because these rungs are spaced apart by about 10 inches.So, for the four step version, we're just going to add 10 inches on there. And then for the total height, that's going from the bottom most portion to the very top, which is going to be the top of these handles here. If you want to know the distance from the surface to the top of the step itself, it's about 31 inches. The distance from top to bottom of the step is about an inch and a half. So, if you're interested to know that. The distance that this comes away from our mounting surface is about 14 inches. Again, since it has a little bit of give, figured that's not going to be as big of a deal breaker as maybe the total depth here of the fixed portion. So, right here it's about 18 inches. 10.5 Of that is going from the back of that mounting flange to the front of the surface, and then 7.5 of that is coming away from the boat itself.Outer weight, it's going from outermost edge to outermost edge. And then our step width is going to be right here about two inches there. So, I hope that that helps in deciding if this is going to be the right fit for you. It gives you an idea of the size and scope of this ladder. Again, I think that this works really well. It's a very solid mount. The fact that everything is welded together rather than bolted together, I think just makes it a much more secure feel than some of the other styles I've seen from JIF. The little strap does make it nice to just pull on that, although that can happen because this is just buckled together. So, not the best design overall, if you want to just have a little piece of twine or rope going to the bottom of that, that might actually be more effective and you can just unscrew this from the side there. So, that's one thing that I've seen that I don't particularly like, but I don't think that that's a deal breaker for the ladder overall.And stay there is that time I got it to go. So, it just kind of depends on what you're really looking for as far as that goes. And then put it all the way in. And then you would just wrap up the excess of that strap in that little keeper if you wanted to, or just take it off, you don't want to have to deal with it. But I hope that this has been helpful in deciding if this is the right ladder for you. As I mentioned, we do have some other styles available here at etrailer.com, along with a lot of other marine and boat accessories. So, if you're interested, please check them out and thanks for watching.