An unhappy sight, a dock that doesn't float any more.
The first trip of the season is always a nail-biter: is the boathouse still standing? Has a tree fallen on a cabin? Has the roof been leaking for 6 months on the main camp?
When we boated in for Memorial Day week, I was relieved to see the boathouse still on its cribbing. But the dock caught my eye right away. In dozens of trips to Starkey's the main dock has never been an issue. But somehow, this year, the foam floats under the landward section of the dock worked their way free and blew away.
The floats -- 8 feet long, 18 inches wide, and 7 inches thick -- were nowhere in sight. It's an expensive loss: they cost about $120 each to replace and there were eight missing.
When we boated in for Memorial Day week, I was relieved to see the boathouse still on its cribbing. But the dock caught my eye right away. In dozens of trips to Starkey's the main dock has never been an issue. But somehow, this year, the foam floats under the landward section of the dock worked their way free and blew away.
The floats -- 8 feet long, 18 inches wide, and 7 inches thick -- were nowhere in sight. It's an expensive loss: they cost about $120 each to replace and there were eight missing.
The helpful folks at the Bio Station lassoed the floats for us, all we had to do was barge them home.
On a canoe trip the next day, we found that the staff at the Cranberry Lake Bio Station run by SUNY ESF had corralled the floats for us and left them safely tucked away in a cove across the bay. Five of the eight floats were intact and none the worse for their frolic and detour. The other three were in big-sized chunks that would be difficult to secure back under the dock.
Three new billets from Todd Supply to replace broken floats.
We bought three replacement billets at Todd Supply in Star Lake, but there was still the question of how to get them back under the dock? We couldn't just submerge them and push them under the dock, after all they are buoyant enough to hold the dock well up out of the water. And without any floats under the dock, it was nearly submerged.
Our answer was to lift the dock up with improvised jacks on four corners, slide the floats under, and lower the dock back down. We bought four bolt-on lashing winches (like truckers use on flat-bed trailers to secure loads) and four heavy-duty tow straps rated for 3,000 lbs each. Each winch was mounted at the top between two wooden posts that straddle the ledger boards on the dock. The posts sit on plywood weight-spreading pads on the lakebed. Thankfully the dock is in shallow water so we could get by with 8-foot tall jacking posts.
Our answer was to lift the dock up with improvised jacks on four corners, slide the floats under, and lower the dock back down. We bought four bolt-on lashing winches (like truckers use on flat-bed trailers to secure loads) and four heavy-duty tow straps rated for 3,000 lbs each. Each winch was mounted at the top between two wooden posts that straddle the ledger boards on the dock. The posts sit on plywood weight-spreading pads on the lakebed. Thankfully the dock is in shallow water so we could get by with 8-foot tall jacking posts.
Our improvised jack posts using lashing winches suspended from 1/2" bolts and steel c-channel between two 2x6 posts that bestride the dock ledger and rest on a plywood plate on the lakebed.
This system worked beautifully. We jacked the dock up about 16 inches until there was enough room to shove the floats under the ledger boards, then lowered the dock back down.
Jack posts mounted at the corners of the dock with tow straps encircling the ledgers and fed through the winches. The dock was raised a few inches at a time.
Cutting a new billet to length.
The ledgers are 2x12s and the dock was nearly 5 inches out of the water, so the jacks lifted the entire thing about 16 inches. We could partially submerge the 7-inch-thick floats to shove them under the dock.
This section is now floating at its original height, level with the rest of dock. What a relief to have it all back together!
