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Repairing our dock

6/18/2018

6 Comments

 
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Cutting a new billet to length.
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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!
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6 Comments
Cindy
7/10/2018 07:05:26 pm

What an amazing solution to raising the dock--and what a fun narrative! Well done.

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7/17/2018 11:11:52 pm

They really did a great job. You know, seeing the broken one makes me think that it is so impossible to have it back. I am so proud of the one who did this. I guess it is so hard.

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12/5/2018 03:31:00 am

The broken dock port really became more beautiful and comfortable to step in when it was being repaired. The one who did this really puts a lot of effort in order to beautify, fix and make use of it once again. I hope that you will be continuing to do such things. Broken things are meant to become a better version of a thing. It will be really useful for those who will use this one. Thank you for sharing your kindness.

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12/15/2018 04:19:39 am

Thank you very much for this useful article. I like it

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Shaylee Packer link
2/12/2020 05:33:19 am

How were you able to get the jacks in the water in order to lift up the dock? The picture shows them in the water, were you just able to lower them down till you hit the bottom? I will have to keep this in mind should I ever need it in the future.

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Brian Porter link
10/6/2022 09:10:34 am

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