Dock piling removal with pontoon boat -- post and lintel system with winch

[pantheraba]

Not tree felling but rigging. I don't think I posted this video here yet...basically unedited...LONG...but how they did it is there.

My son and his firefighter friend, both pretty handy and game to try most anything, have been getting hired to remove old docks at a posh community...when folks want a new dock the dock builder hires Alex and Brent to remove the old dock. They bought an old pontoon boat for $600, removed the structure and motor and were using it to remove docks...dismantle them, pile them up on the pontoon boat, use a trolling motor to take the flotsam across the lake to their trailer and then to the dump. They could always remove the pilings by hand...sometimes get in the water and wrassle them...but young and strong they worked it out. Then the Matilda dock came up...about 6-8 pilings would not yield to their strength or temper. They had already used a hi-lift jack attached to the pilings at the back of the toon boat. When they had the pontoon at a 45-degree angle and about to sink...as they bounced up and down in the front of the boat...they finally realized it was time to get finessey (is that a word?)

They cut a hole in the pontoon boat, built a takedown goalpost system to mount a winch to and got jiggy with it. Some of the posts were 3-5 feet in the mud...up to that point none had been deeper than 1.5 feet in the mud. Anyway...here is how they did it...figured Kyle could appreciate this one...redneck engineering and all...

 

[Tree09]

A floating gantry crane, very nice!!!!

 

[pantheraba]

hahaha...you always have such a great name for things...simplifies things!

 

[Tree09]

It's what they're called. Man has been lifting things since the dawn of time, and over the years we've developed all sorts lifting devices. If I'm not mistaken the largest picks in history have been made using gantry cranes. They are very close to bridge cranes, which are likely the most used crane type in the world, being found in almost every factory.

Gantry crane - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

My gin pole trailer idea of course is nothing new, but the name is a misnomer because they were really called shearlegs, and have been used for centuries as a type of heavy lift crane. There's tons of variations, from land mounted ones (such as masting sheers), floating ones (masting hulks), truck mounted ones (gin pole trucks), and many more. Here's some huge ones on ships. The history of rigging is one of the coolest subjects there is, and not surprisingly just about everything either still is used or could be used to this day.

Floating sheerleg - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[pantheraba]

Sheerlegs is cool...." The smaller cranes start around 50 ton in lifting capacity "

 

[Tree09]

 

[Mellow]

I helped my dad remove and rebuild quite a few docks back when I was a teen. That rig would have saved us a lot of work!

 

[gf beranek]

That's the same setup used here to pull sinker logs out of the rivers. With the help of the tides of course.

 

[pantheraba]

That's what I told Alex he ought to consider...I saw an underwater logging boat rig when I did some commercial diving on the Chattahoochee River in S. GA...there are apparently some old growth logs even in southern waters.

 

[flushcut]

Very nice Gary! That rig needs some spuds to keep it in place.

 

[pantheraba]

Thanks but... Lordy... I don't even know what a spud is. It is bolted down to the frame of the pontoon boat so it's pretty solidly anchored. In my world a spud is a potato. So my mind is blown.

 

[ruel]

Marine rigs around here have a few rams/ legs(spuds maybe). Like adjustable pilings on the corners so you don't drift around

 

[pantheraba]

Ahhh...that starts to make sense. It was uber windy that day and drifting became an issue. Deployable legs on the corners could have helped.

 

[Tree09]

Think of it like a shallow water anchoring deal. I hate to be predictable, but I've heard pipe works well

 

[flushcut]

Yeah what they said.

 

[Merle Nelson]

Nice. Adventuresome on their part.

If they ever wanted easier hookup, and deeper in the water, I wonder if a steel plate with a hole in it would slide over x size timbers, slide down and then bite when winched up from one side. (Think of T post pullers.)

We have lots of old derelict docks near me so I have thought about piling removal a bit. All the pilings I see are the size of telephone poles. I always assumed our power company pulled its old power poles up out of the ground when replacing them. But one day when I stopped and watched them removing one they actually jacked it up out of the ground - pushing against the ground rather pulling into midair.

 

[pantheraba]

That steel plate with hole run down along the pile and then pulling up on one side is good. I'll run that by Alex.

 

[Tree09]

You can do the same with a steel choker too