Floating Dock Power Station

[Chitimacha]

Good Day All

I am in the process of building a floating dock and have a question. I want to purchase a power station for by boats electrical cords/water ect. Wondering how to make this work The tide runs 3 to 4 foot up and down everyday how would I make the electrical cable move up and down with the tide without damaging the cable

 

[Henry Boyd]

Marine AC cable by code/standard is multi strand, so it can take the flexing. Think of you shore power cable on steroids. The bigger issue will be attaching it to the dock so there is no chaffing on the casing, or tight spots. 4' tides are really no big deal (our tides this time of year are 11' - 12').

Are you building the dock with a fixed gangway (attached on both ends), or one where the gangway is fixed landside and moves on rollers on the float end? In either case the cable should be attached to the gangway. You can either remove the cable at the end of the season, or just install water tight industrial grade plugs (again just like connecting two shore power cords together).

In the first case you only need to create enough slack to prevent stretching, or pinching the cable. In the second, the amount of slack will depend on the travel of the gangway end.

Or you can just ditch the whole idea. I have a dock with a 15' gangway and two 20' floats and a third 20' x 8' float as a tee at the end. I brought power and water down to the banking and just attach a shore power cable when needed and use a garden hose reel to keep the water hose neat. But we can't keep our boat on the dock 24 x 7 as the floats go dry at low tide.

Henry