Gofirstclass
Well-Known Member
The yacht club I belong to leases the water area that our docks sit in from the City of Richland, WA, who in turn leases the water from the USACE (US Army Corps of Engineers). In 2008 we decided to add a few floating finger docks to the side of one of our floating docks.
Dealing with the gubmint over this has been one of the most frustrating events I’ve ever watched happen. So that you’ll understand our frustrations I should explain that this entire basin was dry land. In the 80’s the gubmint wanted to build a new freeway bridge across the Columbia River. This area of the Columbia is still a navigable waterway and tug/barge traffic still moves through there. The gubmint decided to construct a tall bridge rather than a bridge that would be raised for tug traffic. To get the soil to make the approaches to the bridge they dug out what would become the basin our club sits in. Here’s a pic to show the area….
As I said, in 2008 we started the process to get the permits. We dealt with several federal and state agencies including US Fish & Wildlife, USACE, Dept of Ecology, etc. The permitting has been once cluster f*** after another as agencies passed this around. One of the funny things that one of them wanted was an archeological study to make sure there were no Indian bones buried there. Only after we were able to convince them that this whole area was excavated by the US Gubmint to build the freeway did they give up on that requirement.
Finally, last week we received final permission to go ahead with the installation of the docks. To simplify the permitting process we elected not to have any support columns dug into the bottom. Here’s what the nearly finished process looks like….
The company that constructed the docks, HDB Marine of Harrison, Idaho, uses a process where the new fingers are tied to the existing docks using angled pieces….
To keep the far end of the fingers from moving around they put in a series of braces that tie the ends together. The braces are constructed of pressure treated 2 x 10’s and galvanized steel that pivot down below the opening of the docks. This ties all the ends together and makes for a very sturdy construction. There is 6’ of clearance from the top of the dock down to the top of the 2 x 10’s, so that gives about 5.4’ of clearance below the water. The slips are 40’ x 15’, so any boat that will fit in the slip draws much less than the 5.4’.
The braces are constructed at the water level, the guys stand on them and rotate them down into their final position, then insert the final bolt to hold the braces in place.
Here’s a shot of the braces before they’re lowered. The sea weed you see in the shots is milfoil. We treated the basin last Monday to kill the milfoil so that won’t be a problem in the future.
Here’s one of the guys pushing the braces down into their final position…
And inserting the bolt into the bracket that holds them in the down position…
The docks are made of a plastic material that is highly UV resistant and also resistant to oils, gas, etc. It’s perforated to it lets 60% of the available light pass through (another gubmint requirement) and the floats are a white plastic of similar material so light can pass through. According to the wisdom of our gubmint the nasty bass and other predators hide in the shadows and wait for salmon smolt to swim by, then they rush out to snatch them up. Doesn’t matter that smolt don’t come into our basin, we still had to comply. Go figure.
The electrical service is going to be installed next week. Each dock will have two 30A service outlets.
This expansion give the club 6 new slips and leaves the club with about 65’ of side tie space for transient moorage. After over 3 years of waiting for the gubmint to get off their buttts, it only took HDB Marine 3 days to install the docks.
Nice job guys!!!
Dealing with the gubmint over this has been one of the most frustrating events I’ve ever watched happen. So that you’ll understand our frustrations I should explain that this entire basin was dry land. In the 80’s the gubmint wanted to build a new freeway bridge across the Columbia River. This area of the Columbia is still a navigable waterway and tug/barge traffic still moves through there. The gubmint decided to construct a tall bridge rather than a bridge that would be raised for tug traffic. To get the soil to make the approaches to the bridge they dug out what would become the basin our club sits in. Here’s a pic to show the area….
Finally, last week we received final permission to go ahead with the installation of the docks. To simplify the permitting process we elected not to have any support columns dug into the bottom. Here’s what the nearly finished process looks like….
The company that constructed the docks, HDB Marine of Harrison, Idaho, uses a process where the new fingers are tied to the existing docks using angled pieces….
To keep the far end of the fingers from moving around they put in a series of braces that tie the ends together. The braces are constructed of pressure treated 2 x 10’s and galvanized steel that pivot down below the opening of the docks. This ties all the ends together and makes for a very sturdy construction. There is 6’ of clearance from the top of the dock down to the top of the 2 x 10’s, so that gives about 5.4’ of clearance below the water. The slips are 40’ x 15’, so any boat that will fit in the slip draws much less than the 5.4’.
The braces are constructed at the water level, the guys stand on them and rotate them down into their final position, then insert the final bolt to hold the braces in place.
Here’s a shot of the braces before they’re lowered. The sea weed you see in the shots is milfoil. We treated the basin last Monday to kill the milfoil so that won’t be a problem in the future.
Here’s one of the guys pushing the braces down into their final position…
And inserting the bolt into the bracket that holds them in the down position…
The docks are made of a plastic material that is highly UV resistant and also resistant to oils, gas, etc. It’s perforated to it lets 60% of the available light pass through (another gubmint requirement) and the floats are a white plastic of similar material so light can pass through. According to the wisdom of our gubmint the nasty bass and other predators hide in the shadows and wait for salmon smolt to swim by, then they rush out to snatch them up. Doesn’t matter that smolt don’t come into our basin, we still had to comply. Go figure.
The electrical service is going to be installed next week. Each dock will have two 30A service outlets.
This expansion give the club 6 new slips and leaves the club with about 65’ of side tie space for transient moorage. After over 3 years of waiting for the gubmint to get off their buttts, it only took HDB Marine 3 days to install the docks.
Nice job guys!!!
