SS MAYFLOAT
Admiral
- Joined
- May 17, 2001
- Messages
- 6,372
This morning I got up early on my boat. Water has been slowly going down from it cresting at a tad under 9 feet. Our docks are held in by 2" pipe driven into the lake bottom. At normal level there is about 5 feet sticking up above the dock. However when the water rises above them, there is a secondary 1 1/2" pipe inside the 2" to work as an extension for high water.
Now when the water goes down, the sleeve that slides on the pipe will sometimes gets hung up on the 2" pipe. This then keeps the dock from floating and it will not let it down.
When I went out of the cabin, I noticed the dock was level with my deck. This was not good. So I grabbed a small mallet and smacked the 2" pipe letting the dock drop to the water. I went all up and down the dock taking care of all the ones that got hung up.
Later an employee of the marina came by with a pontoon and asked if I would give her a hand in taking care of the rest of the docks. 3 hours later we finally got them all knocked down. Then it was the job of taking care of the office/store that also floats on the water. The outer floats were stuck a good ways up. To get these, I needed a sledge and a spud bar. So she calls the park maintence for help. They send down 6 employees, 1 sledge, and a spud bar. We get them all loaded up on the toon and head to the marina building. They all just sat there on the toon looking at the situation. So me, (not and employee) I get up grab the spud bar and start popping the pipes loose for the sleeves. Finally I got them all done, but no doubt there is some structrual damge. All the 2X10 supports were split form the excess weight of the building.
So once all was done and she was taking me back to the dock to get my things to leave, she tells me that she will make things right with me for the help. She said when I'm on vacation in July, she will let me use a rental pontoon for a 24 hour period with fuel included....Oh man, this is super cool. My wife was a bit PO'ed getting home late, but she was a bit happy when I told here we were going to get compensated with about a $300 worth of rental. Funny part is that I was figuring that some free bait would have been just fine
Now when the water goes down, the sleeve that slides on the pipe will sometimes gets hung up on the 2" pipe. This then keeps the dock from floating and it will not let it down.
When I went out of the cabin, I noticed the dock was level with my deck. This was not good. So I grabbed a small mallet and smacked the 2" pipe letting the dock drop to the water. I went all up and down the dock taking care of all the ones that got hung up.
Later an employee of the marina came by with a pontoon and asked if I would give her a hand in taking care of the rest of the docks. 3 hours later we finally got them all knocked down. Then it was the job of taking care of the office/store that also floats on the water. The outer floats were stuck a good ways up. To get these, I needed a sledge and a spud bar. So she calls the park maintence for help. They send down 6 employees, 1 sledge, and a spud bar. We get them all loaded up on the toon and head to the marina building. They all just sat there on the toon looking at the situation. So me, (not and employee) I get up grab the spud bar and start popping the pipes loose for the sleeves. Finally I got them all done, but no doubt there is some structrual damge. All the 2X10 supports were split form the excess weight of the building.
So once all was done and she was taking me back to the dock to get my things to leave, she tells me that she will make things right with me for the help. She said when I'm on vacation in July, she will let me use a rental pontoon for a 24 hour period with fuel included....Oh man, this is super cool. My wife was a bit PO'ed getting home late, but she was a bit happy when I told here we were going to get compensated with about a $300 worth of rental. Funny part is that I was figuring that some free bait would have been just fine
