26th October 2009

Tam and Cyril attach top halves to the ramp support piles and seem to have quite a job getting them to stand vertically in the splices as the bottom halves started vertical but went off slightly when they bottomed out on the hard layer below the mud. Anglian Water turn up with a digger and sheet piling and go down over 2 metres before they find 2 old stop cocks buried in the river wall, one of which is leaking. "Why are there 2?" You might ask - that is a mystery especially as one pipe heads back towards the bandstand! Anyway, all is fixed by the end of the day.

23rd October 2009

Paul arrives, so does Tam's brother who also has a big chainsaw! However it needs 2 people to manhandle the timber and Tam wants it all done by midday so he can load the piles on the tide so 2 people on the job will just about get it done. The good news is that it's a fantastic day for woodwork in the open so all the piles get trimmed and pointed by the deadline. Anglian water arrive to fix a leak in our water supply pipe, right by the river wall path at the upstream end of the clubhouse. After 2 hours digging they can't get down to the leak so fill the hole in again, promising to come back on Monday with a digger to finish the job. I just discovered that even though the leak is the main side of our meter, Anglian Water's stop cock is by the public toilet and that's where their responsibility ends. As they had already promised to fix the leak at their expense they will honour that promise but beware anyone with a stop cock miles from their meter. I've just checked the Ofwat website and they are absolutely right, so be warned.

22nd October 2009

Now I need someone with a chainsaw to shorten the piles...no-one seems to want this job. Both Eversons and Tam reckon their saws are not powerful enough; the people who fitted the points and splices reckon that a chain will last about 6 cuts, and they use specially hardened teeth in their chains. Greenheart is seriously tough stuff! Paul Masters has a look and will have a go on Friday.

21st October 2009

Today the pontoons arrived from Walcon; it's raining hard and I discover that Di Tricker's rain gauge caught 30mm of rain during the day. 2 articulated lorries turned up and squeezed into Everson's yard stacked high with the pontoons and ramp. Some needed assembling so those were offloaded into the yard while those that were already assembled were craned straight onto the mud so they could be floated off as soon as the tide rose as 2 yachts were due to be craned out in the afternnon. With a draft of half a metre the pontoons would float well before the yachts could get anywhere near the crane. The pontoons look enormous as they are offloaded, it looks like they'll have at least a metre of freeboard so I'm really pleased when they float alonside the old pontoons and are the same freeboard to within an inch or 2. The metal pipe to which boats will be moored looks far too high but as this is the spot for safety boats they may be OK, I'm sure they'll get in the way if we use these pontoons for tenders. Some adjustment may still be needed though.

20th October 2009

The big day arrives, Tam positions the jib on his crane upriver of the first large pile, we drop the piling dolly into the top of the steel tube, and put a strop round the dolly. The load cell is connected between the crane hook and the strop round the pile using 2 enormous shackles and we're all ready. The crane applied loads of 0.5tonne to 1.5tonne in steps of 0.25tonne (the design load is 1 tonne). At each load we noted the pile deflection and then released the load on the pile and noted whether it has returned to its starting position. At 1.5 tonne it deflected 60mm under load and returned to around 8mm from its start position. John and Ken went into a little huddle and decided that was fine; I was mighty relieved! It was doughnuts all round to celebrate. Now we have passed the load test I can start to organise the shortening of the remaining pontoon piles to make sure the box splice gets driven into the mud.

19th October 2009

Went down to the club at high water but Tam already had his barge in position. He has a hydraulic winch and drum on his crane which he aims to use for the load test, seems like a good plan to me, I hope that John and Ken agree. Hoping that the load test will go ahead tomororw around low water at 8.00-8.30 ish. I do hope it's satisfactory as at the moment we have no costed or guaranteed fallback position and the alternatives would appear to be quite expensive.

Kevin rings to say that the keener sailors want to keep going with the winter series regardless; start to think about implications. Safety team are happy, but I'll need to secure the access to the veranda, probably still need a fire escape though so do some measurements to see if we can lash a section of railing across the south part of the veranda to keep the fire escape functional without anyone falling into the river. I gather that Woodbridge Cruising Club aren't keen on us using their changing rooms so it'll mean changing in the dinghy park or club room while the veranda is in pieces. Altogether I'm somewhat surprised that there's much demand under the circumstances.

18th October 2009

I was away for the weekend but went down to the club tonight when I got home and saw the barge wasn't in position so rang Ken and told him not to come tomorrow. Quite pleased as I was pretty tired and it meant I didn't need to get up at 7.00 in the morning.

16th October 2009

Took a bike ride to Mel Skeets today, all is looking good for Monday. The tug is now fixed and will be launched tomorrow, the barge will be towed down on Sunday or Monday. Tam has located a load cell to be used for the pile test, it is available to hire from Monday onwards from a local lifting company. There's a debate about how we apply load to the pile, Tam prefers to use his tug, but the engineers prefer an winch of some sort with the load applied from a static platform. Of course we have to do the test as specified by the engineers - so a static platform it is!

12th October 2009

This morning the good news was the barge was ready to go; but the the bad news was that parts required to repair the tug were incorrect and would need to be returned and the correct ones supplied. The other bad news was that the crane driver at Eversons was on holiday for 3 days, but as the tug was still out of commission this didn't seem to be too much of a problem.

9th October 2009

Tam went to start up his diesel that drives the hydraulic pumps on his barge this morning and it failed to start. It looks like some of the heavy rain last night got into the engine somehow and formed a hydraulic lock which then bent a con rod when the engine was started. As the tug was having work done on its hydraulic steering, Tam took his barge up the river using Mel Skeet's workboat with a 15HP engine. That's right, a 45foot barge and a 15HP workboat! Anyway, all was well and by late afternoon the engine was hanging from a crane at the yard, due to be repaired over the weekend.

8th October 2009

It was agreed to drive the first of the access ramp halfway support piles as far as possible to see if we could drive to the depth required for the pontoon piles. This pile was quite a good one to use as a test pile as it is identical to the pontoon piles, complete with the steel box section splice, however the box section doesn't need to be driven completely into the mud, just low enough to get below the access ramp. After half an hour of driving the pile has essentially stopped moving...the splice is sitting with its bottom section just above the mud, instead of the top of the splice just below the mud! The splice has gone just 4metres into the river bed instead of the required 5metres. I wished we'd cut a metre off the pile before we started! We then started thinking of what to do next as the options are limited to hiring a larger hammer, or boring a hole for the pile to be driven into. It is decided that before we do either of those options we will test load the pile and see if it will withstand its design load of a side pull of 1 tonne, plus a safety margin. Don't forget that the floating pontoons place no vertical load on their piles, only a side load and though the pile has reached a set and won't go in any further, it may not withstand the required side load.

7th October 2009

The second pair of piles that support the top of the access ramp were pushed in and driven to a set today; then the barge was moved ready to drive the piles that support the access ramp halfway down. I was relieved that the larger piles are going in to roughly the same depth as the smaller piles that support the veranda, however they aren't going in the to depth specified for the pontoon piles which is a bit of a worry.

6th October 2009

Drizzle again today, Tam and Cyril drove the next 2 greenheart piles at the top of the access walkway. I started to discuss the length of the pontoon piles with John Davis as I believe that they are too long to be driven so the splice will below mud level. Agree to cut a metre off one and see how it goes - seems quite high risk, but we've driven a lot of piles now and none have gone more than 5metres into the river bed!

5th October 2009

What a horrible day for piling! We've been lucky so far with lovely sunny days but it was too good to last. There was drizzle interspersed with heavy rain that lasted most of the day. A start was made on the larger greenheart piles that support the top of the access ramp and locate the floating pontoons. These are greenheart, a South American hardwood that is very heavy, about twice the strength of oak and more dense than water. We were fortunate as we were able to buy this timber from a certified sustainable source using a Dutch company called Wijma with a UK yard at Woolpit.
I drove two piles to start the construction of the extension of the dinghy launching ramp before the planning permission expires. My efforts were curtailed by the rising tide, as the water level rose the mud got softer and working got more and more difficult. The piles have markers that will show above high water but people will need to take care until we can get some deck in place. I discovered that if the sledgehammer gets muddy then when you hit the post a fine spray of mud gets thrown up to coat your glasses and make visibility quite poor for subsequent hits of the pile.

2nd October 2009

A marathon day for the pilers, started work at 6.30 am and finished at 6.00pm. The first problem was that a thief had climbed on to club veranda and used a ladder to get to Tam's dory from which they stole the outboard. Once the dory had been retrieved from the marsh near the cut the 2 upstream piles were driven to a set which occurred when they were about a metre further in then the others. When the tide rose the barge was moved down to the downstream end of the club to drive the last of the smaller veranda piles.

1st October 2009

Now the outer rank of veranda piles is going in starting at the upstream end of the Club. Glad to say that the piles are reaching their set earlier again so only the bottom section needs to be driven with the air hammer. Progress is good, I'm starting to relax about the veranda piles, but starting to worry about the larger pontoon piles!