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.
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This blog records the history and the progress of the project to improve and extend Deben Yacht Club's clubhouse and other facilities
