Just thought y'all might be interested in pics of a little reef work. Trip out; nice weather for a sea cruise. Would of been relaxing if they had welded up the seams in the bow of the barge. Once we caught it and put two three inch pumps in the forward compartments they kept up with it. You can see one of the pumps behind the tractor.
Reef Work Nice weather for the offload. That's me on the Case.
More Offloading More Offloading
Trip home Turned around and started the 19 nautical mile trip back to the jettys at the mouth of Winyah Bay. The wind came up almost immediately and we made 4.5 knots against 5' seas, taking water over the bow big time. Even with the tractor parked at the stern the the bow was almost under the surface when we got back in the bay 4 hours later. We started pumping as soon as we got by the breakwater and it wasn't extremely dangerous to work on the barge. Somebody's got to spend the day tomorrow pressurewashing the tractor as the water was going over the roof. During the ride in You could stand at the rail and the bottom of the barge would be above your waist and the next second below your feet. I did a poor job capturing the rough water on film. Rough ride home in a 101yr old boat with a 79 yr old Capt. I'll probably get some pictures of the tugboat tomorrow.
Georgetown SC lighthouse A few pics of the lighthouse just cause it's neat. I forgot to mention the fellow bent over in the first pic here fell overboard during the offload and went completely underwater and was back aboard before the contents of his wallet got wet.
Great pictures! Looks like an interesting job. Do you wear your seat belt when operating on a job like that?? I probably wouldn't... just in case the machine goes overboard for some reason, i could bail out easily.
definitely no seatbelt! The captain wanted me to take the ROPS off to reduce the chance of entrapment.I thought with my luck then I'd turn over on deck. Even before the wind came up the sides of the barge were rising and falling 3or 4 feet. My rubber asphalt shoes really worked well on the wet steel deck. A hoe is fun with that much inertia.
Nice pictures, one of the most unusual uses I've seen for a backhoe. Curious about dumping these in the water, why weren't they buried somewhere? Phil
Rich sport fishermen and the state split the cost of trucking these to the port from the pipe factory and then taking them to sea. They're used to build an artificial reef for sport fishing. The tug capt. has been building reefs since 1971 when he started doing it as a sideline. It's all he does now. My trucks bring the material to the port and he had been putting the pipe on barges ships and tugs he was sinking because he couldn't find a reusable, affordable barge. This was this ones first trip since he converted it from a dredge extension. I unloaded it for him while we're arguing about what piece he should buy to offload with. I've got to go look at about 20 pieces of old construction equipment he's going to sink including at least one D8 and one scraper, (I don't know what else) and give a price on moving it to the port. I guess we'll put one piece and my trackhoe on the barge each time. Or, put it on nonreturnable barges.
here's a stupid question couldn't you just let the cement pipe just roll off the deck or is there a lip or somthing preventing it from just rolling off the deck?
With the long rows of pipe up against each other every other pipe wants to turn backward and it's a very effective brake. That's the way I hoped to do it, but I even tried pushing and backing off and couldn't shake it. The next load I'll be there when it's loaded and it'll be easier.
EW, I was getting queasy just looking at those pics. God I hate getting into chop, up it comes.
If any of you like crummy professionally shot video, here you go: http://www.carolinalive.com/news/story.aspx?id=474199 One of the local tv stations sent a cameraman out in a boat and this is what he got; maybe he was too busy throwing up his lunch to shoot.
The T/V Susan Richards and two nice old cranes A couple of pics of the T/V Susan Richards (towing vessel = tugboat) She was built in 1909 and was a harbor tug most of her life. She is just over 92' long with a 1867 hp EMD diesel engine that is about the size of a pickup and turns 500 rpm or less. We took these pics while loading the barge for a trip we are going to make next week once they weld up the bow of the barge. The boat the photographer is standing on in the first pic of the tug is one of my next projects; I am going to demo it like a house and take it to the landfill. The first crane is a military issue American on a seriously powerful AWD carrier with an adjustable pitch dozer blade on the front. It has Cummins up and down with less than 400hrs up and less than 1000hrs down. The character who bought it in the late 80's drove it 130 miles from Ft. Jackson, SC. I put about 20hrs. on it for him in 1990 doing the job it was bought for, then it was used very little and wasn't even started from '98 to '08 when Richards Marine bought it. The second crane is a neat little Austin-Western. We used it to feed the pipe from the yard to the big crane, who put it on the barge where it was finally placed by the backhoe, due to the big crane having less than 40' of boom. I don't know why it reversed the order of the last 2 pics or why pic 2 & 3 are smaller than the others.
Went out again today, terrible 3 to 4 inch seas, no leaks, nobody overboard.
[ terrible 3 to 4 inch seas ] :cool2 Sorry couldn't resist!!:Banghead Interesting job though,I use to run a cat 330 long stick on a barge doing dredge work on a lake back in Texas..Best job I ever had, loads of fun.
Ah, winyah bay...fished there many a year. Used to put in at the incoastal at yakey's island, would go up jones creek to north inlet to flounder gig. See you are from andrews, do you know billy brewerton? I think he had crane company. I bought a race car from him once upon a time...
My Backhoe Got Run Over By A Tugboat! When I first brought the Case to the port the Capt. and the Engineer joked they wanted my back tires because they were the right size for bumpers on the side of the tug. While the tractor was onboard the capt pushed the barge closer to the hill and the gangplank that was chained to the bulkhead was driven right through one of my nearly new back tires. I told the capt. it would have been cheaper to find some old ones for bumpers.:beatsme It made moving around and unloading the pipe more challenging.
Please bear with me as I try to add my first video. I hope this is going to be a video of how we load the barge with a crane boom to short to reach all the way across. Edit: Well that embed didn't work so here's a link till I get a little more tech savvy: YouTube - Loading a barge with a short boom Edit Edit: Well I'll be danged, I did it by accident! ointhead
Here are some photos of us loading the barge during the downtime while waiting for the truck to come back for another load of shrimpboat. He carried a load of debris out and a load of defect pipe in. It took about 4hrs per trip. Every load I had to help the rough defect pipe out of the rough defect trailer. We normally haul pipe in my half-round big-rock trailers, but this old square trailer holds so much more debris. The last pic is the tugboat captain, 78yrs old and he's walking off smartly while I'm hanging up on a post.
Excellent pics and video! I love that old tugboat, any pics of the inside?
Not yet, but we'll be leaving for a 25-30 hr cruise tuesday morning if the weather is good, so I should have time to get you some.