Had a job in Seward for the railroad on the cruise ship dock. They have a bigger ship this year and need to dredge this berth to minus 37. Some of it is only minus 30. Heres a few pics. Break out the Clam bucket and grease her up Change out the wire rope. Just put a new deck on the barge. 6 X 12 Douglas Fir Loadin spuds Cranes on mats ready to load on the barge. Wait for tide. 3:00 am :Banghead
3:00 am. Roll half on and wait for the tide to flood a little. Reduces the roll when counterweight comes off the dock. Snubbed the barge in with the D5 All aboard Shots of the load.
Shots of load. Bringing in spoils barge to prep for material.
Wow!!!When I see Lashlanders name on a post WITH attachments I get the shivers.You do not disappoint.Nobody else covers this base but you and it is fascinating stuff to look at. I am going to ask a question somewhat related since it is in the pics that you posted but how steep is the hill behind your garage and what it it made of that you are comfortable building so close to it?Thanks for the great post and pics,we will be waiting for more from the jobsite.I was also wondering if the boom is left up in the air on the barge while traveling too.Still shivering ) Yum.Ron G
Nice pics but I need a bit of education here. What are spuds? I thought that was the term for the barge support legs. However on the picture all I see is a steel pipe. How can that be used as a support leg? How do you fix it to the barge?
Hey Lash, as always, AWESOME. Always bigger and better up in AK. You guys all earn you keep up there. Love the pics and the stories behind them. Thanks Trbo :drinkup
I didn't think it was really necessary to chain down everything on a barge!
You would be unpleasantly surprised by moving stuff when the wind and waves come up. Water is completely different to hard ground as ships move with it...........C ya...........Ray
Hey Ron, thanks for the kind words. The hill behind the shop is rock with a foot or so of ash and topsoil. The slide area is where they dug into it for material to build the road during WWII. It ust keeps unraveling. We fly the boom where ever we go. If I layed it down it would overhang the end of the barge about 50'. I don't want it plowing into waves when it gets rough. I think it would buckle it. Klutz, There are all sorts of spuds. Some are square, some are round. Some will raise themselves and some you can apply down pressure to to elevate your barge. Ours are just pipe like you say to hold our barge on station. We have pockets on th side of the barge to set them in. The water was too deep to spud in on this job but I don't leave home without them in case something comes up. Heres a couple picks that show them better. EZ TRBO, Thanks, I will tell you though that some of this stuff coming out on the discovery channel recently is a little ridiculous. I couldn't even finish the one about the North slope Oilmen. Bobcat ron, Anything I want when I get to where I'm headed gets chained down. You never know when the weather is going to come up or how fast it can. You can be in calm seas one minute and within a couple hous be in 15 to 20 footers.
Heres a few more pics. Pulling ramps off spoils barge. We had nice weather the whole time! Here it finally is, Buck Buck number 1. Had to tighten the Rudimatic a little. She wound up the first bucket. This also shows how you put 6 yards in a four yard clam. Only 19,994 more yards to go.
Digging. This is Glacial Silt out of the Resurrection river. When it dries out it has the same consistency as cement. I've never seen anything like it. Talk about heavy. It won't stack on the barge. We need higher side boards.
Few more!
We were hoping for around a thousand yards per load but since it won't stack we only get around 700. We only have to take it out to 200' of water to dump it. Thats only a thousand yards to travel so was no big deal.
That slop reminds me of my Tour de Ditch, self levelling. I am guessing the slop gets dumped at sea, but does the loader pick it up bucket by bucket, or do they yank an end gate and push off?
Thanks for the pics Lashlander. They are always interesting and informative. The Link-Belt looks like a 518 but I don't remember them with that much counterweight. That's a big machine to run on a barge. How much boom you running on that monster? What engine and is it direct drive or have the torque converter? I had to change the top bevel gear for travel in one of those machines once and generally lost any desire I had to work on them. The spiders are big and heavy, the shaft is big and heavy and soft and the bevel gears eventually turn into a lot of razor sharp splinters when they die. The thing I liked about them was that they generally worked for twenty years at a time before you had to do a job like that. Keep the pics coming!
Bobcat ron, we didn't have a gate to pull so we just dozed it over and picked it up and dumped it over. Kinda chased it all around the barge. John C, the Linkbelt is a 518 with the ABC counterweight. It has 120" of boom. A little too much for duty cycle but needs the headroom. It has an 855Cummins with a Twin Disc torque converter. This crane has well over 50,000 hrs on it and I know what you mean about the gears. I've replace the boom hoist bevel gears and all the swing gears and shafts. I still like this crane because of its simplicity. None of that fancy stuff. If it has a problem anyone can repair it. That means a lot when you work as remote as we do at times.
Great pics!! Someone has balls of steel to run that loader on the spoils barge. I am scared just looking at the pics. Is the deck surface of the spoils barge slippery with that mud/muck?? Keep up the good work. :usa
Neat pics, How many yards is the clam? Telescooper
Here you go: 10
I agree with you on the longevity and toughness of the machine. You do need a strong back and thick gloves when things break but it don't happen very often. Keep the pics coming.
Few more pics.
Still more.
Have you had enough?
Lashlander, great pics...do you own the company or work for someone else? I second what DigDug said.
Great pics Lash, do you guys ever dig anything up thats interesting, like gold nuggets?
Great photos Lashlander. Man when you get a nice sunny day up there its about as pretty as it gets ain't it! Good looking 518, your dead on about the simplicity of those cranes. I drilled many a conductor on the slope with our LS218A/watson 5000 and it was by far my favorite drilling crane.
those mountains are nothing short of breath taking..i could look at pics of them all day
DigDug, the barge wasn't to slick with the mud on it. The mud seemed to be a little gritty. The barge had a concrete deck. It was a little strange operating the loader on a moving platform though. Stretch, I don't own the company. I've worked for them for over 18 years now and the owners are trying to talk me into taking it over but I'm just a worker bee. DPete, We dug up a lot of railroad track and wood piling on this job. The other operator did a little panning of the spoils when I was digging. Never found anything good though. Big Iron, Seward is a beautiful place when the weather is decent. We've done a lot of work there. All our jobs have been in the fall to spring so we miss the tourist season. No crowds and friendly people. Its one of my favorite places to work. Thanks for everyones comments. Heres the last of the pics. A couple pics of off loading. Once we got away from the dock the material got a little sandy so we were able to get a decent load on the barge. Rather than spend the time to anchor up I chose to drive piling to moor the barges when we were off the end of the dock. This kept us from having to clam around our anchor lines.
Running out of free board quickly! Breaking the clam loose. Fuel the loader up. Taking a load out. It was kinda funny. The tour boats are running out to Kenai Fjords National Park to see the Whales and other Sealife. Its where the glaciers are calving into the water. They come out of the Harbor and the first thing the tourists see is us dumping mud into the bay. We must have had a million pictures taken and as many dirty looks.
We had a crane like that to lift our I beams when I was building bridges, she had a 4 yard clam too for diggin down for the main pilings. We also had a newer link belt supposedly rated near the same but the old one was 3 times the crane of the new one. That stuff you were loading looks like poo. I'd say running out of freeboard like that made you want to unload faster Nice stuff there, If they have that much confidence in you ya gotta be doing something right. Love the pics.
a fitting end to a good job, nice weather, nice place to be. last time i was in Seward we stopped at a resturant right on the bay (can't remember the name) it was the last day it was open for the season. had a good meal, good wine and then some good whiskey, enjoyed the day. will get back there some day soon (like this summer). have a safe trip home!
Hey Big Iron, was it Rays. They have every fish I ever saw mounted on the walls. Excellent food.
What a series of pics!!!!Thanks for sharing them with us. When you are unloading the barge do you have to be concious of the way you do it so as to preserve the ballast properly?It would seem as though too much weight on one end could be dangerous.Thanks again for the great shots and commentary.Ron G
Hey Ron, thanks for the comments. This barge wasn't to bad. We did dig down the middle and leave some material on the bow to level up faster. Then work both ends. I commented on operating on a moving platform. We had an area we had to dump in so the tug was jogging within the boundaries. It was a strange sensation to be stopped dumping over the side and be spinning around at the same time. Also the loader with a bucket of mud would list the barge pretty good when you approached the edge to dump. I never wore my seatbelt!
That sounds right, remember it was 15 years ago and I have a hard time remembering yesterday on a good day! great food and:drinkup As I recall we wound up sleeping in the pickup that night. Seems it was to late to drive anywhere when we finished. They were closing down for the winter and we wound up with some of the locals and well, things went downhill from there.
Lashlander first off super pictures !!!!!!! I have a few questions,how are you keeping track of where you have dug and how are you measuring the depth.Are you using GPS or anything,or just doing it manual with cable and weight then measure it when it hits bottom? I was always amazed watching dragline cleaning ponds with the water in them.How they decided when it was time to move over.One thing about the water it hides your work . As soupy at it is do you have to over dig so that some of the slop will even out as you go and to reach your target (planned)depth. Also is it cold enough that you have it freeze on the barge or are you working two shift(night shift)?I would think if it was freezing that it would build up enough to loose some of your capacity? The loader job doesn't look like a place for a beginner or trainee!I noticed that one end of the loader barge looked to be riding low in the water ,but you covered the subject good already. Again awesome pictures!!!!!! Thanks for sharing :notworthy:usa
Couple more questions,will the barges move on there own power or do you have to have the tug there all the time to move them with? Also noitced the 5 and line on you clam, i take that is the 5 yards mark? With the mud heaped in the picture above the line thats how you decid you have 6 yards ? Thanks
Hey there Construct'O, we still do it the old fashioned way. This particular cut was 1000' long by 110' wide. They like a 2 to 1 slope on the cut. No one has ever pushed the 2 to 1 though. I always take an extra bite wide and let the material unravel its self. The barges were 115' wide when side by side so it as easy to keep the outside boundary. We measured out the end of the dock and dropped buoys to establish the end of the cut. If you notice the chain on the first pic on the last set I posted you'll see the paint marks on the chain. This is how we control depth. We establish elevation on the dock and place a tide board. Then the tide elevation is figured into the cut. I like to paint my footage marks different colors so its quick to figure out where you are on the chain. We dig the width of the cut then close the clam and set it at depth, then swing it though the cut. if its clean we go on. If we bump bottom we take a bite. Most dredging jobs will pay to over dig one foot. This job they payed for 2 feet. The bid was for a minimum cut of minus 36' I shot for a minimum of minus 37'. Usually anything over that is free but their paying to minus 38'. The yardage is determined by underwater surveys done by a third party firm before and after the job. The bid was for 20,000 yards. We haven't got the end survey back yet so don't know what was actually dug. I know we went over though. Hopefully not to far. The 5 line on the clam is feet with the clam closed. The clam is 4 yards struck so I was guessing on the 6 yard comment in the beginning. It was freezing pretty hard at night. We had a little trouble with the mud freezing around the cleats, but the mud on deck would thaw out from the material we were adding to the load. I haven't done a lot of draglining but the ones I have been around they have established depth the same way. They will paint the hoisting line on the machine at the depth they want to cut. Some operators will paint it at the waterline. I've seen some paint it on the wire along side the cab so they can see it better. Then they dig until they get to the line, then move on. You're correct about the water hiding your work. Right up until they bring out the underwater mapping computer with the GPS. They can see every divit and drag mark you have put in the mud. Its always amazed me what that thing will pick up. The barges don't have any power. We move them around with the power skiffs that we have on board or a tug.
Awesome :notworthy:notworthy:notworthy An amazing set of pictures, both work and scenic. And very informative. Lashlander, 18yrs, and they want you to consider taking over.!!!!! DONT do a list of "whys" ! Do a list of "why nots". I bet it will be shorter :cool2. In my book the longer list wins, :thumbsup Good luck.
Lashlander thanks for taking the time to post the info for my questions.Tricks to all trades are there!!!!!!!!:notworthy Been busy with work,so didn't get on here until today. GPS is changing how things are done for sure,but the old school stuff has been around for a long time and still prove it can be done. On a different note what is hidden under the water work! They dregded a local small lake and the guys doing the dredging was in for a surprise,when they started dredging!The lake bottom had more then they thought?Old CCC camp built lake. It had large oak stumps under the water ,so water hides lots of things.They had one hick of a time trying to dregde with the stumps .They couldn't do the typical sweep with the dredging head because of the stumps. They had to have the water to float the dredge,but drained it when they got done and you couldn't believe the stumps.So needless to say the GPS didn't work to good on that job. Bet they was glad to get out of there and bet the next job time they bid things with this i mind or checks thing out better?High dollar earning curve for sure.Blow the engine in the dredge and took close to 2 months extra time to get the job done!!!!!!!!! Was getting it plugged ,plus breaking stuff on the head. They pumped the spoils about a 1/2 to a 1/4 mile away into a holding pond for the silt to settle in.Also it was dry ,so they wasn't sure they was going to have enough water for the drege to float before they got done. A different job,but it was interesting.Thanks again:usa
We got the bottom survey in today on this. It was done with an Airplane. This is the first time I've seen this technology put to use in this type situation. The numbers haven't been crunched yet so don't have the yardage. I thought this was wild. The black in the center is the dock. You can sure see where we made the cut.
What is their reference point when they say 33.064' deep?Is it mean sea level or the dock or low tide or what?Is it 33' below the surface when the image was taken and then they calculate where the surface was at that time? Do they collect that data before and after to see how much you removed? Great series of pics as usual just to remind us all of the stuff we don't know.Ron G
Hey Ron, I'm not a 100% sure. I think that tag is referencing the red in the center along side our cut. The footage would be from 0 tide. Our cut was a minimum of minus 37' and the tide doesn't get that low to be our cut. I have seen this used to chart shorelines before but have never seen it used for this. Always before they've had a computer with GPS in a boat and run a grid patten. It maps the bottom and quantities are taken off that. They do one before and after to get the yardage. Before I resized the pic you could tell which way we dug because of the sweep marks in the mud. Hard to believe they can get that from flying over in a plane when he water is that deep. They were hoping to have the yardage figures early next week.
Wow!!! Never knew they could do that from the air. How accurate can they get with that technology?
Hey John, thought you might get a kick out of this. We've had a leak in the rotator joint to the brakes in the lower unit. Finally got time to tear it down and repack it. The gears are a little rough but they cost 30 grand to replace. Since it took 50,000 hours to get this far I think they have a few more hours in them.
Lashlander, Thanks for the memories. Those gears look to be just getting some experience. They will last a long time yet. There used to be a bulleton out on that swivel under the cross shaft though. Link-Belt had an update out with a new joint. I almost got burned on the one I did, cause the owner's mechanic just wanted new seals in the bugger. I made their mechanic sign the service report that he refused to put the new swivel in. Three days later we got a phone call from the owner at 5:30 PM saying the swivel was leaking and it was our fault. He wanted us there that night to fix the problem at my expense. I faxed him a copy of the service report and told him we would be happy to be up there that evening to fix the problem but he was on the hook for all the travel, mileage and overtime. He declined and said his mechanic would take care of the problem. She's a dinosaur but there's still a lot of money to be made with her yet. Good Luck!
I wonder if they're using a laser in the airplane to do the bottom profiling?
super interesting post. I've lived in Seward for over 25 years and this is great stuff to see. I usually just see the work going on from the shore. Thanks
AWESOME pics!! Looks like a nice job. How do u empty the spoils?
Second page has the pictures of the loader pushing them off the barge.
During the earthquake in 64 the whole shoreline rearranged itself. There were large fuel tanks, docks and the railroad ran along the shore from north to south. When folks did along the shore finding an entire rail cars is not unusual. Lots of stuff went under during that quake and was never seen again. Most beautiful scenery of anywhere I have ever lived as long as the skies are clear.