Advice on Raft/barge/ferry from lumberyard material for occasional 6 mile trip

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by Randall Brower, Apr 27, 2020.

  1. Rumars
    Joined: Mar 2013
    Posts: 1,790
    Likes: 1,107, Points: 113, Legacy Rep: 39
    Location: Germany

    Rumars Senior Member

    3M 5200 is PL Premium for boats. Does not foam, cures to a flexible rubber consistency, sticks like hell. It has been used for years as sealant in double planked motorboats bottoms. If one wants to glue green wood epoxy is no good, a moisture curing PU is needed. 5200 is superior to a pure glue like PL because it stays flexible for a long time (not forever but long enough).

    3M™ Marine Adhesive Sealant 5200 | 3M United States https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/3M-Marine-Adhesive-Sealant-5200/?N=5002385+3293241623&rt=rud
     
  2. DogCavalry
    Joined: Sep 2019
    Posts: 3,076
    Likes: 1,570, Points: 113
    Location: Vancouver bc

    DogCavalry Senior Member

    Enough better to be cost 4 times as much, on a boat like this?
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2020
  3. Randall Brower
    Joined: Apr 2020
    Posts: 40
    Likes: 14, Points: 8
    Location: Tanana AK

    Randall Brower Junior Member

    Yes, there are portable sawmills here.
    $5000 budget
     
  4. Randall Brower
    Joined: Apr 2020
    Posts: 40
    Likes: 14, Points: 8
    Location: Tanana AK

    Randall Brower Junior Member

    The dock floats with just a few timbers and decking would be a one day build but only 10x20 so not big enough.
    The floats come in all kinds of sizes, the biggest being 4'x10'x 12" deep, vs 16" deep vs 24" deep. Obviously the deeper they are the more weight they support but the higher they sit in the water.
    I'm second guessing whether log raft is an option or not. I was thinking about me being out there rounding them up but what I could do is tell all the natives that Ill buy logs that are at least 12"diameter and 40' length. Ill have to ask what they think thats worth. There will be more than a dozen men out on the Yukon over the next month gathering logs for firewood. A 40' timber is a lot of firewood. They go upstream 2o to 40 miles reconnoitering as they go. Then at some point they stop, lasso the first log and as they float back down they continue to lash desirable logs together as they drift back. Then tie them off to the bank and wait for the water to go down. Then they go out there on the dry bank and chainsaw them into 4' lengths for transportation. So its really very little extra work for them to lasso another log for me.
    My house is 50 yards from the Yukon so thats where I tie off my boat and thats where I'd like the raft. But there is little room there for a dozer to operate and its not free. Downstream 1/2 mile is "the landing" and you've got a 5o' wide slope up to the football field sized parking area. So to pull it for the winter Ill just drift it down there and have the dozer drag in it. That's where several fish wheels are parked each winter.
    See pic below. Getting off the subject of design and construction, several has asked why this and that. So here's life on the Yukon, in a bush village, on the other side of the Yukon from the 4-5 hour drive to Fairbanks. A barge company makes about a dozen trips each summer up and down the Yukon making deliveries. It's 15cents per lb if the freight is stackable or 22 cents if not. So a vehicle is about $1100 to transport from here to Nenana, either direction. And Nenana is an hour drive south of Fairbanks. So anything you want sent here by barge you have to make a 2 hour drive to drop it off. And the first few trips of the year are often booked. So you don't set your own timeframe. And they start later and stop sooner than I could if I could just go the 6 miles.
    Someone mentioned why have vehicles at all? Well, there are several roads around town. We have bush planes coming in twice a day with passengers and cargo. If you buy a months worth of groceries for a family you are filling up one or two grocery carts and filling your trunk. But for it to fly in its wrapped in bubble wrap and packed in a dozen 18"x18"x18"boxes so thats a truck bed full of boxes for 1-2 grocery baskets of food. Times 175 residents. And lots of people pre-warm their vehicles when its -50 so they can go across town in comfort rather than snowmobile. And sit out at the airport for 15 to 30 minutes waiting on the bush plane. Numerous needs for trucks. And if your truck breaks down then your screwed because we have no mechanic in town. And its a grand to fly a technician in on the 9 o'clock flight and back out on the 5 o'clock because you've got to pay him from the time he gets to the airport at 7:00 and gets home at 7:00 at $150 an hour plus $24o airfare. Or $1100 to put it on the barge but thats only June - Sept. We have an ice road across the Yukon Jan through April so you could tow it to Fairbanks then. There are sooooo many challenges living on the other side of the Yukon from the end of the road. Qualified mechanics don't live here because there isn't enough work. So being able to throw a truck on my raft and push it up to the road is worth a grand. I'd charge way less than that. Imagine if you had to pay 65 cents per lb for everything you consume per month. Thats air freight cost. Because of Covid we closed our ice road 2 months ago so a guy had to pay several hundred dollars to get his 100hp outboard brought in by plane. It's 50 cents to fly in a 12oz can of coke.
     

    Attached Files:

  5. Randall Brower
    Joined: Apr 2020
    Posts: 40
    Likes: 14, Points: 8
    Location: Tanana AK

    Randall Brower Junior Member

    I appreciate your thoughts and suggestions but it seems you are missing some huge hurdles. This place is extremely remote. I literally live out in the middle of an immense wilderness. It's 50 miles to the nearest village which only has 75 residents and it takes 2 hours to get there because its a frontier road. 25 mph max. It's a 5 hour drive to Fairbanks which has the nearest grocery store and Lowes. There may be lots of cheap steel barges where you are but not here. Any seagoing vessel sells at a premium here because there are so few available.
    There is no need to guard a raft. Natives don't burn other peoples stuff. They gather their own wood and cut it up for firewood.
    As far as being stuck with a supplier and focusing on solution, I'm listing the suppliers we have. I don't live in an area that has anything and everything within a 2 hour drive. I had that near Memphis TN for 50 years, but Alaska is completely different. There are 600,000 people in Memphis TN which has 323 square miles. There are 600,000 people in all of Alaska which has 663,000 square miles.
    I don't know what a SOR is.
     
  6. BlueBell
    Joined: May 2017
    Posts: 2,684
    Likes: 959, Points: 113
    Location: Victoria BC Canada

    BlueBell . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _

    SOR is Statement of Requirements.
    Google it, it's what you need the vessel to do.
    It is a critical piece often overlooked by rookies.

    Then the design spiral begins.
    Google that one too.

    Only you can answer (or estimate) what you need and what you can do.
    If it was me I'd get the logs and that bulldozer together and bundle up some floatation.

    What "large outboard" do you have available?
    Is that included in the $5000 because those can run up to $25 000 alone!
     
  7. Randall Brower
    Joined: Apr 2020
    Posts: 40
    Likes: 14, Points: 8
    Location: Tanana AK

    Randall Brower Junior Member

    I love the "quick easy cheap" saying. I used it all the time when I was a mortgage lender for 25 years.
    So how much would you charge to fly out to the bush and build me a raft? Ill take you moose hunting and give you other uniquely Alaskan experiences.
    How do I "preserve" it?
    I spoke to a local today. He said getting 10 years out of raft logs is about the average. That's because they are beached 7 months of the year and even though its between 0 and -50 F they still dry out through sublimation. So that helps preserve them.
    When pushing it upstream you need to allow at least 2-3 hours (I'm told). They do it each Spring when setting up fishwheels. See attached pic but the ones I see here have much beefy-er logs.
     

    Attached Files:

  8. Randall Brower
    Joined: Apr 2020
    Posts: 40
    Likes: 14, Points: 8
    Location: Tanana AK

    Randall Brower Junior Member

    I gave the long reply in my novel-like response to another poster. We have barges each summer.
     
    DogCavalry and BlueBell like this.
  9. Randall Brower
    Joined: Apr 2020
    Posts: 40
    Likes: 14, Points: 8
    Location: Tanana AK

    Randall Brower Junior Member

    Yes, We leave our trucks at the parking lot at the end of the road all the time. They are safe because its a 4-5 hour to get there.
     
  10. BlueBell
    Joined: May 2017
    Posts: 2,684
    Likes: 959, Points: 113
    Location: Victoria BC Canada

    BlueBell . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _

    Your question about buoyancy.
    If building a catamaran you're going to want three time the buoyancy you need.
    So if your barge weighs 10 000 pounds loaded, You'll need 30 000 buoyancy.
    Log construction maybe 2.5 as a safety factor (vs 3).
     
  11. Randall Brower
    Joined: Apr 2020
    Posts: 40
    Likes: 14, Points: 8
    Location: Tanana AK

    Randall Brower Junior Member

    It can be a lot of cargo and it can be heavy. We have heavy equipment here for roads and construction projects so if we have a 1000 lb replacement part, lets say a transmission for a dozer, you cant put that in a boat. If you buy 4000 pounds worth of liquor and beer, thats a lot of cases to move one at a time from truck to boat, from boat to truck, from truck to liquor store. Being able to back a 5000 lb enclosed trailer onto a barge and float down stream is way less work. ATVs are all over the place here but woefully inadequate for lots of uses.
     
    hoytedow likes this.
  12. Randall Brower
    Joined: Apr 2020
    Posts: 40
    Likes: 14, Points: 8
    Location: Tanana AK

    Randall Brower Junior Member

    I live in Tanana. The road is 6 miles upstream. There are houses along the bank but on the other side of the road. Not stringing extension cords across the street so no to shore power.
     
  13. BlueBell
    Joined: May 2017
    Posts: 2,684
    Likes: 959, Points: 113
    Location: Victoria BC Canada

    BlueBell . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _

    You've got no shore power.
    I guess then you have solar drills or gas drills, or no drills?
    I was thinking how you could fasten the logs together...
    Chainsaw flats on the log ends to join them with a single through hole...

    Having a hard time finding where you live on Google Earth.
    Are you by the airport or six miles upstream, no downstream...
     
  14. Randall Brower
    Joined: Apr 2020
    Posts: 40
    Likes: 14, Points: 8
    Location: Tanana AK

    Randall Brower Junior Member

    I stated the SOR in the initial post.

    Ive been designing this thing in my head for three years now, weighing all the pros and cons and debating on whether or not this is even worth doing. There are already solutions in place for everything without me building anything, but they are expensive and do not operate on my time table. The question is whether or not I can save me or the community any money, or make things more expedient/convenient by having a barge that would carry heavy loads. Ive addressed some of these concerns/challenges in other replies to this post.

    $5000 does not include the outboard. They run $100 per HP so I need $10-$15k for the outboard. My plan is that there are plenty of 25-30ft Jon boats here with big motors so I'd get one of them to push it up and guide it back.

    I'm the city manager and we often need to bring heavy things across on our timetable. Having the barge and being able to pay someone to push it up to the landing to get the thing and bring it back could be a huge time saver and money saver. What if we buy a 10,000 lb tractor and need it before the first barge runs?

    I've not seen many of these barges the natives build so Ive not been able to look at the engineering of it.
     

  15. Randall Brower
    Joined: Apr 2020
    Posts: 40
    Likes: 14, Points: 8
    Location: Tanana AK

    Randall Brower Junior Member

    Google Maps Tanana AK.
    My house is blue dot. The Barge Landing where I would park it in the winter is to the left (west) and the end of the road / parking lot is to the east 6 miles.

    Ive got generators and the city has its own power grid but no power down at the barge landing.
     

    Attached Files:

Loading...
Forum posts represent the experience, opinion, and view of individual users. Boat Design Net does not necessarily endorse nor share the view of each individual post.
When making potentially dangerous or financial decisions, always employ and consult appropriate professionals. Your circumstances or experience may be different.