Barge to carry a single pick-up truck

@kapnD, the beaches here are rough. Rocks, logs, huge logs, 90% from the logging industry (cut ends).
Garbage like you wouldn't believe but mostly big rocks and big logs and a lot of 'em... a lot.
So, you need a steel or solid wood timber barge to work from. EDIT: Or aluminum
Oh, and there's a lot of current, a lot!
Tides can be up to 6m but rarely work to your advantage (Murphy's Law).

@DogCavalry What service speed are you expecting from this barge?
When you say moderate seas, what does that mean?
6m seas happen around here, so is 2m moderate?

The first two videos are the same location, different names.

 

This is possibly a bit off topic; rather than the barge design I'm thinking about the business case. With the proviso that my familiarity with the area is largely limited to being an avid follower of R2AK

Just thinking aloud if you need to make a return on your investment.

Seems the scenario for the site that is being serviced by barge is that it is not connected to the road network, and has no jetty. But when you get there there is a track of sorts that can be negociated by truck.

Questions -

• how many sites like that are there actually, where you are able to get the truck up the beach (winch? ladders? boulders? logs? soft stuff?) which would want deliveries by truck how often?
• Are you in competition with, say, delivering to the nearest jetty/roadhead and taking 2 or 3 trips in with an ATV?
  
• If there's enough infrastructure (tracks, business, homestead?) to warrant truck delivery, how was all that stuff brought there in the first place? (Presumably by beach landing? So other beach landing capable vessels work in the area?)
• Anyone running a decent size hovercraft in the area?

 

@Tiny Turnip , those are good questions, because they dictate the business case, which directs the the SOR, which guides everything else.

There are hundreds of islands here. Check out the Broughton Archipelago. It's pretty amazing. Dozens of communities. I have enough jobs in hand to pay for the barge, in transportation fees.

There are a number of transportation services in the area. Fees are high, and delivery times are at their convenience. They make a run when they have an adequate load. All the materials for this phase of our current project was planned for the 14 of August. We arranged transportation for our crew, food and accommodations accordingly. Then they pushed it off to the 18th. Then the 20th. Then the 22nd. It arrived the afternoon of the 24th. We got tired of dicking around and came up on the 21st. That's three days in an isolated location without materials. Some of the crew are my partners, but some are employees. They stayed fourteen days and went home for seven. I stayed. I won't see home until day 38. It might be worth the cost to buy or build a barge.

 

Just the Coast Guard and they don't do private work... yet.
(They do use it as a buoy tender though.)

"There are 40,000 islands throughout B.C."

Many of the islands are inhabited, some with sizable populations, vehicles and a road systems, but no ferry service. Some (2%?) even have boat ramps to land a barge on.
Lots of water taxis around too.

EDIT: I should add, the market here for what John wants to do is huge. He could make a go of it in ecotourism alone! Although, regulations and insurance can be sizable hurdles.
John is well connected now and has his own favourable market for a self propelled landing craft.
A huge Sea Sled landing craft may be his better option. The only real advantage would be higher speed when light or partially loaded. But would it outweigh the disadvantages, not in my opinion.

 

Regulation of an un-maned barge is far less than for a self-propelled (crewed) commercial vessel.

 

Good point.

If he buys an old Canadian Coast Guard Sea Truck, he won't have to worry about it.

 

And that would probably be much cheaper than building anything new - but how does one find out if any are for sale? I tried googling them, but did not get very far.

 

They're around. I've seen two (privately owned) in the last year.
I think they were 6-cylinder inline Volvo-Penta with i/o legs off the transom.
9-12 knots loaded (4000 kg load + full fuel + 3 people)
~12m x ~3.5m beam
Nice wheel house complete with a bunk!

I can ask around the base and see if any are coming up for sale soon.

 

Ah, thanks for the enlargement, DC and BB - that makes a lot more sense - I was taking 'East Coast of Vancouver Island' a bit too literally I think.

Btw, lots of landing craft of the sort of size you're talking about for sale in Canada - mostly Ontario, but a couple in BC:

Landing crafts for sale in Canada - Daily Boats https://dailyboats.com/ca/boats-for-sale/type-power/class-power-landingcraft/region-north-america/country-canada/

 

Nobody bit on my question above.

Best I can figure is it gets too rough here for push barges and it's just not traditional.

 

Lots of barge pushing in BC. My Dad pushed his barge on the hip for years. The ferry barge for Protection Island (Nanaimo Harbour) is pushed every day. There's a pair of big articulated fuel barges that supply Vancouver Island.

 

So, lots of chatter backstage with DogCavalry of late.
John, am I to understand you're not interested in a landing craft unless it is a sea sled design and that you'll design and build it?

I can see the advantages and disadvantages in a sea sled landing barge but only disadvantages in a sea sled push barge.

 

Of course. And as I found, it's a tough business to muscle into. Probably not worth the cost to try and service the local market. Servicing my own needs may justify the cost, but only as an adjunct to what I'm already doing. But I still like sea sleds and boat design.

On that subject, I think the right sled for our business would be a 36 by 12 twin engine sea sled LC. A bit away though. And definitely a me-build, in the same construction technique I'm familiar with. The only welding would be the landing skids. Stainless? Aluminum?

Inboard diesels with surface drives, or twin OXE 300's.

So the professional help would be in the scantlings and layout department. Just because I'm unrealistically optimistic, I emailed levi drives again.

 

So, as I understand it, you're thinking to flattening the peak of the inverted V by half, allowing for a shallower hump to drive the pick-up over, on and off.
Do you have a picture or sketch of that idea showing the bow view?

12m x 3.7m isn't very Hickman-like in the l/b ratio.

Aren't those OXE 300's a dream at US$90K... each!

 

My concern would be where does the helm go..