Greetings ECSC Sailors,
I have a few large and small-ish projects this year that I hope we can get done. They are:
1) Repairing/replacing the cable along the beach for boat tie down. This will be the first project.
2) Finishing the upper structure of the new Gin pole.
3) Building a new Kayak rack that will hold all the Kayaks and provide a secure place to lock up a kayak or canoe.
4) Adding to our sail boat parking area and relocating the playground area (with new equipment), along with more official camping sites.
5) The launch ramp rebuild. The most challenging task is building the coffer dam which holds the water back so concrete can be poured. I was in contact with Dam-it Dams Inc. They were going to give me an updated bid on renting us a 300′ (4-75′ sections) with a circular dimension of 12- 14′. The previous bid was around $25,000 just for rental and a guy from Michigan to direct our team installing their water-filled tube(s). Not sure why they can’t provide their own team to install it themselves. Several issues are coming up that will increase the cost of this installation. First we will have to rent a barge to connect the three connection points and put some sort of connection sleeve around each connection point. Each 75′ section is about 5600 lbs. The sections are unrolled and laid out. The unrolling is done by filling it with water. This will be an extra cost along with a barge to rent some sort of water pump. I guess we will have to rent a skin diving crew to make the connections. We’ll need a barge that would hold 5,600 lbs (that is about 30 people). The other cost is to rent a water pump to pump out the water within the coffer damn, it is going to have to be huge with a 6″ intake, maybe two of them. Then there is the partial removal of about twenty feet of the seawall and a grading of that area to allow this dam to come out of the water gradually also where it goes in to the West of our ramp the rip rap should be removed to allow a smooth surface to prevent leakage through the rip rap. The biggest concern is that after it is installed it leaks like a sieve and the water keeps coming in. Please understand I will keep you up to date on this list of concerns and extra costs. My plan is to attempt this in the last three weeks of June. If any of you are interested in scuba diving or have any ideas please contact me @ 317 550 8955 Kenny Chapman.
UPDATE: Dam-it Dams Inc. has decided to pass on this project. They say the water is too deep.
Kenny Chapman
Harbormaster
