Choosing a new ladder for the suction line on the Lake Erie job

Our foreman gave us the option to weld a custom extension or buy a pre-fab aluminum one, and we went with the weld job because the lake bottom was so uneven. Anyone have a better fix for a 15-foot depth change over 50 yards?

4 comments

4 Comments

evan5432mo ago

What, you guys didn't have any old pallets and duct tape on the barge? Seriously though, that's a wild slope. I've seen guys try to float sections with barrels on really bad bottoms, but that always ends up being a bigger headache than just welding it solid.

wilson.olivia2mo ago

Right? Once you start rigging up barrels and floats it's like a whole new project just to keep it from tipping! My uncle tried that with a dock section on a muddy lake bottom, and we spent more time chasing runaway barrels than actually fishing. It looked like a cartoon, everything leaning and bobbing. Sometimes the simple weld is the only thing that actually stays put.

patricia3214d agoProlific Poster

Oh gosh, the visual of those barrels bouncing off like pool toys is too much! But here's something nobody's mentioned yet - if you're on a really soft bottom like that mud, the barrel float trick actually makes the whole dock sink deeper on one side over time instead of staying level. The barrels create a vacuum effect underneath as they lift and settle, and the mud just sucks them down a little more each time. My neighbor dealt with that for two summers before he gave up and just welded some wide plates to spread the weight instead.

grantw412mo ago

Tell me he at least tried strapping them down first?