Hooray! The marina anchoring project is complete! This project began in May of 2022 when high winds broke welds that held anchoring poles in place and gangways on the docks. Several months were spent researching and meeting with various engineers and contractors to find a recommended solution. Two community residents, Steve Herring and Jim Pagenkopf, both engineers, were involved and spent many hours devoted to this project.
In September, the board approved a proposal for specialized flexible elastic connectors designed and built by Hazelett Marine, an engineered and certified design plan using Helix anchors, and a contractor who specializes in performing this work.
The project was scheduled to begin in mid-October when the weather was still warm, but supply issues pushed the start date to just before Thanksgiving. Chad Walder of Waterfront Contracting arrived with his barge and specialized equipment for screwing helical galvanized steel anchors into the lake bed.
The Helix anchor is unaffected by a sloped bottom and will not drag under heavy wind gusts. The helical anchors are placed on each side of the main body of the floating dock about every 40 feet, with crisscrossed connectors. The anchors are placed several feet out beyond the dock itself. One helix anchor will handle 10,000 lbs. of force. Fifty-six anchors total were screwed into the hard shale on all three docks. Some of the anchors required up to an hour to be installed due to the hardness of the soil.
Elastic connectors are the preferred method of attaching the anchors to the docks rather than using cable or chain. Elastic connectors provide stability and constant tension under high or gusty wind conditions and will extend the design life of the floating dock structure by reducing stress. The connectors can repeatedly elongate over 200% and return to their original length.
Hazelett Marine manufactures the elastic connectors and has an in-house engineering design group that calculates the forces involved and determines how many anchors/connectors are required, the placement, and the sizing.
After the anchors were driven, a diver attached a set of three 10-foot elastic connectors with limit and downlines to each anchor and the docks. Custom-built downtubes were installed at each point on the dock where connectors would be attached. Installation of these downtubes required the dock boards to be pulled up and some of the metal under the docks removed, a tedious and lengthy part of the project. A heated tent was set up on the road for the diver to warm up, especially his hands, after diving for fifteen minutes.
The docks were moved a few feet out so the gangways could be placed on rollers and smoothly and safely transition to the dock walkways. Lakeside Docks should complete this work at the end of December.
The marina now has a clean, professional appearance with no poles sticking out of the water. The high wind gusts experienced over Christmas caused no movement of the docks! The Board of Directors thanks those who put a tremendous amount of time and effort into bringing this to fruition as quickly as possible.
Please take the time to thank Steve Herring, who stood out in the freezing cold for many hours watching the contractor work and managing the project with Lake Holiday’s general manager, Mike Goodwin.
Pat Majewski, Board President
