We knew Saturday's project would be a challenge. Only three of us signed up to help. We really needed five, but we decided to go for it anyway. "It" was the problem of repositioning three large Yokohama rubber fenders to stay stationery against their assigned dock pilings, as the changing tide and river currents forced them out of position. Those fenders properly positioned, protected Spirit of South Carolina, and any other sizable vessel using that dock, from bouncing directly against the several vertical dock pilings.
The three giant Yokohama fenders had bees floating uselessly in and out of the pilings of the face dock at the Maritime Center for over a year. In 2023, high wind and wave combined to force two rafted-up schooner's hulls against them, snapping in two places, the connecting telephone pole on which the Yokohama fenders were strung. Since then they were kept from floating off only by a combination of chain and salvaged rope.
Bryan Oliver showed up Friday to scope out the different angles of the problem and assess tools and other materials that might be required to properly secure the huge solid rubber cylinders in place. Saturday promptly at 11 am, Ken Fonville joined in, as Walter Barton motored up to the face dock in his small center-consoled skiff, motoring from the landing on the Wappoo Cut. With no one else signing up, our success was going to be iffy. The good news was that we had great weather and tide/current conditions. The rain forecast had moderated such that we would not expect anything except light sprinkles. The tide was just peaking at high, so water current was slack, the the whole Yokohama string was reachable from the face dock.
It would not be an easy fix in the best of conditions.[I'll do my best to paint the picture.. There wasn't an opportunity to take pictures ] We were looking at a combination of five different lines, and two submerged chains, that needed to be managed,, eased, and tensioned.
Two Yokohama fenders in a fixed string, were bridled by a chain around a piling at one (south) end of the dock. The end of this chain bolted to a telephone pole segment, on which two Yokohama fenders were spaced out. The two fenders were still attached together with the correct spacing, but the other end of that telephone pole extending out the opposite end with its chain remnant would prove to be too short to reach completely through the center of the third yokohama. and another pole remnant which was chained to a piling at opposite end of the dock. This chain would prove to be too short to allow it's pole to reach thru the third yokohama and connect to the two other fenders, forming one long string of three yokohama fenders.
The easy part was sending down from the dock five salvaged auto tires to string onto the pole remnants strung between the fenders. But then it became complicated. After three attempts, we were unable to force the north-end-waterlogged pole back thru the north fender, sufficiently to connect with the chains of the other two. Two more sets of hands would have helped manage all the simultaneous pulling, pushing, levering, and prying As it was, we secured each Yokohama fender next to it's piling, sufficient to keep it there as the tides changed, connecting with 1/2" rope to close the gap between the north fender and the two linked ones. Hopefully, around mid October sufficient volunteer hands can muster to finish what we could not today.
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