Our rig is required to be multifunctional, and incorporates aspects of rigs used by a number of other marine contractors. Designing it to meet conflicting requirements was a true conceptual challenge.

Most inland marine contractors will build a barge one of two ways. Dock builders will typically use a 20’ x 30’ sectional barge with a permanent crane on board to drive piles and put up roof structure. Those doing rip-rap tend to do longer barges, 20 to 24’ wide, with 40 to 60’ of length. They drive dump trucks on the barge to load, and then put the rock on shore using skid steers or excavators.

The difficulty lies in having one rig do both dock-building and rip-rap. With a dock- building rig, the barge will either have a hard-mounted crane working a hydraulic or pneumatic hammer, or else will have a crawler crane working a drop hammer. Either way, the crane is on the barge more or less permanently. This is fine for dock- building, if you are in deep enough water to bring the barge to where you need to drive piles. At our main base of Leesville Lake however, the lake level fluctuates 13 feet on sometimes a daily basis. This can potentially move the shoreline out more than one hundred feet out into the lake at low water! Also, having a permanent crane on board leaves no room for rip-rap. In contrast, a dedicated rip rap barge will typically have built up sides, and no pile-driving capability.

We solved this problem by buying an amphibious crane that we can drive on and off the barge, and even work in shallow water. In this way, the barge and crane can operate independently from each other. With the crane on the barge, we can drive piles and put up roof structure. With the crane on shore, we can unload docks, drive piles, or off-load debris. With the crane on shore, we can then use the empty barge to do rip-rap. This flexibility allows us to perform many missions: dock building, pile driving, rip-rap, debris removal, and transportation of heavy equipment for other contractors.