Floating Slip

[GBR562]

My Sailing Club is about to lose it's concrete Slip due to the constant undermining caused by the river and tidal flow.
So we're thinking about buying a floating slipway and associated pontoons.
We only want to launch and retrieve dinghies from 14' up to 18' so we don't need anything ultra heavy duty.

Has anyone got any ideas?

 

[wongaero]

The thing with a floating pontoon is going to be the bridge you'll need to get to it, turning it into quite a project - There's one at Warsash with a floating launching ramp integrated into it but it's kind of huge compared with your sketches.
if you haven't seen it, look at http://warsashsc.org/ and zoom in on the jetty shaped like a tuning-fork in the satellite picture

 

[mikejames]

I once sailed at a club where the beach would advance and retreat several metres during a year. They used heavy rubber conveyor belts from the local coal mine anchored at the top of the beach and weighted down at the bottom of the beach.

As the beach moved , the belts tended to stay near to the shingle surface. The shingle could be cleared off.

If there was an unexpected storm , the belts would be tough enough to stay in one piece and could be dug out and repositioned. Normally they would be rolled up and stored over winter.

Another club faced with the same problem had an extremely tough wooden slipway (built with fairly narrow planks with gaps between them - breaks the waves and provides grip for pulling dinghies up ) raised above the beach which stood on piles. An interesting target to land a dinghy on when the waves threw you at it. In winter they would remove the planks.


OK I give up. the coal mine was in Kent and it was nearly 40 years ago.

 

[GBR562]

I met an "Old Boy" down at the club earlier and he said why dont you just tip hard core and shingle onto the mud and turn it into a hard.
Sounds a bit low tech but would this work?