My Boat Project For Next Week Arrived This Afternoon!

Floating dock for our 15' RIB. Fed up having to regularly lift it to clean it - even though we had the bottom painted. The paint just doesn't do well on the parts of the tubes that sit in the water.

Looks like a big Lego project.

It pretty much is!!

Menzies, where is it for? I'm assuming you have waterfront property? Lol

Just need to mount a rotisserie on it to flip the boat for painting. All though it may be light enough to man handle.

Hope you have a good back...that's a lot of leaning over and reaching to piece and torque those bits together.

OK, they offered a construction service, but its only 49 blocks that you clip together - so how hard can it be, right!

You guessed it. Wrong!

We unloaded it, laid it out on the grassy slope to the water thinking it would be easy to slip in after it is built. But, nope, it needs to be on a flat surface. So we moved it to a flat bit of the lawn but nope, there really isn't a flat bit of grass!

We finally moved it to the concrete dock so that we could build the middle three sections, then the outer rows separately. Manhandled launched the middle section and then connected the outer rows after launch.

Bottom line, the husband and wife that dock build together, stay together - so long as next time I pay someone else to build it!

MurrayM said:

Hope you have a good back...that's a lot of leaning over and reaching to piece and torque those bits together.

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Made sure to wear a good quality brace. Still there's bits hurting that I didn't know I had!

It's upside down and inside out. :lol:


It's done and lessons learned. Looks really spiffy floating there ready for the boat.

menzies said:

Made sure to wear a good quality brace. Still there's bits hurting that I didn't know I had!

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Did you try it to see if it actually works?

BandB said:

Did you try it to see if it actually works?

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In about an hour. I just finished adding three sturdy galvanized cleats to the dock, two additional small fenders to the dock at the non-boarding end, and drove an eight foot pole into the water at the corner that cannot be attached to the dock. I just need to attach a line to that pole and put away all the tools, and I will be ready to try it out. I am sure there are going to be some misses until I get used to aiming for it!

Just go really fast and it will go on...

Comodave said:

Just go really fast and it will go on...

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Uh huh. Problem is, as you can see in the last photo above, it is on the inside of my dock so I have to turn to starboard just before I gun it - so have to make sure I am lined up quickly. My hope is that the half block difference in the "groove" will line up my bottom once coming on!

Ah well, never too old to learn new tricks!

Test will have to wait until tomorrow.

I have to fill the four rear blocks with water up to the fill hole so as to lower the end of the dock. It started raining before I could do that so tomorrow it is.

Anxiously awaiting further reports.

The times I have seen people use a floating dock, they don’t have to be moving to get it on the floats. They just touch the bow on the front and give it fuel...should climb on slick. Good luck.

GFC said:

Anxiously awaiting further reports.

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So are we!

Otherwise we have a well built floating dock going half price!

Damn, that looks great.. You'll be the envy and trend setter of Queens Harbor.

Sailor of Fortune said:

Damn, that looks great.. You'll be the envy and trend setter of Queens Harbor.

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So long as no one leaves the lock open and we have beach front property!

I had a set of those. Really flimsy. After 2 years they started leaking and denting and the entire dock deformed, leaving my boat partially in the water. A very poor reinvestment on my part. I hope you have better luck than I did with dockbocks. I replaced the system with a boat lift

Is a permit required?


I know in some states floaters can be a problem due to shading sea grass on the bottom.

psneeld said:

Is a permit required?


I know in some states floaters can be a problem due to shading sea grass on the bottom.

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No state or other authority permit as we are in a private lagoon. I did have to get POA/Harbour Committee permission.

bligh said:

I had a set of those. Really flimsy. After 2 years they started leaking and denting and the entire dock deformed, leaving my boat partially in the water. A very poor reinvestment on my part. I hope you have better luck than I did with dockbocks. I replaced the system with a boat lift

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Sorry to hear that - what weight is your boat?

I have always wondered how owners of these floating systems plan to handle what could be a significant amount of bio-fouling. Around here we get oyster growth so prolific that after a few years their sharp edges begin to threaten contact with boats in piling slips. I have a straightened hoe which serves well to knock of the worst of the accumulations.

rgano said:

I have always wondered how owners of these floating systems plan to handle what could be a significant amount of bio-fouling. Around here we get oyster growth so prolific that after a few years their sharp edges begin to threaten contact with boats in piling slips. I have a straightened hoe which serves well to knock of the worst of the accumulations.

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We're lucky enough to be in fresh water. However we still get white worm and light algae that need to be scraped off now and then.

BTW an update, couldn't work on it the last few days due to cold and wet weather. Got a chance today - with some success, but not what I wanted. So more work tomorrow.

Issue right now is that the lower strakes hit the edge of the channel and stop the boat progressing the last third of the way. I may have flooded the aft floaters too much so need to get the boat off and let some water out so that there is not as much of a slope at the front of the dock, which is allowing the strakes to catch the channel edges. That is, the boat needs to go on flatter rather than up a hill.

See pics. First: caught strake, second: boat on dock, third: dock slope.

Another alternative is to put a winch on the concrete dock walkway at the head of the dock, but I would rather not do that for two reasons - drilling holes through the concrete to affix it and then continually pulling the strakes against the block edges to load.

BTW, that hull has been sitting in the lagoon for six months and you can see the lack of growth on the bottom.

More later!

menzies said:

Sorry to hear that - what weight is your boat?

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About 2000 lbs dry, I would guess. Dock blocks owner said it would work fine, until it didn’t.

bligh said:

About 2000 lbs dry, I would guess. Dock blocks owner said it would work fine, until it didn’t.

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When I was researching them before I bought I saw (on Yelp I believe) that heavier boats had issues with "tacoing," which they then resolved with adding 4" strengthening bars east to west under the dock. Seems it resolved the issues. My boat is around 1000 pounds.

Right now my RIB goes on about 2/3rds of the way. My issue is my bottom strake is getting caught on the edge of the channel. They have rail guides (like circular bunks) that lift the strake up and away from the block edges. I have asked them to do that install as it means removing some of the connecting pins and replacing with pins with connecting bars for the guides. Since the dock is already in the water I do not want to get involved with that.

Pic of another install below.

More later (again!).

OK, final update on this.

They recommended replacing two of the full blocks at the entry with half blocks to allow the strakes to come on, and also "perhaps" needing the bunks added if that didn't do it.

As I previously said, I didn't want to start removing pins etc. while the dock was fully together and in the water.

So Mark from Dock Blocks was in Daytona for New Years and stopped by today on his was back to Charleston and first put in the two half blocks. The strakes still got caught. So he then added the bunks and, voila! Up she rose!

She is now on, the skeg when lowered is about a foot from the first block so I guess the RIB could be on another foot - but she is well out of the water AND I can walk around now and put on the full cover we have for it, attaching it to the dock cleats.

Next is to take the RIB off and onto the trailer and bring it home for a good clean top to bottom and compounding and waxing of the glass. Then back on the floating dock.

Pretty happy with the result. He tells me just to spray the bunks every so often with a silicon spray and it will make it even easier to get the RIB (with clean bottom) on. Off is easy as I can either use the engine or simply give it a good heave!

Damn, its weird seeing a big boat like that docked in a shallow body of water. You don't see that much in Mass. Lol. Very cool setup you have.