Bob

I would opt for hollow plywood boxes as the basis for the docks , robust enough to survive knocks and easy to build.

Paul

Use "planks" of 50mm expanded polystyrene as a floating base. Skin the topside with ply slightly wider than the styrene to give an overhang. Protect the edges of this with some of the plastic angle edging strip as found in most DIY stores.

Done wide enough (say about 6&quot it will be stable. Hooking them togeter is a matter of fixing hooks at the corners so that they can be linked with elastic bands, Not overly pretty, but it forms a usable dock and is tough enough to stand a lot of mishandling and weighs very little.

Hi Bob,

We have a small harbour set up at our club pond in Goole. Its built from rough timber with plastic containers as the flotation device. I cant remember the size of the containers but they are probably 10 litres or thereabouts. You can see the construction in the photo below.

Our pond has a clay bottom and we were not keen on locating the sections on steel rods pushed into the floor of the pond as we were concerned about long term leakage. Each of the sections is attached to the pond side with a hinge and a locking hook. You can see the hinge on the right hand end of the above picture and the hook on the left. Each of the sections can be swung out into the pond as required, or pulled back and tied to the edges so that they take up minimal space.

Hi Bob,

In the summer they are generally left in the pond, usually deployed out as in the picture above. If people want to race around in the maximum space because they can't steer their boats well enough to avoid them, they get folded back against the pond side. Over winter they are lifted out of the pond and stored on dry land, out of the way, adjacent to the coal hoist in the background.

The timber used in their construction was nothing special, generally what we had available or could scrounge from the docks. It was just given a few coats of paint for protection. Occasionally the sections are lifted out for pressure washing and repainting.

Gareth

Edited By Gareth Jones on 16/08/2013 20:17:58

Bob,

That makes our attempt at a dock look pretty feeble. I wonder how they locate the sections in position as the water must be pretty deep in the lock

Gareth