How to unload tractor from a pontoon

[tommu56]

what about 4 or 6 micro lams with 2 5/8 sheets of plywood on them for a ramp
or truss joists the trick would be make it wider and more stable

how far is it from your boat to shore?

or make a floating dock drive tractor on it push it with boat (like a barge) to island and run it in to rocks foam would take the brunt of rocks tie it off put 2x12 down across rocks with cribbing under them and drive it off

tommu

 

[Charlesaf3]

I grew up around boats.

So far, as proposed, this will be a disaster.

Wait for freeze up. Or at the least, learn to swim first!!!!

I have a feeling you are going to learn what "high initial stability, low terminal stability" means in real life terms.

Make sure your tractor is properly insured for underwater usage.

If I were going to do this... I'd try to hire a barge. Or I'd build a REALLY massive raft. After I priced out that option, I'd go back to looking for a cheap barge.

In the caribbean when I was growing up, the favorite solution was Schmisms - lots of surplus ones around for a while.

 

[Reg]

Raft it.
55 gallon plastic barrels should be good for 400 lbs of buoyancy each, in round numbers they're 3ft long and 2ft across. They could probably take a few dozen rocky beach landings and several hundred sandy beachings.

 

[scorpian5]

It all depends on how well you like your tractor. Why not hire a heavy lift helicopter, sure it will cost a bit but not as much as a new tractor.

 

[Travelover]

Please have someone videotape it, when you do it. If it works OK it will be a lesson in how to, if not....YouTube!

 

[Reg]

Aren't most pontoon boats (Party Barges) around 24 or 28ft and rated for a dozen or so people ? 20 at most ?
Methinks there is likely a straight forward capacity problem, but I hang with a couple of people who have them and I'll check their rating plates this week-end.
AFTER we're all done skiing and those late morning dudes come out on the water (-:

I'd still build a raft for it, add as much buoyancy as needed, 8 barrels a side = 16 x 400 = 6400 lbs and its still only 24ft long. The barrels would be supporting near where the tractor wheels would be, so it isn't as if you would need to engineer it for a huge point load right in the middle. Put some barrels in the middle too if you have any doubts.

The risks are probably mostly near shore anyway, i.e. in shallow water.

 

[Reg]

Notice the difference betweeen schism's vessel (built for the job under discussion) and a pontoon boat?

CENTER OF GRAVITY!

Yes, one is a straight displacement vessel, built for a similar purpose, but liable to roll, also likely to capsize if the center of buoyancy is below the center of gravity - the C of G can get kinda high as a result of load.
Pontoons have their buoyancy distributed along the outside edges and are basically roll limited to the difference in water level across the vessel.
(something like that)

It takes a LOT of angle to capsize a pontoon or any sort of twin hull - witness sailing Hobie cats vs Force 5s.

 

[Todd_C]

I spent most of my younger life on a lake with access to several boats, which included a 24ft pontoon. It scars me to death just to think about what will happen as 1,500lbs leaves the pontoon while it is in water. Like others have said, all of the weight is confined to a small area, so when the weight is moved toward the front of the pontoon and then off, how much is the pantoon going to rise out of the water? The movement could be enough to cause the tractor to turn over even if it were on homemade platform. I think I would try this with something like an ATV or a large lawn tractor before attempting it with the tractor.

 

[crbr]

I'd beach the pontoon on the shore with several tires as a pad or landing. Unload on some short ramps (accordingly) and load it back in the same manner.

I have landed pontoons several times when camping or whatever reasons required, onto tires as a pad. Never once damaged a pontoon on a rock or otherwise. In the winter for maintenance on the trailer or the boat, I often set a ponton off onto a homemade pier of blocks or set it right on the ground, again using tires as a pad.

$0.02

 

[Runner]

Is there, by chance, a floating boat dock on the side of the lake you're starting from? If so, maybe you could deck across the slip space where the boat would normally go, put the tractor on there and use the dock as a barge to be pulled across the lake with a boat. Floating docks are moved this way all the time.

Then, beach the dock/barge on the opposite shore and drive the tractor off on some ramps made of 2x lumber.

My concern with the pontoon idea is with the stability of the vessel and that the structure might not be strong enough to hold the tractor (even if the overall load capacity was adequate).