How to unload tractor from a pontoon

[wstr75]

I'm with 2manyrocks. You mentioned taking a tractor, bush hog mower, chipper and FEL. With the exception of FEL, you can do all those activities with smaller individual units that you lease from a rental store. I'd take a chainsaw and saw everything up in small pieces and wheelbarrow the stuff around the property. More work than having a FEL, but you could hire folks and still get the job done.

I am sure you know this already but it bears repeating. Pontoons quickly capsize when one pontoon receives significantly more weight than the other. It can be a dynamic moving center of gravity kind of thing where some event like a gust of wind, wave, hitting a snag in the lake, tractor moving on or off the boat, etc. and suddenly the boat sinks in the blink of an eye. As it is sinking it could "catch" you or a member of your family and pin them in the wreckage, a horrible thought. If it were me, I'd rent small stuff and skip the engineering & preparation work/investment/risk aspects.

Bill in NC

 

[PILOON]

I live on a lake.
Made many docks/rafts.
Did a lot of construction projects.
Have a 2000 CUT.

Biggest issue will be center of gravity vs tipping.
Large foam blocks as used in dock floatation would give lowest C of G
A dock 12 x 16 dock made with 20" X 10" x 96" foam blocks will support one heck of a load and be very stable as well.
I learned that floatation oriented in the 12" direction was more stable than along the 16' axis.
Drums while great for floatation will be extreemly tippy as they will sink til they find their level and then you'll have such an angle that the tractor will simply roll over.

4 old 250 gal heating oil tanks would make an excellent floatation base as they are flat sided and you could weld some cross pieces to tie them together and then deck with some old plywood sheeting or cover the cross pieces with 2 x 10 planks to drive on.
(you only need wide enough for the wheels).

Perhaps you could 'rent' scrap heating oil tanks and some steel stock from the local scrap yard to make up the structure.
Heck a guy could bridge the tanks together with timbers and simply drive spikes into the tank side walls to prevent them from slipping out of position.
Once tied together (I envision about 3 ft of spacing between the tanks side to side and fore and aft) and decked with 2 x 10 planking ther should be no problem.

Beach the contraption, tie firmly to shore left an right, place timbers for ramps and drive off. I would do something to the ramp timbers for traction as nothing is worst than wet wood.

Shucks I drove my CUT up into the bed of my 3/4 ton pickup on 2 x 12"s more than once.

 

[keeney]

On the lake I live on, I have seen several utility "barges" being used for all sorts of shoreline maintenance and construction. One is like a giant pontoon boat with a flat deck and a big crane in the middle.

The other two are high-sided tubs with flip-down landing ramps like the photo of the military landing boat earlier in the thread. Just the other day, one of the landing boats was at my neighbors house loading sand onto their beach. The guy had a goodly-sized mini excavator that he had driven half off of the boat which was beached with the ramp down. Plus he had a load of sand in the far end of the tub/barge that he was unloading using the excavator.

I would check around for a company or service with the appropriate boat. Some I have even seen on trailers. For a small fee, they could easily take you and your tractor out to your cabin and come pick it up again a few weekends later.

As far as getting stuck in the sand, my little JD 4100 gets driven on the beach all the time, and even does useful work in the sand pulling or moving my dock in and out each season.

When fully ballasted with the loader on, I admit that I have had to use the loader at times to pry my way back out of front-axle deep water and wet mucky sand a time or two (I change the front axle oil often), but that was when I was actually digging up the sand and it was quite loose.

- Rick

 

[RobJ]

I don't see this as being that big of a challenge. As REG mentioned, if you tip a pontoon boat, you must have all the weight hanging off of one side.

To load,unload, the pontoons MUST be on the botton, protect the bottom of the boat anyway you like. If you have to move a couple boulders, fine, make the small beach a little wider.

You need to still tie off the boat to land very solidly. Bring in the boat to solid ground as much as possible, even with no weight onboard it will still stay on the bottom. This will avoid the bounce when the weight is taken off.

If you have enought room to drive it on, should be no problem.

Pictures a must!