Extension to make a floating dock canoe friendly

[yellowcanoe]

I am looking for DIY ideas to make entry in and out of a canoe onto a floating dock easier. We own a big dock system with five other people. It was designed for powerboats and hence the floats and decking are about two and a half feet high.. Currently we use a swim ladder to get out but its awkward to load on and off of.

Looking for some sort of idea that is maybe two feet wide and is sturdy enough to attach to the side of the dock framing.. it would still have to extend over the floats..

These are way more than we want or can afford!
http://thedockdoctors.com/dock-and-launch-systems.html

 

[Mihun09]

Is a portion of the dock exclusively for your use? Do people still dock powerboats there? If so, is there a portion you could modify for yourselves that is away from waves caused by the boats? How's about a photo? I'm sure something simple could be devised to make it easier and safer for you both rather than a kayak ramp system.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Its a T shaped dock with two other arms One of the sides of one of the arms is ours.. When the wakeboard boats go by the entire dock system goes up and down a couple of feet.. The dock isnt in now.. Its still in ice and snow. So we do not have to share "our" side of the dock.
Here we are required to remove them in the winter.. Its bad enough that sometimes the swim float goes AWOL in storms in the summer!

 

[Mihun09]

Wakeboard boats are a scurge everywhere. Go slow to make a huge wake so the guy on the rope can get better air. Should be laws to keep them away from shorelines to reduce erosion. Not much you can do about that problem, but it shouldn't be too difficult to make a lower floating dock to attach to the big dock for better access to your various watercraft.

 

[yellowcanoe]

There is a law that within 200 feet of shore the speed limit is headway speed. There are five kids camps on the lake I live on. They all have sufficient funds ( ie rich kids) to finance Master Craft wakeboard boats. When they get too close we sic the Maine Warden Service on them but the fact is with a narrow lake even if they stay in the middle a tenth of a mile away the shoreline is still hit with massive waves.

What is the oddest is that they go slow and near shore for the "kids safety". These kids hardly ever get off their knees. That "kids safety " thing is bogus.

The good thing is that Mother Nature is making a fool out of the "engineers" who increased the size of the inlet river and straightened it out. Now its a massive delta and comes into the lake at a high speed loses flow and YAY deposits silt and sand! Whoopee. In a few years there will be so many of these stern drive inboards with broken prop shafts that we again will have a paddle lake. RIght now we have growing sandbars.

Each year I see more and more paddle craft. And more private ski boats silent at the docks.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

What's wrong with the land? Too steep?

You could probably make something like this entirely of wood with some carpentry skill.

Oh, it's actually a commercial product: the dockside cradle.

http://www.docksidecradle.com/videos.html

 

[Cookannapurna]

What about a smaller section of a floating dock like jet dock. They are 2'x2' interlocking floating cubes. They are made to have small powerboats drive up on them. Our docks at camp are jet docks and they are gunnel height. Just sit down and swing your feet in!

 

[Guest]

What about a smaller section of a floating dock like jet dock. They are 2'x2' interlocking floating cubes. They are made to have small powerboats drive up on them. Our docks at camp are jet docks and they are gunnel height. Just sit down and swing your feet in!

That is the solution I have seen at some riverside outfitters. They have a dock, fixed or floating, and a floating lower platform a few inches above the water. One on the eastern shore is low enough that you can drive the canoe up onto the dock and simply step out.

On tidal areas they have a short ramp between the upper dock and the lower launch, “hinged” at both the top and bottom of the ramp. I haven’t paid much attention to how they were hinged; at least one was done with sections of old fire hose bolted and fender washers through the boards.

I prefer those low floating docks to the style shown in the Dockdoctor’s link above. The canoe & kayak landing at (tidal) Hammocks Beach uses something similar, but with hard plastic rollers along the angled launch ramp. I use that ramp (no other choice), but I always grit my teeth when loading a composite hull atop the hard plastic rollers and letting it slide into the water.

BTW, when launching a ruddered boat off that type angled floating ramp/dock be sure to launch stern first; the instant the end of the hull clears the launch the ramp will spring back up and would tear the rudder off. I guess that could also be an ooopsy issue launching boats with a lot of stem layout.


EDIT: Thinking about that some more the one on the eastern shore is unramped and not “hinged”, it is just tied off to the upper dock via the near corners and spring line tethered to keeping it floating a foot of so away. It is a big step down when the tide is out, but doable.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

https://boat-float.com/products/ez-dock