Preparing the Work Area on Top of the Salisbury Jetty

The top of the jetty has have a rough uneven surface especially in areas which have been damaged by years of storms. The excavators need to travel from the beach to the outer sections of the jetty to work on repairing it. They place rubber mats (made from old tires) on top of the jetty to create a more stable surface to travel on. The safety of the excavator operations and other construction personnel depends proper placement of these mats to made a safe road surface. This video shows an excavator moving the mats around. I am impressed with the skill the operators have in moving, adjusting, and repositioning the mats into the correct position.

Excavator Working on Stone Staging Area on Beach

When the stones arrive by truck, they are initially taken off the flatbed and placed in a pile nearby. Subsequently the stones are moved and reorganized into other piles before being transported to the Salisbury jetty. This video was taken from beach side of the construction area near the fence. It shows one of the excavators reorganizing the stones. In the background you can see two excavators working on the jetty.

Some General Views of the Construction Site

These are a series of photos showing what the construction site looked like during the first week of June. Since than a third crane and a second stone transport barge have been added.

 

The ever present "construction supervisors" keep a close watch on progress.

A view from concrete seawall  showing the two cranes along with two excavators on the beach and one excavator on the Salisbury jetty.

This is the beach area next to the parking lot. It is used for unloading the trucks of their stones and piling the stones in the staging area.

 

The excavator organizing the stones.

Flatbed truck with its cargo of stones unloaded already.

Creating a Level Top Surface on the Jetty

This video shows how those huge flat stone blocks are being used to cap the top of the jetty and create a level top surface. Some of the heaviest granite blocks are being used for the top of the jetty which generally sustains the worst of the breaking waves during a storm. The excavator uses small stones to raise the base level that flat stone blocks will be placed on. Sometimes, the height isn't right. In this case, the excavator tries twice to position the stone block but it is too low. So the block is removed and more small stone is added to raise the base height. Good video showing the details of how the capping progress is being done

It was a rather winding day and the camera was being blown around a bit.

Stone Block Handoff

This is continuation of a series of videos showing the excavators working on the Salisbury jetty. In this video the first excavator is bring out a huge flat stone block. All goes well until the tractor drops it (oops!) He picks it up again and has a better grip on it. You will notice how slowly and carefully the excavator drives out onto the jetty. Very safety conscious. The block of stone is probably about 18 or 19 tons in weight. Once the excavator gets out to the area being repaired it puts the stone down and the second excavator grabs it.

Excavator with Claw Brings Stone out to Jetty

Two excavators with claws were working on the Salisbury jetty. One excavator brought large stone blocks from the staging area on Salisbury beach out to a pile on the jetty. A second excavator was using the stones to cap the top of the jetty.

 

Second excavator was being used to position the large flat blocks as capstones on top of the jetty.

Video of excavator bringing a huge block out to jetty.

Excavator with Bucket Brings Out Small Stone to Jetty

The construction crew has three excavators with claws and one excavator with a bucket working on the Salisbury jetty. The excavator with the bucket is used to scoop up small stones and bring them out the jetty. The small stones are being used under the large stone blocks to raise them up to the correct height and to level them. Large flat blocks are being place across the top of the jetty to cap it and create a level top surface.

 

The stone is brought in by trucks and stored in a staging area on the beach before being brought to the jetty.

Video of the excavator bringing a scoop of small stones out to jetty.

Crane Works on Outer Jetty

One of the crane barges was anchor about half way out along the Salisbury jetty. It was picking up some of the stone blocks that had slid down the side the jetty and bringing them up to near the top. I was only able to get some limited video that day because the camera ran out memory on the card. The process of moving stones around with a crane equipped with a grapple is rather slow. The video is edited to "speed up" the process by showing clips of key moments in the process and editing out the slower sections of the crane trying to line up the grapple in the right position to grab a stone. We plan on getting some better footage hopefully in the near future.

A third crane arrived sometime during the week of of June 10. It has a white boom rather than a red one like he other two cranes. A second stone transport barge also arrived. A good place to view the cranes is to go to the northern end of Plum Island. Free parking is very limited but there is a paid parking lot. If you walk through the paid lot, you will find a nice board walk (handicap accessible) just behind the restroom building. You can get a really good view from the end of board walk. Binoculars with get you nice close-up view of the action.

Crane Barge Maintenance

The crane barge being used to load the stone transport barge was taken out of service for some maintenance work. The doors of two of the cargo containers on the deck were opened out. The grapple had been disconnect from the crane cables.

A large stone bock is sued as a anchor or mooring for the barge.

 

Blue work tug used to move the barges around.

White tug boat.

I couldn't resist this photo of the two excavator arms.

The tug boat operators takes the time was the windows.

Crane Loads Stone into Transport Barge (Video)

This video shows the excavator moving stone blocks to the water's edge at Salisbury beach and a large crane picking up the granite with a grapple and loading it into a transport barge.It takes a lot of skill and patience on the part of the crane operator to position the grapple over the stone block and get a good grip on it so it can be safely lifted off the ground. The grapple is controlled by three cables. There is a lift cable the hoists it up and down. A second cable controls the opening and closing of the hooks of the grapple. A third cable controls the grapple's horizontal position. It pulls the grapple closer to the crane (horizontally) or allows it swing out away from the crane.

Loading Stone into the Stone Transport Barge

The 1st crane barge is anchored near the beach along the Merrimack River between the Salisbury jetty and the concrete seawall. This crane is being used to load stone from the beach area onto a stone transport barge. One of the excavators moves the stone blocks from the staging area down to the beach. The crane grabs the block with a grapple and slowly swings it over to the transport barge. The stones are placed carefully in the transport and the load needs to be spread out and balanced to keep the barge level. The following series of photos illustrates the process. The next blog post will have a video of the operation.

Excavator grabs a stone block with its claw.

It drops it along the waters edge.

The crane operate positions the grapple (opened up wide) over the block.

The grapple hooks are pulled tight and the stone is lifted into the air.

Close-up the grapple.

The stone is slowly and carefully swung over the crane barge to the transport barge on the right side.

The stone is lowered into the transport barge and the grapple is disengaged.

The grapple swings back to get the next stone.

Next stone ...

2nd Crane Barge - Repositioning

After the two anchors posts were setup on the barge, both posts were raised up to allow the barge to be moved to another location at the construction site. The large blue & white tug pulled the barge out from shore. The smaller blue tug boat helped to push the barge sides ways. The small white tug boat eventually comes to assist and push the barge into its new position. I have a few still photos and video showing the barge being repositioned.

 

 

2nd Crane Barge - Putting in the Metal Posts

After the barge was beached, the next step was to setup up the metal anchor posts. On the deck of the barge two long metal posts, one round and one square, were stored. The crane was used to lift each post into a vertical position and then each post was inserted through an opening in the deck. The opening in the deck extends to the bottom of the barge and allows the metal post to be dropped into the sandy bottom of the river.

Maneuvering these giant metal posts around the deck of the barge and inserting them into the holes was no easy task. It required careful coordination between the crew and the crane operator. The crew used hand and head signals to relay instructions to the crane operator. The crane operator moved the posts slowly to minimize the amount of sway which could be dangerous to the crew.

2nd Crane Barge Coming up the Merrimack River (Video)

This video was shot on  a very windy day. The wind buffeting noise is very noticeable on the audio track. The wind also made holding the camera steady a challenging task. It took a good hour to bring the crane barge up the mouth of the Merrimack River to the Salisbury jetty construction site. The video is composed a series of edited clips highlighting the key details and events. Once the barge was inside the mouth of the river between the two jetties, the barge stopped briefly and the boom of the crane was raised. The barge continued on being pushed by the large white & blue tugboat. A smaller white tug followed along ready to assist if necessary. Once the barge neared the beach along the construction site, the barge was turned 90 degrees to the right. The white tug was positioned to prevent the barge from turning too far to the right. The small blue tug boat is also visible in some shots. It remained on standby. The barge was finally beached in about 2 feet of water.

This is the first of three barge videos.

2nd Crane Barge Brought up the Merrimack River

A 2nd barge with a large crane on it arrived on May 14. It took the about an hour to navigate through the mouth of Merrimack River and land the barge at the construction site. The barge was pushed by a large blue and white colored three deck high tug boat. Two smaller tug boats, one all white and one all blue assisted with turning and positioning the barge. The barge arrived at the mouth of the river with the crane's boom in the down position. Once inside the Plum Island & Salisbury jetties, the boom was lifted up. I took a number of photos but they really do not do the whole process of bringing the barge up the river justice. I also took a substantial amount of video footage. The video footage has been editing into three short segments which will be posted over the next few days.

Barge arrives at the mouth of the Merrimack River. The crane's boom is in the down position.

The small white tug boats goes out to assist.

1st crane barge with stone transport barge on the left, and the 2nd crane barge on the right.

 

White tug boats stands by to assist if needed.

Boom of the crane is raised up.

Close-up of the larger blue & white tug boat pushing the barge.

The white tug boat moves into position in anticipation of turning the crane barge.

Large tug boat begins the turn.

Small white tug boat prevents the barge from turning to far to the right.

The barge is beached at the construction site.

Front of the barge sits in two feet of water.

The tall metal post on the front of the barge was raised into position by the crane and inserted into a hole in the front of the barge. It is one of two metal posts used to anchor the barge in position.

Bringing Stone Out to the Jetty II

In this black & white video, the excavator gets the granite block into the front end loader bucket on the first try. The block is then driven out onto the Salisbury jetty to a 2nd excavator that is positioning the stones on the top.

The posts over the next few days will focus on the arrival of a second crane barge which I had the opportunity to photograph and video coming up the Merrimack River.

Try, try, try again

The stone blocks are being brought out to Salisbury jetty by front end loader. The blocks are loaded into the bucket of the front end loader by the excavator with the claw. It sounds like a pretty simple and straight forward operation. This video shows that the stones are not always cooperative.