All in a Day's Work (Part 2) - Loading small stone onto the barge

A lot of focus has been on the large multi-ton blocks of being used to cap the outside of the Salisbury jetty. Tons of small and medium size has been truck in throughout July. This smaller size stone is being used to fill in between the large blocks and also build up the inner core of the jetty.

The small and medium size stones are handled differently than the large blocks. They are loaded into a large steel bucket with a handle and cross bar at one end.These buckets are filled at the beach staging area along the Merrimack River. Then four cables are attached to the bucket and it is lifted by the crane onto either the stone scowl or the crane barge itself.

In the video, the bucket has already been lifted off the beach and the crane operator is adjusting the height the bucket is suspended at before swinging it over to the stone scowl. I have noticed with both the buckets and the large stone blocks, the cranes only raised them high enough to clear everything on top of the barge. Next in the video, the second crane barge takes the bucket from the scowl and moves it to the deck of its own barge. As it is lowered to the deck, several men help to maneuver it into position. You can see them giving hand signals to the crane operator. 

Four steel cables are used to lift the stone bucket.

Two stone buckets site in the stone scowl.

The small to medium size stones are hauled in by dump truck.