Floatation!!

As you can imagine one of the important features of having a floating home is that is stays floating!! Over many years logs used to make the floats become waterlogged and get eaten by torredos (ship worm). This is a slow process but does 'undermine' things. There are many ways of extending the life span of a float, add more logs, put barrels filled with air under or large blocks of styrofoam. These blocks of foam come in blocks 8 feet long by 4 feet wide by 4 feet deep. The trick is getting them under! First the blocks are wrapped in old fishing net and sewn on like a parcel. The reason for this is to be able to hold it in place whilst going under water....more explanations later. Just try holding a piece of styrofoam under water. Even a small piece will try its best to remain on the surface so imagine a block 8x4x4!

In the picture you can see a block floating next to the float that it is going under. At this point the block is attached to another float housing a winch that will pull it down into the water.

From here you can see the tug boat next to the 'A' frame. The 'A' frame is a large winch called a donkey. It is used for many jobs of lifting and pulling and invaluable in this area. The blocks are pulled under the water by the winch through a pully set in the ocean floor. When the block is under the water the float it is going under is pulled into place and the block is released to 'pop' up underneath. These blocks provide a huge amount of 'lift'. Approx 64lb per cubic foot. For those science brains out there you can work out the total but for the rest of us all you need to know is the float gets lifted adding many more years of use.

The usual is to try to put an even number of blocks under the float. That gives even lift all round and makes sure the eggs stay in the middle of the pan! It is also usual to put an extra piece under an area that is going to hold something very heavy. For instance a recent float was to house a container for storage on one corner so extra blocks were placed there to keep things level. So there you have a technical posting about living here. Hard to explain but I hope you get the idea!! Stay on an even keel!! Till next time....