Wooden Ramps at Sea Clubs

Originally posted by Guest#260 Anyone on here a member of a club that has a wooden ramp set on wooden piles at a sea club? At Whitstable we are having a few problems with the ramp and would like to learn from what others have done to maintain their ramps ...

what are the problems you are having with the ramp?

I have some experence, in the major mainternace that need to be carried out was replacment of the cross beams, these were fixed with large coach bolts. Rick if you post some photos or a specific problem then maybe more help could be given.


Edited by Mark Jardine

Although we are an inland club, I will offer some experiences. Our wooden ramps were horrible slippy. We ended up screwing strips of wood on for grip, which eventually started to break off. You could try wrapping chicken wire round the slats for a bit of grip, but I'm not sure about longevity.
We ended up building an arrangement with some hard to describe hard resinny/plasticky stuff sort of a square honeycomb if you see what I mean. Very grippy indeed, and doesn't rot like the wooden ramps did. A bit hard on the knees if you land on it though...

I guess that some kind of reinforced concrete might be the most technically suitable solution, but this might involve the use of heavy machinery and expensive engineering skills. Something than involves railway sleepers etc. is more manageable and offers a low-tech solution with relatively simple maintenance issues

Nigel  

Our concrete slipways at Rutland are rarely slippy (apart from the steep sides!!). Could you not just make concrete ramps? More expensive to begin with but little maintance (I think, i have never seen them doing anything to them) in the long run.. I think ours are quite old now aswell and they are still in pretty good condition

Edited by Mark Jardine