Pontoon Party Boat Is Revered as Work Horse

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Do you hear the word pontoon and immediately think of a party boat floating on a lake? Marine construction professionals are thinking along another line. Pontoons have earned a reputation with people who know as some of the most versatile and rugged work boats. These boats can adapt to versatile and grievous tasks. These tasks fulfill the needs of both private and pubic entities, such as, fire, recreation and wildlife protection agencies, fish and game departments, marinas and demolition or construction crews.

Chinook Boats from Metalite Industries, have earned admiration because their design specifications can be customized for payload capacity, weight demands, and work environment. Buoyancy, length and width can all be tailored to specific needs. Stern and bow shapes can be altered for the best utilization of work requirements and surface space.

In short, each user of pontoon boats begins with a platform that is designed and admired for its durability and flotation stability. But the end product entails the customization of everything from riggings, cleats, tie-downs, steering and enclosures - cabins, tarps or canopies. All based on the simple or complex nature of the enterprise.

The Pacific Northwest has the Columbia River which snakes along until joining the Pacific Ocean near the Washington-Oregon border. There are 14 hydroelectric dams located in an ideal site because of the river's heavy flow and elevation drop. The Columbia River is home to many important fish species, which have an important role in the local ecology and economy. Dix Corporation knows this playing field well.

Project and operations manager, Armin Vogt, said his company purchased its first Chinook Pontoon boat in 2002 after the demise of an lessor pontoon: "It got crunched." he joked. For the past six years the Chinooks have been in use for the remarkable projects on the Columbia, Snake and Deschutes rivers. Dix construction feats include several dam and lock rehabilitation, along with development and construction for a juvenile fish bypass sytem at Rocky Reach Dam.

"We've hauled our pontoons all over the Northwest. We use them as a work platform doing just about everything. And we use them for hauling guys and toolboxes to and from job sites. With the type of work we do, a boat is important and stability is huge. That's one of the things the Chinook Pontoon Boats give us: You can stand on the edge and not rock that boat. You're not tipping at all," he said, adding, the stability of the pontoons has proved popular with divers. "We work a lot with divers. It seems that our boat is the boat everyone uses because it's so easy to get off and on. And, when hauling people back and forth, you can pull up to the dock, keep the engine on idleit's an easy platform for loading."

Dix recently purchased a 30-foot pontoon that is being used to push barges on the Deschutes River. The boat was designed with special push bars on the bow, to which rubber tires have been draped to create a buffer between the pontoon and modular barges.

The barges haul everything from personnel, construction materials to crawler cranes. Vogt said that the Chinook was being used as a "mini tugboat," it is also providing work platforms for the construction crew building a six-story, 80 x 10-foot porous box that will settle 300 feet below the water surface. A base structure to help regulate water temperatures in the river for Bull Trout, and endangered species.

Also, rather than build a dock, Vogt said the pontoon boats are lifted into the enormous structure's interior to access the work. The boat was rigged with equipment to make such aerial lifts possible. The boat has also been outfitted with auto-engine winches and A-frame gantry cranes so that the boats can be anchored to rock or concrete faces with mooring lines.

When Dix moved a bridge in Portland, Ore. this last feature was particularly important. The bridge was loaded onto a barge and floated downstream, when it reached its destination the bridge was set on new abutments. A twenty foot Chinook once again provided access to the site, by allowing crew members to set mooring lines and other procedures for the following workload. This demanding job cried for a reliable water vessel. The Chinooks are made of 0.125" to 0.188" marine grade aluminum, being filled with Coast Guard certified two-pound density polyurethane.

"We bump into things. But the way the Chinook is built - the pontoon is foam filled - its durable. Even if you punched a hole in it - no problem. And there's enough payload that the boats can haul a pretty good load. Even something as large as a pickup truck, if we wanted to," Vogt said. "Everybody thinks of a pontoon boat as a party boat. that's not it. They cut through the water very well. We move at forty-five miles per hour with our two 150-horse power engines. People don't expect that from a pontoon boat, but we demand it from our Chinook boats--and we're not disappointed.

Information about the Author: Chinook custom pontoon work boats use the finest and most durable materials in the industry to insure years of trouble free performance. Chinook Boats have been used for fire boats, cable laying, surveying, hydrology and wildlife management. Vehicles Articles: http://www.article-buzz.com

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