ICE® 28D Casts Its Line in Canada
October 25, 2022
ICE® 28D Casts Its Line in Canada
Editor: Allison Braswell
Prince Edward Island, a Canadian province just north of Maine, features several harbours that welcome commercial fishers and tourists to immerse themselves in the most unique deep-sea fishing experiences. Graham Pond Harbour, for instance, sees over $4 million annually in landings for lobster, snow crab, mackerel, herring, silversides, scallop, and tuna. It is home to 64 commercial, transient, and recreational vessels. Concurrently, wave pressure has weakened the sheet piling of the harbour's wharf structure originally constructed in 1987. The harbours of PEI are vital to its fishing industry, so extending the life of the existing Graham Pond structure will improve services to harbour users.
Gaudette's Transit Mix of Tignish, PEI won a $1.4 million government-sponsored project to update the wharf area and seawall where lobster boats take nightly refuge from the rough waters of the Northumberland Strait. The first step of the process was to replace the 35-year-old failing sheet pile with some new 45' (ft) AZ-26-400 sheet pile. Due to the rough shape of the old sheets and surrounding seawall, the fear of pulling all the old sheets at once and causing the land to give way and erode into the water was a huge risk that could have stalled the momentum and affect the success of the project.
The team's new solution was to pull two sheets at a time and then replace those two immediately to minimize the water from eroding the soils. Using their recently purchased ICE® 28D vibratory hammer, the sheets extracted even faster than they hoped. Trying to avoid exposing the soil to the moving water made the driving process more of a challenge, so setting the sheets as pairs and repositioning the hammer to fully drive one sheet at a time was found to be most efficient. Applying a 6" (in) weld to the top and bottom of the sheets kept them in alignment during moving and setting. By opening the top weld, the ICE® 28D was able to break the lower, unexposed weld while repositioning the hammer and installing the sheets. The idea proved to work flawlessly, and the team was able to drive a pair of 45' (ft) sheets within 20 minutes.
Gaudette's shift from the use of their air hammer to ICE®'s hydraulically-operated pile driving equipment shortened their project time by about 5 weeks' time. Thank you to Gaudette for choosing ICE® to help you accelerate your tasks at Graham Pond. This revived harbour will fuel the freedom that fishers find out on the open water as they work hard to deliver the finest quality of seafood to the world, or just to create fond memories!
Learn more about the ICE® 28D.
Media Contact-
Pollyanna Cunningham, MA, MBA
Vice President Marketing, Brand and Media Relations
Vice President IT and IT Comm
ICE® - International Construction Equipment, Inc
Office - 704-821-8200
Email - marketing@iceusa.com