Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1380
feature 42 Houseboatmagazine.com at the new Cave Springs location. Slusser, Francis, Fisher and Sudduth, with a few other volunteers, poured the cement anchors, and then the anchors were pushed off the boat ramp. A boat picked the anchors up with a big wench and wound 500 feet of cable on the wench. The boat would then take the anchor out to where it needed to be and lower it down, then take the cable that held the anchor back over to the dock to attach it. "We got so we could do five or six anchors a day. It's a long process, too," Slusser says. Taking apart the dock known as Alligator 1 was almost as big a chore as the anchors. In order to dis- mantle an Alligator 1 dock, 40 houseboats needed to be consolidated and moved so that there were empty slips. Then the electric- ity had to be disconnected and the slips needed to be separated from the walk way. The last thing was to remove the anchors from the dock and connect the dock to a boat that pushed the dock five miles down to the new location. Each section of dock was about 600-700 feet long and 100-180 feet wide and took between eight and 10 hours to float to Cave Springs. After dismantling and floating the dock to Cave Springs, rebuilding the dock became the next chore. Step by step, the dock slowly came together after jockey- ing boats around and play- ing leap frog. The volunteers started to put the slips back on the walk way and welded them together. Once that was done, they started rewiring all the electric lines, water lines and putting the underwater trusses on between the fingers. Finally, that part of the dock was ready for boats. They did it piece by piece, 40 slips at a time, over and over until all the slips were slowly put back together and ready for boats. "It seems like it was mov- ing slow while you were do- ing it, but it came together pretty well," Slusser says. From the first of October until Memorial Day weekend, these volunteers worked relentlessly to put back to- gether a working dock. There are some people who deserve to be thanked for helping this impossible task become possible including Slusser who was the glue for the whole operation and made sure he helped with every- thing he could possible do. "If any of us were still on Ed Slusser holds the new winch stand that is being fabricated by Jerry Poppelwell The most dangerous part of the job was hoisting the anchors. Gary Fisher and Ed Slusser are on the anchor, John Francis and Giles. John Francis releasing the cable attached to an anchor down slowly, Gary Fisher releasing the 40-foot long tether cable that is rolled up on front of the barge and Ed Slusser on standby. A work barge sinks after a hole gets knocked into the bottom of it while lifting 10,000 pounds of anchor from under it. 5 5 5 5