The Case For Aluminum
One director reflects on his experience transitioning from wooden docks
By Bob Wipfler
Photos: Courtesy of Sara Wipfler Archarya and Kingswood Camp
For many camps, the signature element of the campus is the waterfront. And the heart of the waterfront is the dock system. The dock design determines where people can swim, how lifeguards will supervise, and how other elements of the waterfront (e.g., access to boats or location of slides, diving boards, or inflatables) are managed. But not all docks are created equal.
Every camp loves its docks. Just about anyone with camp tenure has been on the yearly, pre-camp team for hauling docks out of storage, scraping, painting, assembling the sections, fitting the foam, and dealing with suddenly noticed, essential, broken hardware.
Some docks require the banging of pipes into the usually rocky terrain of a lake bottom at the waterfront. One time, long ago, at a crucial moment, one of my staff broke the heavy hammer used for this chore. The local welder had it repaired in no time, leaving me to proclaim him as a candidate for president. C. J. Gould might not be able to run the country, but at least he could fix it.
White was the dock color, and my, how that sparkled in presentations of the camp facilities. On campus, the gleaming docks became a showcase for all, and especially on family visiting days. I am referring to wooden docks, the staple for most camps since the inception of group camping nearly a century and a half ago.
All of this romance changed for me when I visited a neighboring camp and walked onto its new grayish aluminum docks. Each section fitted perfectly with the next—and with no Styrofoam to affix and no annual scraping and painting tribulations. In a word, the structure was striking, and I soon became obsessed with having a similar set-up for our camp.
It took me (I should say “us,” since I had dozens of adamant advisors) more than a year to find the exact design that could replace the camp’s beloved wooden behemoth in a functional manner, without compromising its traditional layout.
If your camp is considering an upgrade to aluminum docks, here are some suggestions:
Access: The company we worked with builds custom walkways and ramps; this was incredibly significant for rugged shorelines.
Camper flows: We did a lot of thinking on how campers enter and exit the dock area, and especially with regard to the buddy-board location.
Enclosure: Each to his own, of course, but we elected to have a large, fully-enclosed dock structure, with the main dive tower at the far-end middle, with campers jumping into the enclosed part of the water. We wanted the tower to remain a wooden structure, so the aluminum guys embedded large sleeves, into which we bolted the tower.
We added a cross section towards the shallow end and placed it precisely where a swim instructor could most efficiently operate. (By the way, this cross section is easily movable. At first, it was too shallow. It took 20 minutes to relocate the 48-foot section!) For imagery purposes, picture the full structure as a square-shaped capital “A.” We call it the Main A.
Floats/rafts: We decided to locate additional rafts relatively near the Main A. Having the tower as part of the Main A and our slide-board raft immediately adjacent is a supervision issue. Children will engage in some horseplay regardless of the strictness of camp regimen. Proximate placement of floats can reduce this urging quite a bit!
Queueing: We considered all of the above from the perspective of campers getting in line for waterskiing and tubing. Again, for supervision reasons, we determined that the far end of the Main A was the best place to “expect a crowd.”
Lifeguard chairs: Of course, lifeguards should be stationed where they have the best view of swimmers. We even thought of the angle of the sun at general swim times. At least one lifeguard station is designated for the far end of the Main A, where campers line up for ski and tube rides. No horseplay here!
Diving restrictions: The lake gets deep, really fast. However, we still limit head-first diving to the far one-third of the Main A and have a buoy-line designating that area.
Ladders and other accessories: Our aluminum docks allow for moving ladders easily. On the original installation of the docks, we collectively scratched our heads for a long time before selecting the exact location of each ladder. Aluminum docks are quite expensive, but ladders are relatively cheap; we bought more ladders than we really needed! Turn-boards, too, are not pricy, a cinch to place, and are lightweight. Lastly, aluminum boat racks (for canoes, kayaks, etc.) come at a most reasonable cost and are easy to install just about anywhere.
Proximity to sail boats, windsurfs, canoes, kayaks, etc.: While generous, the camp’s shoreline has restrictions, so we earmarked a long slice of the shore and beach for the watercraft. Further, we moved all rafts and floats to the other side of the Main A from the takeoff/landing zone. We call it a “vortex,” from which there are no immediate collision obstacles.
Power boats: We did not toss all those old, white wooden docks. Far down the shoreline, quite away from the aforementioned facilities, is our power boat “marina.” We designated one section of the Main A and one section of the adjacent fishing dock for power boat pick-ups and drop-offs. But, the farther away from swimmers, the better for motorized craft. Find your own way to re-employ those old wooden docks.
Boat lanes: Every person in our camp knows that the double string of buoys stretching from several hundred yards down the lake to an appropriate point outside the center of the Main A dock is the “dedicated boat lane.” All boats pulling towables, plus the towables themselves, must stay within the parameters of this area when coming in at the end of a run. Not only that, but like an active airport runway, all takeoffs and landings are from the same direction!
Winter storage: Lastly, it is with great enthusiasm that I report most aluminum-dock installations have built-in sleeves for an easily inserted tire. Accordingly, two or three persons can work together to drift dock sections to shore and attach them to the wheel at the deep end and to a trailer hitch on the land end. No matter the size of the dock structure, hauling it to its winter location should take a morning, or a tad longer, to complete. And next spring, you’ll find the docks just as you left them—no rust, no scraping, no painting, no broken attachment parts. Maybe this is the best part of it!
Bob Wipfler is the director of Kingswood Camp in Piermont, N.H. Reach him at (301) 656-8406, or www.kingswoodcamp.com.