55 Gallon Drum for lift bag

[Ben Dugger]

I have used a drum for flotation for many years. It is very simple. Just lay the drum on its side and wrap a piece of flat bar steel about 3/16 x 2" around each end of the drum. Fold back the ends of the flatbar and drill for bolts to clamp the straps. Weld an eye at the bottom of the bands. (UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE WELD ON THE DRUM! IT COULD BE EXPLOSIVE) Attach a chain in a Y configuration between the eyes so the drum will float on it's side and put a chain hook on the loose end.
Locate the large bung opening at the bottom and leave it open. Put a vent valve in the top opening. The drim will float on the bubble. Attach a short line to a snap hook.
Run a line to the surface from the object to be lifted and pull it tight. Snap the hook around the down line and open the vent valve. The drum will slide down to the object being retrieved. Attach it to the object and fill it with just enough air to float the drum. Now check your rigging. If O K start filling the drum with air. In low visibilith keep a leg on the botton and when it starts to lift get the hell out of the way. A lift drum is unstable until it reaches the surface. A 55 gal. drum will lift about 400 lbs.
Drunms will float an object much closer to the surface than lift bags and they are much cheaper.

Ben

 

[Gilldiver]

Well, on March 9th we started with this:

2 hours later with 4 bait barrels attached just forward of the mast to a lift strap running under the hull, a barrel attached opposite each of the winches for stability, and one off of the outboard bracket to keep the aft end up, and a bit of a tow at high tide and you have this as the tide starts to go out.

After pumping out at low tide you end up with this:

We used plastic bait barrels, would have loved to use two 1000# lift bags but we had to get her up and out quickly, so you use what you got. The barrels are open at the bottom with lobster pot line running from one side to another and a leash of 5’ off of that to tie the barrel to what you can. Essentially the barrels are a plastic lift bag. A 80 filled all of them using a cheap Sears air gun attached to the inflator line of a cheap regulator, takes about 2 to 3 minutes to fill a barrel. If you need to get air out of them use a 6’ length of garden hose, stick one end in the barrel and raise the other end outside of it above the water level and the air will come out.

I did all of the diving in 35F no problem, but the toes were a bit chilly by the end of the 2 hours.

 

[WetBoy101]

Didn't you have problems with the drums that were filled first trying to lift part of the vessel while you filled the remaining drums?

 

[WetBoy101]

Does anyone know of a good site for DIY directions? I need to put in an air bleeder at the bottom (top) of the barrel so I can bleed air out while lifting. I could do this if it was an open top barrel, but since it's a closed plastic barrel, I can't really figure out a way to get the valve fastened tightly without taking off the top somehow. Thanks ahead of time.

PvilleStang

All of the plastic drums I've seen (used) over the years have two screw-in caps on the top. That's how they fill them with whatever. You could remove the cap and drill a hole to place whatever fitting you needed on it, then replace the cap. I would suggest using a compatable epoxy on the threads due to the extra pressure you'll most likely be adding.

 

[Gilldiver]

Didn't you have problems with the drums that were filled first trying to lift part of the vessel while you filled the remaining drums?

I wanted that to happen as the boat had sunk into the mud up to its waterline. Once I get the back end up I could sweep the lifting line under her from the stern. While this boat was only 20’ long she was one of the most difficult to raise as there was almost nothing on the deck I trusted to take a vertical lift, the hull shape was such that no lines would hold by friction, and when she sank the dock tore off her bow and aft starboard cleats. She also swung under the dock as she sank so we couldn’t do a direct lift as she would have just caught the dock and tore up her rigging and perhaps capsize.
So, we

1) Put lines attached to the bow chain plate and the outboard motor mount (which was robustly attached to the hull) and put tension on the hull to the side from the next dock over.

2) Put a barrel on the motor mount along with about 500# of lift bags to get the ass end up

3) Ran lines from the winches under the hull to a barrel on the opposite side so we could place the stability barrels on each side. The winches were lousy for a vertical lift but are made to take a lateral pull which is what we put on them.

4) With the 3 barrels aft and the lift bags on the aft came up and we swept the lift harness under her from the stern. One guy on the dock had an end and I had the other and we sawed it forward by pulling back and forth as best we could, at times I was under her, not a very nice situation. I then tied the harness together aft of the mast and then ran another line from the harness around the front of the mast, encircling it, which became my lifting point as on a sailboat the center of gravity should be somewhere under the mast. The mast itself was deck stepped so would not take any type of a vertical load but was good for the lateral loads at the beginning of the lift.

5) I then put a 100# lift bag on the lift line forward of the mast to tighten everything and more important keep everything tight as I added barrels.

6) Then 2 barrels were added and she was light and Upright.

7) This is the danger point, if she came up now she would be half under the dock. So before she got to a floating buoyancy, we dragged her out from under the dock by the lines we had run in #1 by first pulling her stern out, tying off, and then dumping the lift bags that were on the motor mount. Then with the stern grounded and tied tightly off we were able to drag the bow out from under the dock and tie it off.

8) Then back to the boat and I filled all the barrels so far attached and then added a 3rd barrel to the lift harness and she came up. Now we had control of her and she was 5’ off the bottom. At this time and for the tow I added a 4th safety barrel to the lift and we towed her around the docks and as far up a boat ramp as we could at high tide. As the tied went out (we had a 7’ tide) she ended up on dry sand we pumped her out so she could float at the next tide.

She sank as she was in winter in water storage and the owner didn’t check on the batteries enough so that in one of our bad snow storms enough weight got onto her to put a scupper under, then it was only a few minutes for her to fill and sink.

 

[WetBoy101]

Very Cool!!! I would love to be involved in an operation like that some time. ( In clear, tropical water of course )

 

[Gilldiver]

Very Cool!!! I would love to be involved in an operation like that some time. ( In clear, tropical water of course )

So would I, this was cold,mud diving with limited to zero vis. You need to be able to work and tie knots by feel.

 

[css277]

Wicked sweet!

 

[Rich Keller]

I have used 55 gallon steel drums that have a large and small screw cap on the top. I rig them with a pair of simple mini C clamps used to hang lights from steel beams in warehouses and run a line between the clamps. I leave the large cap in and the small cap off with the clamps set at small opening side of the barrel so it is at the lowest point during the lift. I then rig the line so the barrel is not quite level with the opening at the low end. The barrels will then be able to self vent during the lift and the buoyancy remains constant in those barrels during the lift. So all you need once you get the object close to neutral is a single lift bag that you can control during the lift.

 

[Peter_C]

So would I, this was cold,mud diving with limited to zero vis. You need to be able to work and tie knots by feel.

Sounds like most any marina in the San Francisco Bay Area, except the water is 50*f. My past employer had his very nice 50ft wooden sailboat boat hit the bottom twice in the SF Bay. LOL Both times barrels were used to bring her back to the surface for pump out.