Category: Moving Job

Moving a houseboat swept inland by hurricane Katrina

After Hurricane Katrina deposited a 300,000 pound houseboat on the side of a highway, Turner Industries Group, Baton Rouge, LA, (formerly known as Nichols Construction Corp.), was contracted to return the vessel to the water. Turner Industries used its six axle, self-propelled Goldhofer PST/SL6 trailer, to lift the two-story houseboat - which measured 32 feet wide, 96 feet long, and 28 feet tall - and haul it approximately 700 feet to the water while making a 90 degree turn.

Because of the thin walls and questionable structural integrity of the houseboat's barge and sponson sections, Turner Industries made innovative use of long support beams, knee braces, and doubler plates to distribute the loads. Counterweights placed on the ends of the sponsons overcame differences between the houseboat's center of gravity and the center of the trailer. At the water, the owner's tugboat and two Turner Industries winch trucks launched the houseboat by pulling it on soaped-up steel plates.