Looking at the barge floating there, I thought it sure looks solid. I went back to your first post to see how many floats that you used and what size they are. If my math is right, you have 3,200 pounds of buoyancy. I don't have a clue what the barge weighs, but I'd guess well under this number.
I ended up with 12 floats under the barge and three under the ramp. The barge has 4800 pounds of floatation. The barge weighs around 1400 pounds so it can carry 3400 pounds of people, gear, or whatever. That is probably overkill, but since this was not at typical use for a dock float, I wanted to be sure I had plenty of flotation!
Is it as solid as it looks in the pictures? Does it settle down in the water at all with people and gear on board?
It is extremely stable. I did a test with 1200 pounds of people and stuff standing along one of the long sides. It only listed a couple inches. With the same weight distributed evenly across the whole Barge, the floats were 3/4in deeper in the water.
If you were to build one again, would you use the 8 floats with the same weight rating as you did on this one?
I think 8 floats would be adequate as the Barge would still have 1800 pounds of capacity for people and gear.
I'm considering building a floating dock, and I don't want to spend allot more then I need to on floats. I've been racking my brain to figure out what is the ideal number of floats for a 12 x 16 foot dock.
Eddie, There is a lot of information at
http://www.dockaccents.com, including a formula to calculate the flotation needs for a given size of dock.
Your barge looks ideal the way it sits in the water.
Thanks for your positive comments and questions! I hope I have answered your questions adequately.
