Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Boat Ramp

My new 25 acre lake is in the process of filling up and is about halfway there now so I am putting together a plan for the infrastructure I will want around the lake including docks, boat house, and boat ramp(s). Just curious what others have done with their boat ramp design as far as how far out in the water, what materials (rock or formed and poured concrete), slope of the ramp and if you included a dock or retaining wall near by. I will likely have 2 ramps, one larger primary ramp near my auxiliary spillway and one smaller one near my house site that will be primarily for kayaks or small john boats. The primary ramp I am considering a retaining wall that would allow an easy spot of future use for things like loading lime onto a boat/barge for spreading across the lake. Would love to see pics of whatever anyone has done.

See this from the Structure archive

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92463#Post92463

Great idea!!! I will have to come back and re-visit.

Construction materials would be determined by amount of usage expected? Concrete would be best, but until you know for sure the full pool line, where to place the forms? You'd want it to extend at least as far out into the water so that if the lake level were to drop the trailers wouldn't drop off the concrete ramp. Power loading would lead to washing the soil away at the end of the ramp, and that would be a bad thing if the loaded trailer tires dropped off the end of the concrete into a hole.

As for the seawall to load a barge, I'd want the water there to be 5'-6' deep so that there was plenty of water for barge draft if the water level in the lake were to drop 3'-4'

In the early 1980's we put in a seawall at the lake house with the"W" shaped steel pilings that interlocked and was made from CORE-TEN steel that was 3/8" thick. It's still there today. We cut the pieces 6'-7' long and used a piece of copper pipe on a garden hose to "wash" them down into the sand, then used a 2" sand point well driver to pound them the rest of the way into the dirt. We capped it off with a 4x4 or 6x6 by 1/4" or 5/16" thick piece of angle bolted to the top of the seawall to finish it off. The metal was in the dirt 3'-4' and backfilled with dirt.

If using stone for the ramps, I'd start off with larger rip-tap, and fill in the gaps between it with #73's. Then vibratory roll everything to pack it tight.

Slope? I looked on-line. They say between 12% and 15%. Less than 12% requires getting the tow vehicle in the water, greater than 15% creates too steep of a slope.

Both under water and out of the water, remember that things get slippery when underwater growth is on things, and pavement gets slippery when wet. The rougher the better. I have seen too many people slip and get banged up on trailers when required to step in the water at a boat ramp.