Halfway Rock Light House
Location
Halfway Rock, Portland Maine
Products Used
Ring Pole Scaffold
Services Used
Erect and Dismantle Service, Scaffolding Rental, Scaffolding Design, Deliver (by bardge)
01
Objectives
Halfway Rock is a former Coast Guard lighthouse that sits on a two acre ledge on the edge of Casco Bay, roughly 10 miles from East End Beach in Portland, Maine. Abandoned by the Coast Guard in 1976, Halfway Rock had been left to the elements for 40 years until Maine businessman Ford Reiche paid $283,000 for the landmark at auction.
Seacoast Scaffold was tasked with staging the 75-foot tall granite tower with ring pole scaffold, allowing workers to make repairs to the structure. Designing the staging for a lighthouse is something Seacoast has done in the past, such as when Certa-Pro repainted Portland Head Light, but the logistics of getting equipment to Halfway Rock is a different beast entirely.
02
Approach
To start the process of moving equipment and an erection crew from the office in South Portland, to a small ledge on Casco Bay required loading the a truck and shipping it to East End Beach in Portland. From there, forklifts would unload the truck and transfer the equipment onto a barge waiting in the water. Once the barge was loaded and set out on its way, a 90 minute journey from the beach in Portland to the rock ledge supporting Halfway Rock began.
At Halfway Rock, equipment was unloaded by forklift at the rebuilt dock and ramp, allowing work to begin on the site. The build was similar in scope to Portland Headlight, encompassing the granite tower. Four deck levels were installed by Seacoast’s team, and the team restoring the tower will move them up and down as needed. When work on the tower is finished, the same process will be repeated, with a barge picking up the equipment at Halfway Rock and ferrying it back to Portland to be loaded on the trucks and brought home to the Seacoast yard in South Portland.
Seacoast Scaffold is able to handle any type of scaffolding work. Including transporting scaffolding equipment to a rock in the Atlantic ocean.
