It’s a race against time and tide for the latest stage of the community-led restoration of Queen’s Pier, Ramey.
With limited hours of daylight and restrictive tidal depths, volunteers have been working as fast as is safely possible to lift in the next batch of replacement steel.
A brief spell of favourable weather last week saw four 20ft long girders installed on bay nine.
And calm and sunny conditions on Monday this week allowed them to lift in the centre girder and cross sections of various lengths.
But the team had to wait until 2pm until the tide was far enough out, leaving them a gap of less than two and a half hours before it got dark.
As the restoration continues further out along bay, ingenuity as well as knowledge of tides are crucial.
The volunteers have still been able to make use of the telehandler operating from the beach.
But bay nine is wider, and the shore drops away more this far out from the promenade.
This makes access to the centre of the bays more difficult.
A special extension has been fabricated by the volunteers that can be fitted to the loader’s forks to give it extra reach.
Longer slings have been used to provide vital additional inches to allow them to lower the metalwork into position.
Most logistically challenging of all have been the central beams required for bays 9 and 10.
These have been fabricated in sections and will be assembled in situ.
Delays resulting from the need to come up with this approved design solution, coupled with unfavourable weather, have pushed back the timetable for the restoration this year.
It’s meant that the next batch of steel, for bays nine and 10, was only finally delivered towards the end of October.
Bay 9 is the first of five of the wider, or stabilisation, bays along the pier. These stabilisation bays have a different design which includes permanent seating around the outer edges of the decking platform.
The pier has 60 bays in total.
Once the restoration proceeds much further out along the pier, use of the telehandler will no longer be possible.
The team are looking at alternative solutions including the construction of a gantry or other lighter system to lift in the steel in sections.
Queen’s Pier Restoration Trust signed a five-year lease with the government in July 2017 to restore the first three bays of the pier.
This was completed within four years, with the initiative quickly becoming the largest community project in the island.
An extension to the lease was signed in 2021, allowing volunteers to focus on phase two, with an initial programme to restore bays four to eight.
Bays seven and eight of the landmark were completed by the end of last year, taking the restored section of the 2,160ft-long pier to 320ft, or just short of 98.5m.
