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Your First Stop for Piledriving Technology News

On the 24th of December 1994, a Russian cruiser sank outside of a small village on the north coast of Norway, while broke free when being towed.

In short, the AF strategy consists of the dry dock demolition and removal of the wreck where it lies. This will be done by establishing breakwaters and constructing a dry dock around the “Murmansk” wreck. The water will then be pumped out of the dry dock so the wreck will be dry. Then construction machinery will then break down the cruiser, and sort different demolition materials to be shipped out to waste and recycling facilities.

APE Holland supplied an APE Model 200 vibratory hammer, to drive down the sheet piles around the wreck.

Follow the link below to see the project to remove the Russian ” Murmansk” Cruiser from the sea off Norway which ran a ground back in 1994 and was unable to be re-floated.
This is a live web cam site with time-lapse pictures. A documentary is being made by the residence of the village and the demolition company.
Webcam pictures: http://murmansk.livecam360.com/flash/main2.php

(Information used from website of AF Decom: www.afgruppen.com)

DeWitt Construction- a long time loyalist to APE, rented a D62 impact hammer package from APE NW to proof some piling for the Army Corps of Engineers. DeWitt was driving about 200 of the 18″ & 24″ -3/8″ wall pipe piles. First they used their Vulcan air hammer with a set of fixed leads to start the piling, but once they realized they needed some more “bang for their buck”, they new exactly who to call. In the end, we got a nice rental- Awesome! Even better though, is the fact that this jobsite was less than a five minute drive North of the competiton’s yard! Needless to say, we had to capitalize on this. So, Josh Greisen and myself loaded up the camera and some t-shirts and took off to visit the jobsite. Check out the video and pictures below!

Vice Construction had a job with Alabama Power where pulling in a crane on the job site with a vibratory hammer wouldn’t be possible. So APE teamed up with Erickson Air Crane to come up with a solution that has worked in the past, a Flying APE 150 Vibratory Hammer! The location was a tough squeeze and there were times the team was driving the cans within a hundred feet from peoples homes. The helicopter had to work at a “higher” than normal altitude due to the fact that the clearing tract for the job was not wide enough for the helicopter to work in, so needless to say the air crane had to remain above the tree line.

You can imagine the pilot had his work cut out for him; the longer the line, the more difficult it will be to maneuver. The piles were 48 inch (3/8 wall) and up to 48 feet long. Piles were driven the week after thanksgiving. On Monday, November 29th the job site had some of the worst weather of the year. Tornado warnings, storms, wind, rain, we were not able  fly unfortunately. The APE 150 finished its job Friday. Once we found the groove, things went smooth (As smooth as one can go with a 9000 h.p. helicopter overhead churning up 100 m.p.h. winds below).

Newly appointed to serve on the US Trade Committee, Republican Congressman Dave Reichert toured the APE manufacturing facility in Kent, Washington today.  Congressman Reichert discussed APE’s sales to foreign countries including China, Russia, Mexico, and Peru.

“We touched on a number of subjects which included APE’s successful bid to supply China with pile drivers to build the world’s largest bridge (see attachments) plus job creation, Washington State’s death tax, trade with China, and issues with the new health care bill” says John White, President of American Piledriving Equipment.

Congressman Reichert took the time to shake everyone’s hand and showed sincere curiosity regarding the pile drivers under various stages of assembly at the APE plant.  He then watched a diesel pile driver start up and pound on a pile in APE’s test stand.  In addition, he watched as a crew prepared a Vibratory Pile Driver being tested in preparation for shipment to China.

Congressman Reichert spent more than an hour touring the APE facilities.  He pointed out that Washington State does more business with China than any other State thanks to companies like APE.

(We had a moment to chat about the Foster Business School EMBA program.   I mentioned “Precision Questioning” and “Customer Value Proposition” as well as the “Organizational Performance Model” as three new terms I discovered in class………………………… JUST JOKING!)

Seriously, we did talk about the Foster Business School.  Congressman Reichert requested that I supply him with a chart showing all the Washington State suppliers to APE so that he could see how many jobs our company plays a role in creating.  I said I would do this after I finish my home work.