Tide to do the lifting work as ramp plan is used again

A MAJOR engineering project is getting under way this autumn to lift a 400-ton ramp into the air for maintenance work.

Last year, renovation work on one of the harbour's two roll on/roll off ramps used a revolutionary new approach.

Local man Tim Martel came up with the idea of putting two concrete pads on the seafloor and propping up the ramp using steel pillars. The only other way the work could be done would have been to float the ramp into a dry dock, which was expensive and difficult. Now Guernsey Harbours will use the method again, this time on ramp number one.

Harbour master Captain Peter Gill (pictured) said an independent engineer was currently calculating how to go about it.

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