If you ever found yourself in a situation stranded on an island like Tom Hanks in the movie “Cast away” you might want to find a floating friend that is bigger than a volley ball to hang onto. This old dock float pictured below is so sea worthy it set sail from Maine to Ireland where it was reported back to our Facebook page.
It must have broken loose when a tree or ice hooked it drifting down a Maine river leading to the ocean.
I myself have balanced laying on my belly on one of these dock floatation devices in the water just to go retrieve a mooring ball in ice cold water for winter removal…so you could possibly use it as a life raft. Doing this was not by desire but on a day that I didn’t have my work dingy and noticed my dock customer had a mooring ball that needed to be put away before winter ice.
Balancing was not easy to say the least but it can be done. The buoyancy of a Dragon float like this one pictured below is 400 lbs soaking wet. The smaller version is 300 lbs of buoyancy. If you were stranded on an island, one of these could be your only hope for survival. I wouldn’t stick a note in it because it’s not translucent and you would cause a leak getting a hole in it for your note, but I would climb on it or better yet, make it the Maine floatation for my life raft because that’s where I’m heading; back to Maine. I would probably be on a one way trip around the other parts of the world first just to get back to the place of origin. Maine is where these dock floats are made and sold by Great Northern Docks. To build an 8’x8′ raft you really should have four of these to do it but beggars can’t be choosers.
The Dragon Float was invented in the early 1980’s by Fremont Merriam (founder of Great Northern Docks). Fremont had experienced failure in other floats that were not made by him or with durability throughout the corners of the floats. The annual install and removal was hard on the floats corners around the rocky shorelines of lakes in New England. He did make his own dock floats with a plastic welder but that was just the beginning. He decided to design a rotation molded float that had even wall thickness that covers the entire float to every corner of the rotating Dragon Float mold they are formed in. He added framing slots and nubs to the outer shape to grip the dock frame that actually reinforces the structure of the dock frames. The dragon float has indented sides to allow space for your hand held attachment tools (ratchet or impact wrench). The floats also have cylinder openings for bolts to pass through the middle to attach a large skid board to the base of the float. The skid board can extend from one float to the other inline within each dock section. This helps keep the corners from getting hung up on rocks or other obstacles. That Drag-On Float is intended to be dragged around in and out of the water with your truck or tractor. I would not drag these down the highway, but a short distance to where winter storage is safe is just fine. Hemlock has worked great underwater but you can also use synthetic (artificial lumber). These Dragon Floats interlock like Lego so the don’t slide off each other when moving them around on pallets or as stacks of floats for your dock construction project.
Dragon Floats are air filled and if there was ever a leak in one, you can drain out the weight before recycling the virgin polyethylene they are made from or try to patch a leak.
So… back to being cast away and washing up on a far away land; this lonely Dragon Float washed up there in Ireland and would make a good place to sit or maybe use it as a door to your survival shelter. This black plastic float will draw in some heat and keep you warm as long as the sun is out. A bigger better plan for this old dock billet would be to use it as a flotation device and add it to your raft. The polyethylene can be patched if it has a leak. There are a few techniques to patching. I personally like to spin a plug with a router over the leak. When these dock floats are made they have a friction welded plug put on after pressure testing and this isn’t part of the rotation molded process. This plug goes on a router and melts with friction but not a flame. Another method is “Patch n go” made for kayaks and is melted with a flame. The third method I have not tried much but heard one review, is a quick patch by “Bulls Eye Products” (this patch activates by UV light and sticks to many materials). I guess these items might be hard to find on your private island but I might also guess shaving plastic off lightly and melting it into the hole with the sunlight and a magnifying glass could be your only option.
I know by the yellow decal molded into this float pictured below that it was one of the first manufactured in the early 80’s. I also know it traveled across the ocean in 2020. I’ve seen many customers reuse their old Dragon Floats and build new docks on top of them. The polyethylene seems to last forever.
I’d say if I ended up like Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away, I’ would be looking for one of these and strapping it to my raft for extra floatation. If you’re not like him and you just want to build a raft or floating dock, here are the DIY plans for building docks with floats just because you want to.
