PORT TOWNSEND — A 400,000-pound floating home was moored in Point Hudson Marina early Thursday morning after it was painstakingly moved from the shipyard where it was built.
The 2,000-square-foot luxury floating home — the first built by Port Townsend’s Little & Little Construction — is now awaiting finishing touches to its interior before it is towed east to Seattle’s Lake Union.
Under a full moon Wednesday night, Carlsborg-based Monroe House Moving’s crew raced to beat the incoming tide, successfully moving the structure into the mud flats of Port Townsend Bay.
From its Port of Port Townsend shipyard construction site, the home was slowly rolled, inch by inch and foot by foot, about 150 yards into the bay during outgoing tides Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
Crowds of between 50 and 100 spectators, from babies to seniors, gathered on both sides of the home as it was moved down to the shoreline while the tide went out.
The moving crew used a specially designed 48-wheel system brought in by D.B. Davis LLC of Everett.
The system, mounted on steel beams under the home’s 6-foot-thick concrete float encasing a 500-pound Styrofoam block, allowed it to move at a safe crawl.
Trucks equipped with winches pulled the home forward, while small tractors were used to push the home into the final stretch of mud flat.
The moving crew built two steel ramps on wooden blocks down the beach to the high-tide line.
Each ramp accommodated a row of dual tire rollers, 24 to each side.
As the rolling structure reached the mud flat, the crew used a forklift to place steel plates in front of the wheels for support.
Winches pulled at the structure’s tail end as the crew carefully guided it down the beach’s incline.
Once on the mud flat, a truck with a winch pulled the front of the home while three tractors pushed from behind, nudging the mammoth building forward in small bursts.
After the tide rose early Thursday morning to float the home off the temporary steel supports, it was then towed from south of the Port of Port Townsend’s Boat Haven Marina and north to the port’s Point Hudson Marina, where it was moored near the marina’s mouth.
John Nesset’s Vessel Assist towed the home at about 5 a.m. Thursday using two tugboats.
It was towed to Point Hudson Marina, where it was moored in one of the larger slips near the marina’s entrance.
Bob Little, president of Little & Little Construction who stayed aboard the home Wednesday night and early Thursday with his son, Gage, and grandson, Isaac, during the move and water tow, said the home will get final interior touches over the coming week at Point Hudson.
Nesset’s crew will tow the home to Lake Union and the family who contracted it once it is ready and the weather is good, Little said.
Little & Little already has another contract to build a second floating home.
It will be smaller and with a different design so it can be hoisted into the water by the Port of Port Townsend’s 300-ton marine lift at the shipyard, said Jody Maberry, Little & Little project manager.
The homes typically hook up all utilities where they are docked for water, sewer and power services.
“I tell people it’s a lot like an RV,” Maberry said.
The three-bedroom floating home was constructed at the shipyard on a concrete slab poured around 500-pound Styrofoam blocks.
The home was moved by the crew of Jeff Monroe, president of Monroe House Moving, a third-generation business that started in Quilcene and relocated to Carlsborg.
The well-insulated floating luxury home has a fireplace in the spacious living room with a wall of folding glass doors that can open out to a deck on warm days.
Upstairs is a family room, a master bedroom, office space and a master bath.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
