Issue link: https://geospatial.trimble.com/en/resources/i/1397032
When the Port of Juneau expanded its facilities to accept newer, larger cruise ships, it could not afford to miss the summer tourist season. A young survey business owner endured a challenging schedule and adverse conditions to provide accurate construction layout through two Alaskan winters. overview Location ALASKA TRANSFORMING THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS TRANSFORMING THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS In an Alaskan winter, where time is limited and temperatures are down, the accuracy and efficiency of one's equipment becomes a matter of necessity rather than of convenience. It's a truth that Chilkat Surveying owner, Joshua Ivaniszek, lives each day in the land of the midnight sun. Ivaniszek, who began his surveying career after graduating from Michigan Tech with a double major in forestry and land surveying, started his own business in October 2015. A young man up for a challenge, Ivaniszek signed on as the solitary survey outfit to perform construction layout of two new cruise ship docks in the Port of Juneau. The two new docks would allow for the port to accept larger cruise ships. SOLVING THE IMPOSSIBLE STAKEOUT The schedule was set to complete half of the site in the first winter season, allowing the south dock to accept cruise ships the following summer. "The first season I did it completely solo," recalls Ivaniszek, adding, "the second season I had a buddy come help part time." On most construction projects wooden stakes are set in the ground by surveyors, after which tradesmen will follow and reference the stakes for their construction. The cruise ship docks naturally required many points to be located on the sea floor, for which setting permanent points is a logistical impossibility. The layout work consisted of piles of various sizes, some permanent and some for false work, totaling about 200 piles in all. Ivaniszek monitored the trajectory of each pile as it was driven by using Trimble Access to take prism-less measurements on the pile's exterior and offset the distance to compensate for its radius. This provided a location of the pile's theoretical center. Once the crew drove a pile to its limit, Ivaniszek directed them to make final adjustments as needed to guide the pile to its design location. With crews working tirelessly through the Alaskan winter, the south dock was completed on schedule and opened for business in the following summer tourist season. In the second winter, crews set 48-inch (1.2m) diameter piles at