Garland Gray II wrote:
This is something that I toyed with in the past, so I may have asked a
similar question in the past.

I want to build a floating dock about 7 feet by 14 feet and locate it beside
a seawall fronting a body of water with a fetch of up to eight miles. It
frequently gets quite rough, which the bulkhead makes worse. I am concerned
with how well it would handle this kind of environment, so I was hoping to
hear from someone who might have done this sort of thing.

With an eight mile fetch you're going to find this difficult. I have 40'
floating dock and an eight mile fetch. The dock is basically two 24"
diameter tubes, 1/4" wall with caps on the ends. these are welded
together with 6" C channel steel members and a steel scaffold on top of
this with wood sheathing, all 2" pressure treated, (2" x 6" planking,
and two 2" x 8" running horizontally around the entire structure. You
can appreciate we are talking a considerable mass here. This whole
thing rides up and down on 6" diameter pipes bedded in 6' deep holes in
the bedrock beneath.

Now for the kicker, this thing will ride like a bucking bronco in a good
blow! I bind it by pulling it tight to the 6" tubes with a 4 ton
come-a-long on each end.

Bottom line is, you need something pretty heavy duty to survive..

Cheers
Marty