Complete renovation includes new docks — and a whole lot more. CHANNEL ISLANDS HARBOR — Ahead of schedule and nearing completion, Channel Islands Harbor Marina is getting ready to open new slips in the last phase of the complete renovation of the aging marina. “We are glad it is done,” stated an elated Brian Dunn, president of Vintage Marina Partners, operators of Channel Islands Harbor Marina. “We’ve had a few setbacks on the way, but we will have completed the waterside part of the renovation — all the docks systems — in March. That’s 15 months from the beginning of construction.”
The more-than-40-year-old marina was formerly showing its age, with listing and weatherbeaten wooden docks, unstable gangways and crumbling concrete. Its new aluminum ramps, contemporary entry gates and Unifloat concrete docks are a testament to modern technology. Cash and Associates and Bellingham Marine have provided design and construction support for the renovation.
The $15 million-plus project, which had been scheduled to take up to two years to complete, will be finished this month. Some shoreside improvements are still to be completed — including refurbishing the marina office, restrooms and showers.
Dunn stated that marina construction would have begun sooner if it hadn’t been for delays caused by two local environmental groups with concerns about noise levels affecting nesting birds in the area near construction.
“We hired a full-time biologist to help with bird and noise level monitoring,” Dunn explained. “This added about $100,000 to the cost of the development.
“We even used a mesh sound curtain to help reduce noise further, by about 20 decibels, during pile driving,” Dunn added. He also said that the sound curtain was a custom design, as he knew of no one else who had used this before.
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MAGAZINE: The Log
ISSUE: March 2008
Recent marina projects with floating buildings demonstrate the evolution of the engineering used to design and build them. While small, lightweight harbormaster offices are often seen at the end of docks to greet visitors, today’s floating buildings encompass significantly greater area, weight and windage, and can be used for anything under the sun.
The Boathouse at Loyola Marymount
One of the largest is the Loyola Marymount University (LMU) Boathouse located in Marina del Rey, California. The 15.2m by 22.9m (50 ft. by 75 ft.) float was designed and built by Bellingham Marine in 2000 and supports a large wood frame boat house used for the university’s rowing activities. The LMU Boathouse has a bathroom inside, a good idea if one is about to step into a rowing shell. A waste tank was embedded inside the core of a float module, and sewage is pumped to land as the tank is filled.
Bellingham’s Manager of Project Development for the Southwest Division, Eric Noegel, has been involved in several projects with floating buildings. “The key criteria are strength and stiffness,” said Noegel. “Just as any building on land requires a stable foundation, a float under a building must act as one piece as a wave passes underneath. The float under the LMU Boathouse does just that.”
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MAGAZINE: Marina World
ISSUE: March/April 2008
There are two pieces of wisdom that apply when reading articles about industry pioneers: history is written by the winners; and when winners write history, events that appear inevitable in hindsight were not at all inevitable at the time.
With that in mind, you might think a story about Bellingham Marine, the largest marina builder in the world, would start with a Cinderella debut and march relentlessly forward to everlasting glory and acclaim.
The real story is different. Soggy boxes nearly sank the company’s fledgling marina business and with it, perhaps, the whole concept of concrete floating docks. Were it not for a few believers (and more than a few well-timed engineering changes) we might never have heard of Bellingham Marine.
To learn the genesis of the modern concrete floating marina we interviewed the man who was there from the beginning, Pete Gaasland. Pete worked on many of the foundational projects that built the industry we know today. Pete is the former owner of Bellingham Marine. He still keeps an office on the waterfront in Bellingham, not far from Bellingham Marine’s world headquarters. He sold the company to Japanese and Canadian interests in 1995. Pete continues to have business interests in the area and commutes between the Pacific Northwest and his other home in Sun Valley, Idaho with his charming wife Sue.
In 1958 Pete Gaasland was just out of college and ready to learn the family business. As he tells it, the company did not seek to build marinas; the marina business came to them.
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MAGAZINE: Marina World
ISSUE: January/February 2008
Bob Brandon got his start in the boatyard business at the age of 14. In the forty-plus years that have past, Brandon has spent all of his working life in the boatyard industry, where he has developed a healthy respect for the environment, and especially for the health of Chesapeake Bay. “If we pollute the bay and it dies,” said Brandon, “there won’t be any boaters. We’ll all be out of business.”
In 2004, Brandon got an opportunity to put his environmental beliefs to the test. He was moving his boatyard to a new location on the Bay, providing him with an opportunity to put his ideas for an environmentally-designed boatyard and marina into action.
Current status
Brandon owns and manages the newest and most modern boat repair facility on Chesapeake Bay: Port Covington Maritime Center. Its major tenant is Tidewater Yacht Service, a major repair and service center for large boats. In fact, Port Covington is one of the only large-boat, full-service boatyards in Chesapeake Bay.
The facility is anchored by a two story, 6,000 sq. ft. office and retail building connected to a 9,000 sq. ft. repair building. The repair facility sports 30-foot high doors and can accommodate vessels up to 55 feet in length. A paved and lighted outdoor boat storage area has year-round water and electricity. Haulouts are managed with 35- and 75-ton Travelifts working at two haulout slips. A 20-ton forklift is available for outdoor rack storage for boats up to 40 feet.
For 20 years at its prior location, Brandon’s boatyard business was on a five-acre site in Baltimore’s famous Inner Harbor. His move in 2005 to a new location was prompted by interest from a large corporate neighbor (Domino Sugar) that wanted his Inner Harbor site for refinery expansion. Brandon sold the Inner Harbor site in 2005, giving him a chance rebuild on a larger eight-acre site and to design a less cramped, more efficient facility—with a rigorous approach to pollution control—from the ground up.
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MAGAZINE: Marina Dock Age
ISSUE: January/February 2008
The year is 1970. An engineering handbook published by the State of California advises marina designers that the “design boat,” or median-size boat for marina planning, is 29.5 feet long. It seemed reasonable at the time.
It’s easy to find amusing and shortsighted what planners trusted in 1970. It’s much harder to predict the future over the 40 to 50 year life span of our new or remodeled marinas.
The boatbuilding industry is enjoying an economic boom in larger vessels, especially mega yachts 30 meters (98 feet) and longer. The effects are being felt in our US marinas and all over the world. Where are the slips for all these new boats?
The news is not good. There are actually fewer slips in the US each year. A remodeled marina will have 8% to 15% fewer slips than before the remodel. The pages of Marina Dock Age celebrate new marinas built and remodeled in every issue, but existing marinas are being torn down, never to be replaced. Often the waterfront is lost to boating by developers motivated by “highest-use” projects that offer a better ROI. It is estimated that the number of slips nationwide drops 4% to 5% annually, year after year.
Fortunately, the boat building industry is catching on, getting alarmed at the consequences, and entering the game. The National Marine Manufacturer’s Association (NMMA) is now an active political ally in the fight to preserve the waterfront for boating. Lobbying pressure from the NMMA advocates for marina land and waterfront use, and argues that an important, vibrant industry will be devastated if our recreational marinas are lost to real estate developers and no-growth environmentalists.
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MAGAZINE: Boat and Motor Dealer
ISSUE: December 2007