For boaters and the Port of Los Angeles, the renovated Cabrillo Way Marina in San Pedro, Calif., has been a long time coming. Five hundred slips remained of the 600 built in the 1960’s, but they had nearly all overstayed their welcome. Little more than timber logs held the rickety wooden docks together, and old electrical wiring ran along the walkway.
MAGAZINE: Marina Dock Age
ISSUE: January/February 2012
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The design and construction of a marina at St. Paul Island, located in the Bering Sea on one of the Pribilof Islands, posed a demanding set of design challenges in a remote location subject to extreme environmental conditions.
Marina floating dock systems feature unique engineering characteristics. Unlike buildings and bridges, which for the most part are designed to remain stationary, such floating systems are almost always in motion and are therefore far more susceptible to fatigue. And while most buildings will never actually be tested under the full force of the maximum wind or seismic load for which they were designed, floating marinas often experience their maximum design loads at some point in their service life. They are regularly threatened by these design limit forces and, even more, by wind, wave, and storm surges. And floating marinas, like any other structures on water, are subject to corrosion from the saltwater environment. Despite these harsh conditions, modern floating dock marinas can remain in service for more than 50 years.
MAGAZINE: Civil Engineering
ISSUE: November 2011
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The 5,000-slip Marina del Rey in Marina del Rey, Calif., is the largest man-made basin for pleasure boats in the nation. The basin is owned by Los Angeles County and managed by the county’s Department of Beaches and Harbors, which leases its approximately 60 parcels to marina operators, hotels, restaurants, shops and other businesses. It’s the only significant yacht harbor other than Long Beach and Redondo Harbor for 18 million people in the five-county Los Angeles Metropolitan area.
MAGAZINE: Marina Dock Age
ISSUE: September/October 2011
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Of all the latest product and design developments in the marina industry today, architectural lighting may be the most dramatic. With the advent of new technologies, marina lighting has been elevated from safety and security to art and architecture. Landmark buildings in every city use architectural lighting for aesthetic accents and to showcase line and form. Every city with a bridge uses lighting to illuminate its soaring towers and rhythmic cadences. So why can’t marinas, so beautiful in daylight, be beautiful at night?
MAGAZINE: Marina Dock Age
ISSUE: July/August 2011
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Thanks to modern marine engineering, boats no longer have to be tormented by choppy waves in the marina basin. Tenants demand millpond-still water inside marinas, and with current technology, marinas can give it to them. However, getting it right is not as simple as it seems. Many developers buy systems that are too much, or too little or just plain wrong for their marina, and getting it wrong can be expensive or disastrous.
MAGAZINE: Marina Dock Age
ISSUE: May/June 2011
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