Florida’s City of St. Augustine is celebrating its 450th Birthday this summer and the construction of a new $2.4 million breakwater with moorage for mega yachts at the city’s Municipal Marina. The project was completed in June, just in time to welcome El Galleon, a unique 170 foot replica of a 16th Century Spanish sailing ship.

The 1,000 foot long, L-shaped floating wave attenuator was installed to help protect the marina from storms and storm surge. According to Carter & Sloope, the Georgia-based engineering firm specializing in marina construction, the breakwater will be able to reduce a three foot wave to six inches providing protection for the main docks as well as the vessels in the marina.

“We’re excited about the added protection the breakwater will provide for the marina,” said Sam Adukiewicz, the marina’s Harbormaster. “Almost every year, the marina receives a good amount of storm damage; the attenuator should help put an end to that.”

The attenuator will also provide new dockage for 9 each perpendicular boat slips along the east-west portion for smaller power boats plus three mega yacht slips on the outer dock for vessels up to 200 feet in length.

Bellingham Marine was hired as the design/build, general contractor. The company performed the design, manufacture and installation of the new breakwater including all electrical and plumbing work.

As the world’s leading marina design-build construction company, Bellingham Marine produces Unifloat® concrete floating dock systems as well as timber and metal frame systems. The company also produces Unistack® dry stack systems for marinas worldwide.

Contact: Bellingham Marine, P.O. Box 8, Bellingham, WA 98227; www.bellingham-marine.com.

Unifloat, Unideck and Unistack are registered trademarks of Bellingham Marine.