Thursday November 16, 2006
How a marina works
I was just driving around, getting into other people’s business, when I drove by a marina on an impromptu trip down the 79th street causeway a few weeks ago. There was a guy washing a car and a big dog, and I snapped a few pictures of boats up on these huge shelfs, more or less expecting to get yelled at even though I was firmly on public sidewalk. Surprisingly, though, he and everyone else at North Beach Marina was super friendly, and I was invited in to stroll around and ask questions.
The boats sit triple and quadruple-stacked on these metal frames. There is also a hangar, which is the same on the inside but protected from the elements.
A big forklift grabs them from the shelves . . .
. . . and plops them in the water. These forklifts are as big as an 18-wheeler cab, can lift as high as three stories, and have forks as long as a car. The marina has two of them.
The boats sit on two carpet-covered slats of wood which are so close together that I figured a light gust might knock them all over. I’m told, however, that they stay put even in hurricane-force winds, and during Wilma, there was only one boat they bothered to tie down. No worries, no problems.
A slick, James Bond-looking catamaran sits on the bottom shelf. I forgot to ask what its top speed is.
Next to the marina, a little marine supply store specializing in boat upholstery. Lots of work on a sewing machine goes on there.
North Beach Marina
724 Ne 79th St
Miami, FL
(305) 758-8888
Tags: boats, traffic, water · Post to del.icio.us, digg, reddit · Comment feed for this post: RSS, atom
I’m glad you stopped in there. It’s right next to my vet’s office, so while I’ve been curious, when I’m in the neighborhood I always have feline companions with me who are averse to exploration.
I was at the Key Biscayne marina last Sunday and I was thinking “next time I got to bring my camera and snap some pictures of the boats stacked”. And there you go…
See? A D80 gets you in to places you wouldn’t get in to otherwise.
Did you tell the Marina guys about Critical Miami?
have you seen how high they stack them in the coconut grove marina? i have yet to figure out how they do it.