My firm does marina development as a sideline to our main civil engineering work. We are working with a developer who is planning a eco-friendly resort. A boathouse/floating dock system has been proposed for a small creek leading to a larger estuary. The developer would like to provide 50 slots for the storage of a combination of kayaks and canoes. They want the boathouse to be covered, over the water, and user friendly. Cost is not the driving force, practicality is. Does anyone have any suggestions?
OK, I’ll jump in
– Last Updated: May-13-05 4:28 PM EST –
Each boat need to be individual locked so you are looking at something like a mausoleaum. Lots of long drawers to stick the boats in. If you could come up with a building with ventilated storage areas, 18' deep, 30" high and 44" wide(big canoes) ideally with slide out trays with racks to hold a boat.
To access a boat you would unlock your drawer, pull out the sliding bed with the rack, lift you boat off and push the drawer back in. That would be the perfect, although expensive way to do it.
I think you could go 2 drawers high, that would be about it. You could live without the slide out trays which would cut the cost considerably. Outdoor carpeting lining each box would suffice as long as there is good air flow to keep the mildew down.
The building would end up about 20' x 100'with an 8' ceiling.
make the racks longer
The racks should be longer than 18’. 18 is not long enough for an 18 canoe and is tight for a 17. You might also get some sculling craft which are longer. Actually, most yakers and canoe people prefer to haul their boats around, gives them more options as to where they use their boats. Don’t know if your idea will get that much use, though you might entice a rowing club or two.
The living room, maybe
the family room if you do a lot of entertaining.
Talic Sports Hammock like rack?
I would look to build or purchase something like
the Talic Sports Hammock.
http://www.talic.com/
The Katahdin is double sided so you can access boats on both sides. They can be put on wheels so they can be moved around a building and can be set up to support canoes or kayaks. They are about 6’ long and can accomodate boats of any length. Would would want to add some ability to lock the boats to the rack as mentioned above. I think an advantage of a system like this is it will allow better ventilation so boats can dry out after use. I’ve seen these used by a few dealers to display boats in a showroom and they seem to work well.
~wetzool
hey didn’t I reply before?
this might be the same problem i had a while ago. I typed you a nice response to this post…a few ideas and a few inquires…now i look and there is nothing on here from me. that is wierd. now i will have to read everyoneelses stuff, and hope it isn’t at all like mine was. then i will just look like a “Johny Come Lately”
Liveoutside
There are two entries
– Last Updated: May-15-05 12:31 PM EST –
Scroll down to see the other.
Me too
Why is this here twice?
JackL
Now I see
thanks I didn’t notice the second…or really the first entry. Now don’t I look foolish.
Liveoutside