Poking about the local marinas after the record snowfalls here last week revealed a couple of catastrophes of significant proportions. Those poorer people who do not have the advantage of owning their own docks, but own expensive (read large) boats usually keep them in “Covered Slips” at local marinas, these shed like structures usually hold boats in the 50 to 60 foot range (read $1-$2 million a pop). The forty inch snowfall last week collapsed at least two of the covered slips containing about sixty such craft. Looks like about $30 million in property value involved here, sort of thing that would spoil your breakfast any day.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Ouch!
That’s serious damage there…
When they fill out the insurance claim what will they put down as the cause, Global Warming?
Soutie: Indeed, after spending extra money to keep the summer sun from damaging ones topsides, this is the winter reward.
Boadicea: Probably all insured, but by the owners, the storage contracts I used to sign always excluded the Marina from any and all responsibility (including willful damage by their employees).
OMG: Not likely Global Warming, the ice in the first picture is about six inches thick, and this is the in mid-Atlantic states in February. We used to have flowers growing by now in the days before Al Gore-mless.
S’no joke.
An insurance claim would get a frosty reception if they claimed an act of Gore?
Pseu: Flaky claims for deeply frozen assets, if you get my drift.
LW,
Its sad for sure but hardly the end of the world. Their insurance will pay out, theye will get another 2 million pound toy. Nobody starves, nobody dies, nobody loses their home or family.
… and insurance premiums will rise…
Hell’s teeth LW: so, they take the boats out of the water and store them “safely” and then “whoops”? Oh dear, but don’t you get a fair amount of snow every winter, or is this unusually bad?
On a non serious note, it serves them right; plastic boats! May have survived if they had been timber. 😉 OK, I haven’t tested that theory due to an aversion to plastic boats and lack of snow.:)
Ferret: Not even a sad day for the ordinary folk around here, one boat builder mate of mine summed it up nicely “Looks like a nice bit of Spring repair work to me”.
Wooden boats would get eaten on the East coast by borers I’d have thought?
Personally ferret I expect most people could have nominated a few relatives they’d have ‘offed’ before the boat!
Ara: The boats stay in the water all year, the sheds are over the docks so the boats are sheltered summer and winter. About 50% of the boats are wood and 50% plastic. The damage is about the same for both, the woodies cost more to repair (all custom work) and usually “Classic Boats” so extra charges for repairs.
CO: All boats are bottom coated here against the various marine organisms, mostly grass in the brackish northern bay water but all kinds of limpets in the salty end of the bay, the boring worms are further south in warmer water. From what I know of boaters their boats would certainly outrank their in-laws.
This sort of thing doesn’t happen in Barbados.
What are they doing staying put, somewhere it snows, with any halfway decent sized vessel 😉
Hello CWJ, and a belated welcome, there is a strong inverse correlation here between the size of the vessel and the distance it travels in any year. Some of these big cruisers can now be purchased WITHOUT ENGINES! they become no more than waterfront apartments.