midexp
Active Member
- Oct 5, 2016
- 424
- Boat Info
- 1999 40' Sundancer
- Engines
- 454 merc
My insurance is about 3X that but it is for 12 months a year coverage with no layup period. It is the price we pay for boating in paradise!
Everyone should have a hurricane plan, but unfortunately (up until now!) most owners didn't give storms a thought until a named storm had a line running from it to their boat on the weather channel graphics and at that point it is too late to secure a haul out spot. Water front property in Florida is too expensive to tie up a boat yard size plot of land with a boat yard and developers long ago snapped up large acreages and covered them with condos. Most folks without a plan, either tied the boats up in their slips as best they could or ran for it by running the boats up a creek or river and tied them off to trees or ran them as far away from the storm as possible. Either approach is risky because these storms tend to wander and strengthen just before they make land fall. We have 7 marinas in PC and 4 of them were completely destroyed and every boat left in them was lost.
Our marina is Treasure Island Marina located on Grand Lagoon. It is professionally managed and privately owned and we do have a hurricane plan. It is simple.....the management makes a decision on hauling out every boat in the marina or not. The over riding principle is to protect the docks and slips from the damage caused by boat left in the water so we have something to come back to after the storm. They haul every boat out of the water and block them up in the parking lot which is asphalt and "the high ground"; the last 12 go inside 2 large dry stack storage barns built for 150 mph wind loads. The boats are blocked up on the concrete in the middle between the stacks of smaller boats in racks. My boat was in the newest barn in position #4 and it didn't even get rained on. We had no total losses and a hand full of insurance claims caused by blowing debris, mostly from the marina next door which was destroyed. Our docks and power /water survived in tact and our boat was back in the water in a week. The marina did get significant damage (to 1980 vintage buildings with rusted beams and perlings that should have been replaced years ago) but they were open and launching boats within 2 weeks. This isn't a free service.....cost is averaged and runs about $1000, but the marina has 4 licensed captains on staff in service and management and they take as good care of my boat as I do. There is no other way I could leave a boat like mine and live 450 miles inland a good part of the year.......I get a courtesy call when they decide to haul boats for a storm, I don't have to make a decision or do anything but watch the weather online (and worry). If I am in town, I usually help the guys move the boats and haul and block them up, but we were under an evacuation order for this storm and I had to get off the beach or ride out the storm across the street from the beach. Cat 4 or low 5, wandering over a 100 mile wide swath..? No thanks....so we loaded up the dogs and headed to Tennessee. A lot of people lost a lot during this storm but we were lucky and blessed to sustain no damage to either the boat or the house.
Thanks Frank. You answered one question I had and that was the cost to haul out for the cane. I pay about $5000 winter and summer for well and storage. Most likely much less than Fl.