The death of my 340DA - Roof collapse at SMYC

Alex D

Alex D

Active Member
Oct 2, 2006
1,408
Smith Mountain Lake, VA
Boat Info
2004 240 Sundeck
Engines
Mercruiser 5.0 MPI B3
This is the call everyone dreads. My slip neighbor called me yesterday afternoon that just two hours earlier the roof on our dock had collapsed under the heavy snow and ice load of the recent VA snow storm. Our 340 is heavily damaged. the arch is collapsed, teh windshield broken and the camper mangled. No boat has sunk yet. But since many of the moored vessels are on a winter heater program the marina is feeverishly working on getting power to the boats which rely on bilge and cabin heaters to stay frost free.
Needless to say I am quite somber today. :smt089

Album with 75 pictures and comments below the pictures.

http://photobucket.com/SMYC_roof_collapse
 
Man...terrible loss. Heart goes out to you. Hope that it is insured and repairable. That hurts to look at. I would be crying.
 
Damn, so sorry this happened. At least nobody was hurt (I hope)
 
Nobody was there ... was like a miracle. But they had closed due to the snow and the road was impassable otherwise someone would have been there.
 
You will get her fixed and back on the water in time for boating season!
 
Alex,

I'm very sorry for your troubles. This is something no boater wishes to experience, ever. I can't even imagine the level of difficulty to save these boats under such weather conditions. Keep us posted on how's the boat.
 
There is always an upside. Nobody was hurt, you will have a nicer boat in the end and lots of people will be employed fixing that disaster. Keep us posted on the repairs.
 
Alex D said:
This is the call everyone dreads. My slip neighbor called me yesterday afternoon that just two hours earlier the roof on our dock had collapsed under the heavy snow and ice load of the recent VA snow storm. Our 340 is heavily damaged. the arch is collapsed, teh windshield broken and the camper mangled. No boat has sunk yet. But since many of the moored vessels are on a winter heater program the marina is feeverishly working on getting power to the boats which rely on bilge and cabin heaters to stay frost free.
Needless to say I am quite somber today. :smt089

Album with 75 pictures and comments below the pictures.

http://photobucket.com/SMYC_roof_collapse
Click to expand...

This is frk'n huge!! It appears that all of the structural damage is at the back end of the covered slips. The front side seems to have held up well. There will be several different insurance companies involved in this one. Does the marina's policy cover this or will all of the individual boat owners have to use their own insurance. It would suck to get stuck with the deductable because of the marina's structural problem.

~Ken
 
Alex

So sorry to hear of your troubles.

In 2004 we had a similar collapse at our marina due to a 24 inch snowfall. We also had several boats sunk. The big issues will be the removal of the collapsed structure, the protection of your boat once everything is removed since it will be exposed to the elements and what they will do with your boat once the structure is removed. Likely they do not have sufficient room to store all the damaged boats on the hard or to find you temporary moorage somewhere and these are the things you really want answers to. At our Marina they had to remove all the boats just to rebuild but we had floating docks.

Best of luck to you and keep us posted.

Dave
 
Last edited:
JV II said:
There is always an upside. Nobody was hurt, you will have a nicer boat in the end and lots of people will be employed fixing that disaster. Keep us posted on the repairs.
Click to expand...

That's a good point of view and I would add that now Alex has his own winter project :grin:...but I feel so sorry for him anyway!! :smt089:smt089:smt089
 
electricaldoctor said:
This is frk'n huge!! It appears that all of the structural damage is at the back end of the covered slips. The front side seems to have held up well. There will be several different insurance companies involved in this one. Does the marina's policy cover this or will all of the individual boat owners have to use their own insurance. It would suck to get stuck with the deductable because of the marina's structural problem.

~Ken
Click to expand...

Yeah, there was an I beam running the whole length of the back of the slips row (just like the one you can see on the water side) . Some of the support posts gave and it triggered a chain reaction tearing the entire length of the beam down. If it had been sectioned the damage would maybe not have been that huge.

The way this usually goes is that my insurance will cover it and then they'll all get after the marina's insurance or the marina itself.
 
Death of my boat? YOU got to be kidding me. INsurance will cover this, you'll end up with something guaranteed to better than what you had and you act like you just lost your precious pet.

I'd be rejoicing and trying to figure out how i could claim the whole enchilada.
 
WOW sorry to see that, hope everything works out for you…
 
My money says no way the marina has enough insurance to cover that kind of catastrophic damage. Clearly going to be seven or even eight figures.

This wasn't an "Act of God" like a hurricane- it was a structural failure due to a faulty structure that should have been able to handle that kind of snow load. It's Virginia, after all...not Florida.

If they don't have building codes for those structures, they should...
 
I disagree with Mike. With the amount of snowfall you guys got, the marina's insurance carrier, if they even have any, will claim the snow event to be an act of God. Most marinas have a very high deductible for customer claims so they self insure for the first few hundred thousand.

My hope is that you have an all risk policy on the boat and that the owners don't file bankruptcy so you stand a chance of coming out whole on the loss.

I am sorry you are having to deal with it, but be thankful that no one was injured and handle the loss of the asset like it is just a business decision. If the repairs are substantial enough, get the boat totaled if you can. I can't think of a better time in the economy to be looking for a new boat.
 
We had something similiar happen 3 years ago, We were fortunate, but many boat owners had significant damage. The biggest issue was getting in line for repairs, in our area the boat owners were 100% responsible for the repairs - the boats in my area look good as new after repaired.

Sorry to see the damage. Good luck getting things repaired.
 
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