Petoskey Marina Repair

[Dutchman]

[The marina at Petoskey, Michigan]--one of the better city marinas here on the east side of Lake Michigan--was damaged by the winter ice. Their docks and pilings got askew and lifted from their original elevation. Luckily the City of Petoskey will be repairing the damage before the Summer gets into full swing and all the dock space is needed.

See the main specification and scope of the repair work in the image linked below.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/PVMhjzd7vtJD4xPdA

Happy boating.

[jimh]

I found the height of the main docks and the finger piers at the Petosky Marine to be much too high for use by small boats like a typical Boston Whaler boat. For that reason we avoiding using that marina. Perhaps when the dock repairs are made the height of the main docks or at least the height of the finger piers on some of the slips with less draft or less width could be lowered so that a small-boat recreational boater won't need to be an acrobat or a rock-wall climber to get from the boat to the dock or vice versa.

They must have raised those dock in 1986 and thought that the record-high water (60-inches above chart datum) would be the new normal. When we had record low water in 2012 it must have been quite a leap from dock to boat.

[Phil T]

Given that the height of the water level in the Great Lakes does change, I don't see why the docks are fixed rather than allowed to rise and fall with the water level.

[jimh]

Floating docks have the same problem, but for a different set of boaters. For a boat 55-feet long with a deck height of five feet above the water line, a floating dock is a long jump down from the deck.

The marina at Leland, Michigan, uses floating docks. It is a great marina for smaller boats.

[Dutchman]

I found the height of the main docks and the finger piers at the Petosky Marine to be much too high for use by small boats like a typical Boston Whaler boat. For that reason we avoiding using that marina. Perhaps when the dock repairs are made the height of the main docks or at least the height of the finger piers on some of the slips with less draft or less width could be lowered so that a small-boat recreational boater won't need to be an acrobat or a rock-wall climber to get from the boat to the dock or vice versa.

They must have raised those dock in 1986 and thought that the record-high water (60-inches above chart datum) would be the new normal. When we had record low water in 2012 it must have been quite a leap from dock to boat.

Jim I agree but I didn't supply the complete specifications but in other parts of the bid documentation it is mentioned "to lower some of the finger piers"

[jimh]

DUTCH--that is good news. Thanks for digging up that detail.