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January February 2020 Marina World

The magazine for the marina industry

A SOPHISTICATED

A SOPHISTICATED AUTOMATION SYSTEM Photo Credit: Luis Hernandez Davila Robert Brown, President of GCM Contracting Solutions and ASAR | Safe Harbour Dry Stacks and Jim Frederick, Senior Project Manager for GCM Contracting Solutions Featured Project Above: Gulf Star Marina - Fort Myers Beach, FL, USA Bringing a Tidal Wave of New Technology As a leader in drystack automation and concrete construction, we have taken an innovative approach to providing smart storage and construction solutions for marina owners and operators around the world. This unique combination of technology and construction methods offers 30-50% more leasable cubic space and a 44% reduction of drive aisle footprint, all through the elimination of a forklift. In addition, you’ll have the capability to store full-size vessels on the top rack of your facility and the flexbilifity to store multiple vessels deep, maximizing your storage capacity, productivity and profitability. CALL 1.239.334.8800 OR VISIT ASAR-MARINE.COM TO GET STARTED! 16121 Lee Road, Ste 101, Fort Myers, FL 33912 GCMContracting.com/Marine| ASAR-Marine.com MARINA AUTOMATION | MARINA CONSTRUCTION TO RESERVE A SLIP AT GULF STAR MARINA, CALL 239-463-9552 OR VISIT GULFSTARMARINA.COM

MARINA LEASES Government needs to understand that marinas differ in scope. What the marina customer requires, how boats are used and how much money is spent on site are factors that should affect concession terms and costs. Requirements at Marina de Lagos (left) in Portugal, for example, are very different to those at superyachtbased centres like Port Hercules in Monaco (below). The good, the fair and the dangerous by Oscar Siches Since this article was mooted, quite a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, the most significant development being the excellent planning study Darren Vaux of the Marina Industry Association of Australia undertook for the ICOMIA Marinas Group. In the two study papers (available on www.icomia.org/icomia-library) there is much information but, as in many cases, if something is created to work for everybody, some non-core information has to be sacrificed that could be important to certain users. Different types of marinas, different cultures, different countries. It is very hard to deal with all of that at the same time. Finding the common characteristics is almost an art. How do we do this? Let’s bring France to the table. Two different coastal areas: one facing the English Channel (La Manche) and the Cantabrian Sea; the other facing the Mediterranean. Each is an autonomous place not just in terms of geographic location, but for type of marinas and type of clients, both of which define the way they are run. At the Channel marinas we find a majority run as mixed societies, i.e. a private-local government collaboration known as an SEM (Mixed Economic Society). Projects are presented by private companies with experience, good management records, innovative plans, and a good focus on integrating with the community. The best private companies run the concessions as 49% partners, while the government - which owns the coastline and the adjacent waters and governs the logistics - has 51%. They split profits, agree on investments, and the balance between government and private interests is achieved for the benefit of the users. In this northwest region of France (Brittany to the Belgian border), the average yacht is around 11m (36ft), it is hard to find a yacht of 30m (98ft), and the majority of berth holders are local or from nearby cities. They are used to sailing in bad weather and dealing with tides and shifting sand banks. They are tough yachties. During the summer, the marinas welcome a lot of visitors from Belgium, the UK and Holland and many of the boat owners who use these marinas as homeports cast off for two to threeweek holidays sometimes travelling as far as Galicia in Spain. Most marinas are public, meaning that anyone can enter, stroll around and visit the bars and restaurants but some marinas control access to the piers for the privacy and safety of boat owners. Let’s go to the Mediterranean. The occupancy of most marinas in the Mediterranean consists of a high proportion of foreign boats, mostly from northern Europe (the UK, Germany and Scandinavia). This has been the case since day one of the marina www.marinaworld.com - January/February 2020 25

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