Bellingham Marine Announces Australasia Transition Plan.
John Spragg (left), Bellingham Marine President of Australasia and the Middle East, has announced his retirement effective July 1, 2021. Bruce Birtwistle (right), General Manager of New Zealand, has been chosen as his successor.
Newport Beach, CA, USA – 17 March 2021 – After 25 years of exemplary service, John Spragg, Bellingham Marine President of Australasia and the Middle East, has announced his retirement effective July 1, 2021. Following his retirement, he will continue to serve as a Director of the company. Bruce Birtwistle has been chosen as John’s successor. Bruce has worked directly for John over the last decade as the General Manager of New Zealand.
Pier 44 Marina has completed an extensive reconstruction resulting in a more accessible and aesthetically pleasing experience for their slip holders and the surrounding community.
Pier 44 Marina in Marina Del Rey, CA.
Pier 44 Marina is just walking distance from Burton Chase Park and close by to LAX airport and Venice Beach in Marina Del Rey, CA. In addition to the renovation of the waterside marina, the property underwent a redevelopment of their landside attractions. Situated on the MDR Boardwalk, Pier 44 marina now offers a multitude of services and shops, including a retailer for boat parts, supplies and accessories. Locals can also enjoy waterfront shopping and dining as the new retail center features an outdoor plaza and patio seating. The property has an onsite yacht club and additional boater service offices.
Bellingham Marine spearheaded the waterside renovation which included a total replacement and redesign of the existing marina. The original layout consisted of 232 slips, while the redesigned marina now totals 141 slips, five end ties along with dinghy docks and transient slips. The updated marina features a land-side dry stack for boat storage along with a brand new jib crane. The marina’s upgrades include several amenities for boaters such a pump out station, boater restrooms with showers and laundry, 24-hour marina-controlled access gate and Wi-Fi.
Bellingham Marine has completed a redevelopment project at Neptune Marina; marking a project built for the future of local boaters and guests while maintaining the character of the historic waterfront for generations to come.
Neptune Marina, Marina Del Rey, CA
Bellingham Marine has just completed a redevelopment project at Neptune Marina, located on the coast of Southern California in Marina Del Rey. The harbor is known as America’s largest man-made small craft port and is home to over 4,600 boat slips in 22 separate anchorages. Neptune Marina is owned by Greystar Real Estate Partners and accompanies a brand new 526-unit waterfront apartment community situated in Basin B of the harbor. The marina provides boat slips for the connecting apartments as well as transient slips on behalf of Los Angeles County, providing public access to the adjacent hotel.
The Neptune Marina design and rebuild project began in 2015 and through an arduous permitting process was completed in a single phase in 2020. The project replaced an aging marina system composed of concrete piles and wooden docks with a state-of-the-art floating concrete dock system. The new Bellingham Marine infrastructure features prestressed concrete guide piles, timber walers, fiberglass thru-rods and rounded finger ends. The walers are capped with a protective composite deck that seamlessly transitions to planking at adjacent triangle frames for an integrated, modern look.
Bellingham Marine’s company strategy is fairly simple; provide each client with a solution that provides the best value for their specific project and criteria. In order to find a balance between price and performance, each project must be looked at through its own unique lens.
This innovative berthing solution for mid-sized bulk carries provided the client with a best value alternative to the original design concept.
The company relies heavily upon the expertise of its employees, its experience in the industry, and its network of outside professionals to provide each client with a best value option.
Innovation is embraced as a means to achieve “best value” rather than a goal in and of itself. It is this focus on value and ability to provide innovative solutions that allows Bellingham Marine to excel in its niche market and to be comfortable and successful in taking on unique, one-off projects.
In 2013, Bellingham Marine was approached by a major supplier of high quality construction aggregates. The company was looking for an innovative solution for mooring its Panamax bulk carriers at its new import terminal at the Port of Long Beach in California. The existing berth structures at the site were designed for barges and would not work for what the company needed. They needed a solution that would allow them to moor mid-sized bulk carries and support an efficient off-loading operation.
If you work in the marina industry it is important to understand the difference between freeboard and live load capacity and how the two affect the stability and use of a floating dock.
A floating dock’s live load capacity is basically the amount of weight the dock can hold without sinking.
Freeboard, in simple terms, is the height of a dock’s deck above the water.
Live loads are variable and include all unfixed items on the dock such as people and personal items. Basically live loads are how much weight you want a dock to support without sinking.
The two are related. The more live load placed on the dock the greater affect that extra weight has on how high the dock floats in the water.
This is where the discussion gets more technical. All things float based on the concept that they displace the water they are floating on. Salt water weighs approximately 64 pounds per cubic foot. So if we divide 64 by 12 we get 5.33 pounds, which means, if we’re using round numbers, if 5 pounds of pressure is applied to the top of an object, measuring one square foot, floating in salt water, the object will sink 1 inch.
With that simple concept in mind, we can show how live load capacity affects the freeboard of the two most common types of floating dock systems. Continue Reading…