Boat length vs dock length

[dhays]

As I mentioned before, the homeowners along that stretch of the harbor have had LOTS of money to install their docks. Old ones have been replaced in the past 20 years and the new requirements for installing pilings are very stringent. If it was me, I'd just tie my boat up and call it a day. Nothing wrong with getting an engineer to look at it if it makes you more comfortable.

 

[rwidman]

...seriously people ?!?!!

He doesn't even have the house yet.....

He doesn't have the boat yet......

this is getting comical

Better for him to ask now, before he buys the dock and boat and finds they are not compatible.

 

[Seevee]

I could argue that the most important thing is that it won't cause issues with the neighbors. That alone could kill a deal. Or, if the dock is perpendicular with shore, sticking out so far that it causes issues with the neighbors using that waterway.

Docks can be reinforced and lines to easily handle a 60 or 70 boat, even if it sticks half way out.

I can't imagine insurance would be an issue at all, at least for me. I never ask their permission.

Although we are on the other side of the country, we have MANY boats that are longer than their docks, or even property lines. Very few problems, especially with friendly neighbors.

 

[JustBob]

Better for him to ask now, before he buys the dock and boat and finds they are not compatible.

Exactly. I prefer overthinking it when big boats (and $$) are involved.

Also, just to be clear, that particular picture/dock was just one that could get a clear picture of from the road, not one I'm looking to buy.

One thing I have learned working with the realtor: many docks are shared between neighbors. Say you and your neighbor both end up with a heavy/windage type boat, could present a different load than the first builder considered.

A lot of good responses here. I'm relieved to hear it is the construction/engineering that makes the difference vs length. If necessary, beefing up piles/dock is probably much more doable than extending a dock.

Appreciate all feedback!

 

[BandB]

Exactly. I prefer overthinking it when big boats (and $$) are involved.

Also, just to be clear, that particular picture/dock was just one that could get a clear picture of from the road, not one I'm looking to buy.

One thing I have learned working with the realtor: many docks are shared between neighbors. Say you and your neighbor both end up with a heavy/windage type boat, could present a different load than the first builder considered.

A lot of good responses here. I'm relieved to hear it is the construction/engineering that makes the difference vs length. If necessary, beefing up piles/dock is probably much more doable than extending a dock.

Appreciate all feedback!

Just don't overlook local restrictions or regulations.

 

[Ka_sea_ta]

Bob, The east side of the harbor actually has more current than the village side. As long as your not blocking a fairway or blocking access to your neighbors dock there shouldn't be any issues... By the way The Beryl E is tender in SE... I can also see our boat in the photo.

 

[JustBob]

Bob, The east side of the harbor actually has more current than the village side. As long as your not blocking a fairway or blocking access to your neighbors dock there shouldn't be any issues... By the way The Beryl E is tender in SE... I can also see our boat in the photo.

That's great! We have a good realtor. He sees himself as a future boater and so is interested in finding out how to review engineering on docks and such.

Maybe I can hit you up for local info if we make progress?

 

[Ka_sea_ta]

That's great! We have a good realtor. He sees himself as a future boater and so is interested in finding out how to review engineering on docks and such.

Maybe I can hit you up for local info if we make progress?

Not a problem, the harbor is great place to live. I can get you the name and number of the guy that builds most the docks around there.... Probably built the one that you're looking at.

 

[bayview]

Just add pilings for bow and stern lines in a pattern longer than the boat. Crossed stern lines set to keep the boat pressure off the dock. Some bater poles at the end of dock with good commercial grade bumpers. Then lengthen the boarding area planks to not quite the outer edge of the batter poles for easy boarding. Then the size aand condition of the dock isn't as important.

 

[dhays]

Just add pilings for bow and stern lines in a pattern longer than the boat. Crossed stern lines set to keep the boat pressure off the dock. Some bater poles at the end of dock with good commercial grade bumpers. Then lengthen the boarding area planks to not quite the outer edge of the batter poles for easy boarding. Then the size aand condition of the dock isn't as important.

"Just add pilings...". Lol, those days are long gone. It is possible to get permits to replace existing pilings with the requisite permits etc, but adding pilings is another thing altogether. Docks that are out far enough to provide deep enough water for our boats at low tied will usually be on DNR land (under water). So at the least you need permits from Dept of Natural Resources, and depending on the location, may also need permission from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Dept of Ecology can also get involved. Then if you make all of them happy, you need to make sure that your neighbors don't object as that can muck up the works.

So, you need time, patience, and potentially a lot of money for attorney fees before you can "just add pilings..."

That is one reason why a home with an existing dock has so much value. Also one of the reasons why we purchased our slip in Gig Harbor 6 years ago during the recession. There isn't a lot of new moorage being created in the South Sound and when the economy is doing well (like now) it can get scarce and expensive.

That side of the Harbor is very nice. You get more light there in the winter with its Southwest exposure and you are a short row across the harbor to the Tides Tavern. What more could you ask for?

 

[ranger58sb]

"Just add pilings...". Lol, those days are long gone. It is possible to get permits to replace existing pilings with the requisite permits etc, but adding pilings is another thing altogether.

Yeah, and our previous marina owners told me even permitting for replacing piles around here is a long process. The local permitting folks apparently start with the answer "No" and work from there, even for replacements.

A few years ago, somebody was fined for docking one of those PWC drive-on floaty things in one of the marina slips; can't remember if it was the PWC owner or the marina, or both... but somehow that didn't pass the permitting process, after the inspectors discovered it and fined the (whomevers).

-Chris

 

[psneeld]

Yeah, and our previous marina owners told me even permitting for replacing piles around here is a long process. The local permitting folks apparently start with the answer "No" and work from there, even for replacements.

A few years ago, somebody was fined for docking one of those PWC drive-on floaty things in one of the marina slips; can't remember if it was the PWC owner or the marina, or both... but somehow that didn't pass the permitting process, after the inspectors discovered it and fined the (whomevers).

-Chris

Sounds like Jersey....

....with Washington States anti fouling rules....and possible NDZ....surprised they aren't trying to just ban recreational boats.

 

[FF]

"Yeah, and our previous marina owners told me even permitting for replacing piles around here is a long process. The local permitting folks apparently start with the answer "No" and work from there, even for replacements."

On lake Champlain the same buroRat insanity exists.

The folks that work the water front have a simple solution , a contract that basically sez "its your fault" they are not responsible..

Pilings and docks are built , some are never noticed , the ones that are simply eventually pay a fine.

Land owners get to use the improvement for 5-10 years before a buroRat permit might be issued ,
and the fine is far less than the legal cost of a decade of liar for hire bills.

Just do what you need , but keep the neighbors happy.

 

[foggysail]

Yeah, and our previous marina owners told me even permitting for replacing piles around here is a long process. The local permitting folks apparently start with the answer "No" and work from there, even for replacements.

-Chris

On lake Champlain the same buroRat insanity exists.

The folks that work the water front have a simple solution , a contract that basically sez "its your fault" they are not responsible..

Pilings and docks are built , some are never noticed , the ones that are simply eventually pay a fine.

Land owners get to use the improvement for 5-10 years before a buroRat permit might be issued ,
and the fine is far less than the legal cost of a decade of liar for hire bills.

Just do what you need , but keep the neighbors happy.

Yes! And the it will get worse because of crazy environmental B.S.

Yesterday's WSJ had an article written by a farmer who discussed how Northern California is practically underwater and he cannot get enough water to see his almonds and pistachios trees flourish.

He claims there is a scorched-earth campaign by environmentalists such as the Natural Resources Defense Council along with the San Joaquin River Restoration Program to support delta smelt and screw the farmers under the pretext of the Endangered Species Act. But the environmentalist overlook the invasion of stripped bass that eat the smelt which continues to diminish.

He presented a long list of complaints that include destruction of dozens of dams that have eliminated water storage that could be used for crops.

There are situations for environmental action but in too many cases it has gone too far! The general public should pay attention instead of acting as frogs do in a pan of water about to boil.

 

[dhays]

FF, interesting the old "don't ask permission, just ask forgiveness..." technique.

I am not sure you could do that here. The contractors here that sink the piles don't want their business license (or their insurance) to be revoked. They are required to have a permit before sinking a pile and can be held liable. The homeowner may pay a fine, the contractor could be put out of business.

I know that there are divers that will install moorings without a permit in Puget Sound, but they more easily slip under the radar. Not sure why they bother because the permit process for a mooring isn't all that bad. Unless of course you are trying to do it in a prohibited loacation.

 

[ranger58sb]

"Yeah, and our previous marina owners told me even permitting for replacing piles around here is a long process. The local permitting folks apparently start with the answer "No" and work from there, even for replacements."

Pilings and docks are built , some are never noticed , the ones that are simply eventually pay a fine.

Land owners get to use the improvement for 5-10 years before a buroRat permit might be issued ,
and the fine is far less than the legal cost of a decade of liar for hire bills.

Just do what you need , but keep the neighbors happy.

FF, interesting the old "don't ask permission, just ask forgiveness..." technique.

I am not sure you could do that here. The contractors here that sink the piles don't want their business license (or their insurance) to be revoked. They are required to have a permit before sinking a pile and can be held liable. The homeowner may pay a fine, the contractor could be put out of business.

Yeah, in the example I cited... I was told the fines -- both for marina and the slipholder himself (who had brought his own PWC float) -- were both very significant, way more than what would have been the cost of permitting and permit-related legal fees (had it ever been approved).

Part of the problem, in that case, was who knew one might need a permit to "dock" a PWC float-on contraption... in a slip intended to have a boat docked in it. It was something about how much light the thing blocked (it pretty much covered almost all of the square footage of the slip)... compared to what a boat would have blocked.

-Chris

 

[BandB]

Part of the problem, in that case, was who knew one might need a permit to "dock" a PWC float-on contraption... in a slip intended to have a boat docked in it. It was something about how much light the thing blocked (it pretty much covered almost all of the square footage of the slip)... compared to what a boat would have blocked.

-Chris

I once looked at the rules on the Chesapeake. They were very much tied to light penetration and a limit to the total square feet the pier and dock could cover. Permits hard to get. Just looking through realtor.com I saw some outrageously priced lots, I believe in Edgewater, and it turned out it was because they had a community dock which under the new regulations they never would have been able to get permitted.

 

[FF]

But the environmentalist overlook the invasion of stripped bass that eat the smelt which continues to diminish.

Enviro wackos Wrong?

No wonder the 1970's Club of Rome predicted ICE AGE is missing and were not having food wars!

 

[psneeld]

NJ too on light penetrstion...easier to get a fixed dock with more pilings than a floater with several or no pilings and just anchored.

In NJ you lease the total square area the docks take up from the state.

Have a friend with a situation where he was paying an amount for 20 some years, the state was cashing the checks and all seemed wel, until Sandy.

Not the state can't find that the docks were ever permitted, even though a title search and cashed checks never raised any alarms. Now it is a big buck issue to have everything surveyed and permitted. No granfathering....but still trying to work a few possibilities.

Used to fly the state guy around who looked for illegal marinas, moorings and docks. Nice guy, no sense of humor when it came to his job...

 

[ranger58sb]

I once looked at the rules on the Chesapeake. They were very much tied to light penetration and a limit to the total square feet the pier and dock could cover. Permits hard to get. Just looking through realtor.com I saw some outrageously priced lots, I believe in Edgewater, and it turned out it was because they had a community dock which under the new regulations they never would have been able to get permitted.

Could well be; Edgewater -- and Woodland Beach and Londontowne neighborhoods, with several "community docks" scattered throughout -- is all around us here.

Mixed neighborhood, originally mostly summer beach homes for DC and Bal'mer well-to-do. No insulation, etc. Now, many would be considered shacks, and these days a common approach is to buy a house for the lot (significant bucks$$$, considering), knock the house down, and start all over.

-Chris

 

[BandB]

and these days a common approach is to buy a house for the lot (significant bucks$$$, considering), knock the house down, and start all over.

-Chris

That's done often in Fort Lauderdale, sometimes paying anywhere from $2 million to $5 million or more and then tearing the house down. Financially, not worth it. But if you want a new waterfront home, that's the only way to get there, and if you want it in certain areas, that's the going price.

 

[ranger58sb]

That's done often in Fort Lauderdale, sometimes paying anywhere from $2 million to $5 million or more and then tearing the house down. Financially, not worth it. But if you want a new waterfront home, that's the only way to get there, and if you want it in certain areas, that's the going price.

Yep. We decided it's not cost-effective, for us.

-Chris

 

[BandB]

Yep. We decided it's not cost-effective, for us.

-Chris

I understand with some homes they tear down, but not others. Most of the tear downs are replaced with the largest possible home they can fit on the lot. Of course, our home was the same at one time, when I'm sure something was torn down for it to be built in 1995. Makes me wonder what was here before. It had never really crossed my mind until now. I'm sure there's someone in our neighborhood who was here before then. We did have a neighbor who had lived here since long before this house was built, but we never met her as she went into the hospital right after we bought and then nursing home and back and forth and finally to assisted living. We did finally meet her daughter. It took her over three years to talk her mother into letting her sell the house. At first it was, "you should" but finally with the cost of her assisted living it became "we have to" and her mother realizing she wasn't returning.

 

[ranger58sb]

I understand with some homes they tear down, but not others. Most of the tear downs are replaced with the largest possible home they can fit on the lot.

Yep, both true. At one point, code around here on waterfront properties only allowed building onto the original shell. I think only internal or height modifications, aside from cosmetic exterior things. Something like that.

Might still apply to actual waterfront properties, but I stopped paying attention to it after we considered several and decided against the expense -- not just house expense, but expense of waterfront maintenance (docks, rip-rap, whatever).

Most of the tear-downs I mentioned are in the water-privileged communities. The ones I'm immediately familiar with are not direct waterfront, although some have water views, or water frontage across the street, etc. In those cases, yep lot size limit dictates, with some head-nods to actual building codes (like how close to the lot line can one build, etc.).

In this county, it's apparently easy to get a variance if you know someone, apparently impossible to get a variance if you don't. I've never been here long enough at a time (and in the same place) to get connected well enough to know why Homeowner X can get a variance, but Homeowner Y, right next door, can't get the same variance. Could be other factors, too, of course...

-Chris

 

[dannc]

I hate to think how many decades ago it was, but back in the 80's, my dad kept his sail boat behind a house in Ft. Lauderdale. Back then, houses were being bought, torn down and new houses built on the lot. The new houses were much bigger than the houses that were bought. The tear down process started back in the 80's maybe late 70s I suppose. The original houses all had a certain look, most if not all, were single story while the new house were all two story and had a completely different look. The old houses looked better to me than the new McMansions being built to take up as much of the lot as possible.

Back around 1990ish, a home owner on a major east/west canal in Broward county decided to add on to his lot by moving the sea wall farther out into the canal and back filling. How the idiot thought he could get away with that change is beyond me. Kinda impossible to not notice that this one sea wall was not aligned with every other sea wall on the canal. I can't remember the guys fine but it was huge. Not only did he pay to expand his yard, he then had to pay a fine for the expansion, and then pay to move the sea wall back to where it was originally. That guy was a genius.

Later,
Dan

 

[BruceK]

That's done often in Fort Lauderdale, sometimes paying anywhere from $2 million to $5 million or more and then tearing the house down. Financially, not worth it. But if you want a new waterfront home, that's the only way to get there, and if you want it in certain areas, that's the going price.

That happens here, often, albeit towards the lower end of the range,and the properties are not even waterfront. Property bubble? Maybe.

 

[BandB]

That happens here, often, albeit towards the lower end of the range,and the properties are not even waterfront. Property bubble? Maybe.

What goes up must come down. Property sales are high in our area right now and prices reflect it. Apparently everyone has forgotten about the recession and then all the foreclosures that followed. And while the sales are taking place there are also plenty of foreclosures occuring here. They don't even remember as far back as 2012. When we moved to FLL, the housing sales were bad. The house we bought, we purchased at less than 75% of their original asking price as it had been on the market two years and had actually been acquired as an investment. It appraised at the asking price but there was no buyer. Of they type houses and locations we were looking, most of the houses had been on the market at least 18 months and some up to three years. Now it's 2017.

And today it's not as good as some think. We live in a prime neighborhood of 350 homes. 40 are for sale. The other three island neighborhoods closest to us are much the same. Some of the people buying the lots, knocking down the homes, and building are speculative investors. A lot of the houses for sale are not serious, but people listing at a price they couldn't refuse. One nearby listed at double what they paid for it four years ago. And a lot that have been built of purchased as investments are being rented now.

 

[BandB]

I hate to think how many decades ago it was, but back in the 80's, my dad kept his sail boat behind a house in Ft. Lauderdale. Back then, houses were being bought, torn down and new houses built on the lot. The new houses were much bigger than the houses that were bought. The tear down process started back in the 80's maybe late 70s I suppose. The original houses all had a certain look, most if not all, were single story while the new house were all two story and had a completely different look. The old houses looked better to me than the new McMansions being built to take up as much of the lot as possible.

Back around 1990ish, a home owner on a major east/west canal in Broward county decided to add on to his lot by moving the sea wall farther out into the canal and back filling. How the idiot thought he could get away with that change is beyond me. Kinda impossible to not notice that this one sea wall was not aligned with every other sea wall on the canal. I can't remember the guys fine but it was huge. Not only did he pay to expand his yard, he then had to pay a fine for the expansion, and then pay to move the sea wall back to where it was originally. That guy was a genius.

Later,
Dan

The theory is that take a $2 million lot with a $500k house, knock down the house and build a home that costs $1 million to build and get $4 million for it, but build a home that costs $3 million to build and sell it for $8 million. That's just theory though. I don't see that happening much.

As to the genius trying to pull the deal on the seawall, it's lie robbing a store and then showing what you got away with on facebook. Regularly there are people who decide to ignore the rules on how much of the canal you can take up with your dock and boat. It only takes one person to complain and they are inspected and told they can't dock their new boat at their house.

 

[dhays]

I ran across this listing for a waterfront home in Gig Harbor with a nice dock out front. Only, $2.3 Million but check out the property.

 

[DC36Monk]

I didn't realize that. Where is the nearest fuel?

Tacoma at City Waterway or possibly at Narrows Marina. If you need advice on the dock call Wendell at Marine Floats in Tacoma. He knows what you can do where.