I own a 27' Fountain
Fever and was tired of taking it on and off of the trailer every time
I used it. My sister offered the use of the slip in her boat house in
the marina adjacent to the Southern Yacht Club in New Orleans. This
marina is on the southern edge of Lake Pontchartain near the Causeway
Bridge. I decided that this would be the perfect place to keep the
Fountain because it would allow me to use the boat with little or no
up and down time.
I immediately began researching and looking for a lift to put in the slip
so that the boat would not be sitting in the water. The marina had a
restriction which prohibited the use of a true lift because they prohibit
boathouse owners from tying the lift structure into the boat house and
related structures. Given this restriction, I settled on a waterborne boat
lift that fit into the stall. My investigation led me to the New Orleans
boat show where I talked with several company representatives that had
floating boat lifts. I was very frustrated as each of these boat
lifts, which were very expensive, appeared to be to be constructed from
inferior materials, required extensive maintenance and/or required
significant work to attach it to the pilings that held up the boat
house.
Then one day at work I found the answer. I did a Google search and came
across the BoatFloat website. It described a product that was constructed
for my boat, that had little or no maintenance, was comparably priced and
attached to the slip with ropes. It was simply too good to be true. I
contacted Dan Vinnik with BoatFloat and after an hour conversation in which
he described the virtues of the BoatFloat I decided to purchase one. I
wired the money and waited for the truck to arrive.
Several weeks later the flatbed truck arrived at Schubert's Marina in New
Orleans with my BoatFloat. Using Schubert's crane we were able to assemble
and install the BoatFloat in about two hours. I used the lift throughout
the summer. It proved to be easily operated and the pontoons provided a
great platform to load the boat and to wash it after we got back.
Then came Katrina. Prior to Hurricane Katrina I had a little bit of
practice in tieing the lift, with the boat on it, to the dock for a
tropical storm. I used spring lines that allowed the boat and the lift to
essentially move up and down but not forward or backward. When it looked
like Katrina was coming to New Orleans, I attempted to get the boat off of
the lift and out of the water. That proved to be impossible given the time
necessary to evacuate my family. As such I went to the boat house and tied
the lift down with the spring lines. I did not tie the boat to the
lift.
My family evacuated to Lake St. John, Louisiana which is right across the
Mississippi River from Natchez, Ms. I watched in horror as Katrina made
landfall. I watched landfall on CNN, the Weather Channel and the internet.
Particularly horrifying was the live shot from what appeared to be the boat
launch nearby my sister's boat house. This was particularly horrifying
because I could see the waves and the massive storm surge. Ever time this
shot came on the television, I told my wife that the Fountain was certainly
destroyed, gone and/or both.
After the storm made landfall, I began calling friends that stayed or that
were taking part in the rescue operations. After making sure that they were
o.k. and their families were safe, I asked if they had or if they could see
if my boat was still there. They said they would attempt to check on it but
that it did not look good because all of the restaurants that were across
the road from my sister's boat house were completely gone. I anxiously
looked on the internet at the pictures which depicted a mass of boats that
looked like a four year old stacked up a bunch of toy boats when they got
out of the bathtub. I could see the boat that was in the slip next to mine
and it was straight up and down half in the water and half out. I was sure
that the Fountain was gone and/or destroyed.
I returned to New Orleans about a week and a half after the storm. When I
got to the Marina, the devastation was tremendous. I saw numerous forty and
fifty foot boats that were just stacked on top of each other. There were
also numerous boats that were sitting on land. All of the boat house
structures were either gone or were practically destroyed. As I walked
towards my sister's boat house I was convinced that the Fountain was
destroyed.
When I arrived, however, I saw the Fountain and it looked, just like I left
it. I WAS AMAZED. While nearly every boat and every structure in the marina
was completely destroyed my Fountain looked like I just put it in the slip.
There is no doubt in my mind that the BoatFloat lift held and, more
importantly, protected my boat from the violence of the winds and the storm
surge. It is amazing to think that my Fountain remained unscathed despite
all of the destruction in the area. Indeed, there were several restaurants
that were across the road that were completely destroyed down to the
pilings.
The Boat Float is a great piece of equipment and is easy to operate.. More
importantly, though, the BoatFloat protected my boat, at ground zero, from
one of the largest and most destructive storms to hit the United States
mainland.
