Great moorage available, only $15,000 a foot

Pier 17 Marina and Yacht Club, LLC: A New Megayacht Facility is Underway in Fort Lauderdale

Pier 17 Marina and Yacht Club, LLC, the newest and largest megayacht dockominium and yacht club in South Florida, has initiated work in Fort Lauderdale. Located on the South Fork of the New River, Pier 17 offers 26 fee simple deeded slips for yachts 80' to 155' in length in a luxury yacht club environment. Built to Broward County hurricane standards, this modern facility with covered slips offers a location in close proximity to repair facilities, downtown Fort Lauderdale, and the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

"Dock space is a scarce resource and highly desired," says Earl Weber, developer of Pier 17. "This is one of the best locations in Fort Lauderdale, the yachting capital of the world - not just for convenience but also for security during hurricane season." Located on 5.5 acres at the site of the former Summerfield Boatyard, Pier 17 is just east of 1-95 in Fort Lauderdale on the New River.

The Pier 17 project attracted Mr. Weber because of his passion for boating and the very strong demand for megayacht slips in Fort Lauderdale. "When this deal was presented to me I jumped at the opportunity. As a yacht owner myself I was spending $4,000.00 per month renting a slip just off the Intracoastal Waterway. The slips at Pier 17 are deeded, fee simple, under cover, and safely up the New River. I instantly realized the value for myself and other yacht owners in the same position throughout South Florida. I now own a secure slip that is an appreciating asset in the center of Ft. Lauderdale. This deal was a no brainer."

In order to begin construction later this summer, boats are being cleared from the property. BK Construction of Deerfield Beach, Florida is handling the construction. BK Marine Construction is well-known for their work on many marina projects including Lauderdale Marina, The Cove, Pier 66, and Bahia Mar in Fort Lauderdale. Affinity Architects, specialists in the design of waterfront properties and resorts, is providing a design with a luxury yacht club ambiance. Affinity Architects has earned over 150 national and regional design awards for their outstanding work.

The state-of-the-art facility for slips up to 155' in length and 40' beam will include a captain and crew lounge, swimming pool, and fitness center with the latest technology and communication. Each covered slip also comes with loft storage area and a two-car garage. Prices start at $15,000 per linear foot and twelve slips are on reservation. It is expected that the majority of slips will be purchased by yacht owners and yacht builders looking to guarantee a spot for clients to dock in the heart of Fort Lauderdale.

"Pier 17 slips have the added bonus of the condo association performing all property maintenance and upkeep of the yacht club. We will also provide a rental program for owners when their slip is not occupied," continues Mr. Weber. "We have designed and will build the most advanced facility in South Florida, providing a unique asset for our buyers."

Earl Weber has been developing properties since the early 1980s including projects in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama in addition to Florida. He is also developing the Twin Tower Water Club Towers in Coral Ridge, a development which includes boat slips.

For more information contact: Pier 17 Sales Department 954.934.6403 info@pier17.net

www.pier17.net

The boat is a single screw making it more of a challenge, although trawler types aren't as bad as others because of the substantial keel. It also has a stern thruster (hydraulic, powered by the engine) that helps when docking.

As you know, boat handling is an endless learning curve and it takes many hours of practical experience to learn the boat under different sets of circumstances. With her busy lifestyle, I don't think she will become truly proficient anytime soon and she realizes that.

Eisboch

It hardly matters whether the price of gas and diesel is strictly related to shrinking supply and accelerating demand (as the oil companies are claiming while they post record smashing profits quarter after quarter), or whether the oil companies are charging as much as they are "just because they can", there's not really any incentive for the oil companies to sell it to anybody for less. If I'm one of two or three people in the widget business and we notice that the line to buy widgets everyday is just as long when they are priced at $5 a widget as it is when the price is $2 a widget, all three of us are going to price the widgets at $5 apiece and turn a deaf ear to the gripes of our customers. After all, they don't have anyplace else to go for widgets.

It also doesn't matter whether the price of fuel is jacked up artificially by taxes (as it has been in Europe for a very long time) or fundamentally by rapacious pricing at the well head, the refinery, and the pump. A sustained run of high fuel prices would make a lot of our boating choices (like your Navigator, for example) obsolete. You just don't find a mass market for very large, high speed boats in societies (Europe, for example) where fuel has sold for north of $5 a gallon for a long time. High fuel prices will change boating to where there is a much stronger emphasis on trawlers and even (omigod) ((just kidding)) sailboats. Yes, the guys with mega-billions still run 150 -200 footers all over the Med- but working people, professionals, and even successful small business owners don't own powerboats that consume huge amounts of fuel anywhere nearly as commonly as we have in the US.

Everybody will be going a lot slower. It's that speed that *really* costs you. Make that run from Kingman to Scituate at a trawler speed and your fuel consumption would be substantially less.

If it turns out that exorbitant fuel prices are here to stay, it will shake up the powerboat industry in a mahor way. The fuel prices are also having an effect on the values of brokerage boats.

One of the most well established brokers in Seattle told me this week that his firm will no longer list gasoline powered boats. Business has been pretty good at his brokerage this year, with the sole exception of gasoline powered boats. While his brokerage isn't dealing in trailer boats and the same phenomenon may not be prevalent in the smaller craft, he reports that nearly every offer they have written for a gasoline powered boat so far this year has been at a "ridiculously low" price. He reports that he's seeing a lot of "bottom feeders" in the market- guys who are using the high fuel prices and slack demand for boats that burn a lot of it to make crazy offers. Some of them are looking the brokers right in the eye and making offers adjusted from fair market value by an amount sufficient to repower with diesel. Wow. (He also reports that the sellers aren't accepting most of these predatory offers. A lot are still reciting that old saw that seemed more appropriate when fuel was a couple of bucks a gallon, "If you have to think about the price of fuel, you can't afford to buy a boat in the first place"... so it seems that both the sellers holding out for the kind of money the boat was worth when it cost half as much to run a couple of years ago and the buyers trying to steal gas boats are probably *both* gambling that the price of gasoline will be coming back down ).

There are a lot of diesel boats that burn 40 gph or more as well. Getting a 40,000 pound vessel up on step and skimming along at 25-30 knots is simply going to suck down a lot of fuel, whether it's gas or diesel.

On my run back down from Bellingham a couple of weeks ago, I noticed a very unusual thing. There was a Carver aft cabin, something around 36 or 38 feet, creeping along at a speed about a knot faster than my trawler. The boat looked ungainly and unnatural, frankly, and was running a bit "bow down". I paid carfeul attention to this craft because it was slowly overtaking me, at an intersecting angle, from the port side. I was clearly the stand on vessel, so I maintained course and speed to allow this overtaking vessel to port to plan its required deviation of course or speed in order to make a safe crossing. The Skipper aboard the Carver must have been on autopilot. When I judged that we were within about 90 seconds of colliding if we both continued chugging along without deviation, I decided to hail the overtaking vessel on the VHF and ask about his intentions. We were close enough that the skipper of the other vessel could see through my pilothouse door, and probably noticed me reaching for the VHF microphone with a concerned expression.

Before I could hail the Carver, the skipper flipped the back of his wrist my way with apparent disgust, shook his head, changed course to port, and throttled up from about 9 knots to probably 20. He put that Carver up on plane, ran about 1/8 of a mile to get ahead of me, and dropped right back down to 9 knots. My two thoughts at the time were, "Aha! High fuel prices are changing this guy's boating style." as well as "It looks like he isn't having a whole lot of fun, and that's too bad." I have to wonder if he stretched his budget to the breaking point, or beyond, just to make the monthly payments on that boat? If he did (as thousands have done) the difference to him between a $200 fuel bill for a weekend and a $450-$500 fuel bill for the same weekend could be very real indeed- it could be that back breaking straw now threatening to ruin his entire camel.

Eisboch

There's one major reason that oil and other industrial products like stainless steel and concrete has gone up so much in the past couple of years. That reason is ..... China.

Eisboch

I've been of the opinion for a long time that we missed a great opportunity by not taking the same approach back in the 70s and 80s. If the extra tax revenue had been plowed back into research and development of alternative fuels, and high efficiency vehicles, this current mess would probably never have happened, along with some of the related policy fiascos in the middle east.

If energy supplies are being depleted, and clearly they are, we should be glad for higher prices. Ultimately that will lead to new sources and better technology, not to mention extending the day of reckoning when things REALLY get tight.

***** Have a Spectacular Day! *****

John

According to the pictures, the NovaKool (model 9000) has no external condensing coils which adds to the internal volume. I've got a bit of a problem because the refrigerator area is built into a custom built, birds-eye maple enclosure. I am trying to avoid major re-work because I'd never be able to match the wood.

Sounds like you are not overly impressed with NovaKool. Like I mentioned, until recently I had never heard of them.

Eisboch

The Tundra T-80 is very close to the same size and the NovaKool is exactly the same cutout size. I was trying to save a few bucks, but looks like I have no choice. It *is* a boat, afterall.

Eisboch

The same little trip back when I first bought the boat would have been about $240 in fuel cost.

Eisboch

Eisboch

Speaking of boats, I am in the process of replacing the Norcold refrigerator in mine. The compressor died last weekend and I'd rather replace the whole unit since I've never been too impressed with Norcold to begin with. I searched around for a replacement that would fit and found a Tundra T-80 that would fit with minor trimming to the existing cutout. But, after talking to a local distributor, he recommended a NovaKool unit that is somewhat unique. It has a cutout requirement that is exactly the same as the original Norcold, but has 9.1 cubic feet internal capacity versus the Norcold's 6.6 cubic feet. The freezer section is on the bottom, rather than the top.

Since the distributor is local to my boat, I am going to visit him and check it out. I never heard of NovaKool, but he highly recommends them.

Eisboch