Mayor Is ‘Perturbed’ by a Floating Dock
Newer boats with bigger outboard motors are causing some changes down at the docks in the Village of Sag Harbor. Plastic floating docks are supplementing wooden ones as a way for boaters to board their vessels more safely.
Robert Bori, the harbormaster, said he is seeing bigger outboards on new boats, and with the way the public docks are configured, boaters either have to walk a wooden plank from the dock to the stern or scale the railings at the bow. The village docks, which are at least 20 years old, were built when inboard motors were more common on boats of 30 to 45 feet, he said.
Shayne Dyckman, who owns the Flying Point Surf School and has a charter boat that he keeps at a Marine Park slip, found a solution after he and his customers had difficulty boarding his new 35-foot boat this summer. He purchased two pieces of EZ Dock, a polyethylene floating modular dock, and connected them to the stern of his boat. Configured in an L-shape, the two pieces are each 40 inches wide and 15 inches in height, and 5 and 10 feet long.
He failed to obtain permission before installing the system, however, and asked for approval afterward. The retroactive request found its way to the village board last week, and while it was ultimately approved, at least two members were less than pleased.
Mayor Sandra Schroeder said she was “perturbed” that Mr. Dyckman had set up the floating docks on his own, and then when he said he would remove them while his request was being reviewed, he didn’t. “The issue isn’t having them. The issue is taking it upon yourself and saying, ‘I’ll do whatever I want.’ We have too much of that,” Ms. Schroeder said.
Mr. Dyckman had told the board that the harbormaster advised him to leave the docks and plead his case to the board. Ken O’Donnell, a board member who is the new liaison to the harbormaster’s office, told the board the floating docks were “going to become a necessity.”
During a tour of the docks on Tuesday, Mr. Bori said he had done a lot of research on the EZ Dock systems and found they are “so much safer than planks. It’s just the wave of the future.” He has already received requests from three other boat owners who want to install them, and a 43-foot boat at the B Dock, off West Water Street, now has one.
EZ Dock sells a wide variety of dock systems, in many shapes and sizes, that are described as “versatile, durable, and virtually maintenance-free” on the company’s website. Designed to remain stable in changing water levels, they are slip-resistant, too, and easily removable.
The alternative, Mr. Bori said, is for the village to pay to install narrow wooden finger docks, “but that would be a fortune.”
Ms. Schroeder said she realizes an EZ Dock system might be a necessity to those who have certain kinds of boats with big outboards, but added that Mr. Dyckman was well aware the slip wouldn’t work for him. “He could have had his boat moved. He knew what the configuration of the dock was before he bought that boat,” she said.
While installation of the floating docks is at the harbormaster’s discretion, the mayor remains concerned about safety. “What about the liability? What if they’re not sturdy and somebody falls off? I’m going to have to mention it to our insurance agent and see what their opinion is,” she said this week.