Community Corner
Seventy-five Boats in Three Days [VIDEO]
That's the quantity and time limit the operator of Stratford's Broadwalk Marina has to pull boats from the water before Irene hits early Sunday.
As Hurricane Irene makes her way up the East Coast, boat owners seem to have two options: move it or leave it.
The current challenge at Boardwalk Marina in Stratford is to take out and pen about 75 boats in three days.
"Right now you've got about 50 percent of the boats that you would normally do over two and a half months that want to be done in three days," said the marina's operator, Scott Mitchell, on Friday, which was day two of the three-day effort.
The decision for some boat owners to remove their vessels from the marina on the Housatonic River seemed like a no-brainer.
"I decided to pull out because of the new path of the storm," said Stratford resident Rich Ruggiero of his 34-foot sports fisherman. Ruggiero also took his boat out of the water in the days leading up to Hurricane Gloria in 1985, he said. "It's just safer on land. They lock you up and you don't have to worry about it."
When Hurricane Gloria hit the East Coast, Rick Sykes, whose 44-foot motor yacht will be put into the pen by Mitchell and his crew, was vacationing in Las Vegas. For Hurricane Irene, he'll be at his home in Florida. But before his flight took off Friday, he talked about the boats coming in from other marinas to fill in holes created by boats leaving the slips for storage at Boardwalk Marina.
Sykes said there are less turbulent winds at Boardwalk compared to other area marinas because it sits between two bridges; one for Interstate 95 and one for Route 1.
Mitchell said his marina has always been known as a "honey hole" to boaters, because the two bridge structures provide wind breaks on each side of the marina.
"There's a lot of boats coming in from further down the river," said Mitchell. "It gets real rough right at Long Island Sound and I guess that's one of the benefits of being two and a half miles in."
And if you can't move your boat to a more protected spot?
"Tie a lot of lines and hope for the best," said Rick Sykes, hours before hopping on that flight to Florida.
The U.S. Coast Guard also .
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