|
 Miami marine police tagging questionable boats at popular docks
City to remove those deemed derelict
By ARNOLD MARKOWITZ
Waterfront News Writer
MIAMI — The anchorage outside the docks of Miami’s Dinner Key Marina is a freeloader’s dream, but a wakeup call is coming with a bill attached. If that also alarms boat owners who moor now for nothing at Watson Island, it’s understandable.
Both anchorages are within the City of Miami, which is getting ready to install 225 moorings at Dinner Key and to charge monthly fees for their use. Prices, not yet announced but called “nominal” are to include the use of shuttle service, dinghy dock, customer lounge and restroom-shower-laundry facilities.
No plans have been announced for the Watson Island anchorage. Still, the police marine patrol has been there, yellow-tagging boats that are derelict, sunken or evidently abandoned.
Steve Bogner, manager of the city marinas, said Blue Water Marine Services of Homestead was hired to remove boats whose owners couldn’t be located or who haven’t taken them away. The job was scheduled to begin on Sept. 2. “They will be crushed, placed in containers and disposed of at a landfill,” he said.
It’s hard for a boat lover to let something like that happen. Jeff Sadowsky, an independent music producer and studio operator, said he just acquired such a vessel whose owner couldn’t save it – a 26-foot Chris Craft sailboat built in 1966 and moored at Watson Island. He quickly made arrangements to move it before the city could seize it.
“It’s been there a couple of years,” Sadowsky said. “It hasn’t been used in probably a year, I guess. There are barnacles on the sides and it’s full of rainwater. It looks abandoned.”
In mid August, no yellow tags were visible from shore on Watson Island. One sailboat opposite the launch ramps was submerged to the bow rail, its mainsail and boom neatly booted in new-looking blue canvas.
By rough count, there were about 70 boats in the anchorage, from dinghies to 40-plus-footers. That’s likely a low mid-summer number. Satellite photos show many more, presumably seasonal cruisers. That anchorage area stretches about 2,500 feet between the MacArthur and Venetian causeways, and about 1,000 feet from the launch ramps to Palm Island.
Sgt. Mike Gonzalez of the police marine patrol said 40-plus vessels have been cited citywide, with at least five in the Watson Island area. Like Sadowsky’s sailboat, some may be removed by owners before the city hauls them away.
Police said they will conduct “a thorough inspection of every vessel cited one week prior to removal,” documenting cases where squatters are living on derelict vessels and might need aid from homeless assistance resources.
“The city was limited by funding constraints for derelict vessel removal, and as such we only cited the worst-case abandoned or derelict vessels,” Gonzalez said. “With the money available we hope to remove at least 32 vessels, maybe a few more.”
Most of the yellow-tagging was done at much larger Dinner Key Marina, which the city’s website calls “our flagship facility.”
Bogner said about 25 boats fit to take away have been identified in the Dinner Key area, which has a much more populous anchorage than Watson Island. City records indicate that from 2003 to 2007 approximately 265 derelict, abandoned and sunken vessels have been removed from city waters. Up-to-date figures weren’t available.
 |
|
