Hurricane IVAN and Marinas at Grenada

Hurrikan IVAN / Marinas at Grenada

Since Hurrican Ivan September 2004 there are to only 2 marinas left in Grenada:

-	Grenada Marine	Since 2000 in Port St. David in the south of Grenada, 30-40 minutes from St. Georges with the car removes to reach badly.
-	Spice Island Marine	Since 2003 in the Prickley Bay in the south of Grenada beside the Coast Guard, proximity airport, to reach well in 10 minutes from St. Georges by car/bus.

Up to Hurrican Ivan Grenada had 2 more marinas:

-	Lagoon Marina	Age-old marina in the lagoon of St. Georges, since at least 10 years a nightmare of a marina: Everywhere garbage and trash, putrefied wood bars, everything rot. Behind it there is a totally uncertain and criminal peninsula with homeless people, drug dealers and drug people. Break-downs into houses and on ships as well as assaults on Skipper are there completely normal. The police is hardly reacting. One must chain and weld everything in the environment of the lagoon, so that it is not stolen. Lagoon Marina was blown away 2004 by hurricane Ivan.
-	Spice Island Marina	Was closed 2004 (in former times in the Prickley Bay in the south of Grenada).

Hurricane comparison Grenada Marine / Spice Island Marine

	Grenada Marine	Spice Island Marine
Situation at IVAN
level above the sea	0.5 - 1	2 - 3
boats at Ivan	170	190
fallen down mono/multi	Cats = 0 Monos = 31 = 18 %	Cats = 0 Monos = 170 (ca.) = 90 %
stands	6 + 1 (front)	4 - 6
boats in line	3 - 7	3 - 4
Situation after IVAN
salvage/costs	internally individually after expenditure	externally 5,250.-- US $
marina clear up	irregularly 5-7 days/week 08.00 - 16,00 o'clock	regularly each day 7 days/week 07.00 - 18,00 o'clock
marina cleared up since	??	09.10.2004
other

Level above the sea

Ivan was predicted for of Barbados with 3 - 3.5 meters of floods. Grenada had few floods. With 3 - 3.5 meters of floods ships would have up-swum depending upon level of the marina over the sea level in both Marinas in the flood. The remainder one can imagine…

The more highly the level of the marina above the sea the more sure the Marina will be protected against floods with hurricanes. The minimum should be 2 meters.

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Ships at Ivan

170 ships were stored in Grenada Marines. No cat fell down. 31 monos fell down = 18 %.

190 ships were stored in Spice Island Marines. No cat fell down. 170 monos fell down = 90 %.

That in Spice Island Marine 90 % fell down and in Grenada Marine "only" 18 %, is not because of the fact that Grenada Marine is safer against hurricanes than Spice Island Marine. But Grenada Marine was more distant to the hurricane center than Spice Island Marine, which coincidentally was in the middle of it. One saw that from the fact that the damage in the environment of Grenada Marines was far smaller than in the environment of Spice Island Marine.

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fallen down Mono / Multi

Ivan pointed to both marinas:

Keel boats fell down, because the stands in both Marinas failed. Monos are standing on a leg and fall down, if the stand fails. If a keel boat falls down, it throws the next keel boat over too and so on: to domino effect.

Catamarans kept standing upright, because they have their own stands "built in": 2 keels in the distance of 6 meters and more. If catamarans were damaged, then through

-	parts of roofs etc. flying around
-	by keel boats, which fell down and fell into the multis

In marinas keel ships should be placed beside keel ships and catamarans beside catamarans, catamarans not beside keel boats, which can fall down. Both Marinas had not separately placed keel boats and catamarans before Ivan. Also after Ivan, although still in the Hurrican Season, keel boats and catamarans again were not separated. If a further hurricane would have gone over Grenada, the same damage would have arisen again.

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Stands

Stands in Caribbean marinas are nearly everywhere very bad: Unprofessionally dimensioned, too weak, material too thin, technically incorrectly connected with ridiculous small chains, like a doggy chain at the supermarket entrance. These small chains break immediately, if a stand begins to move in the hurricane, having tons of load behind it, … With rain the stands is sinking into the soil, since they do not have a solid platform. For hurricanes they are completely insufficient:

Such stands break down and bore themselves thereby into the hull. The heaviest damage to the ships did not result from their impact at the soil. The real damage came from the steel stands, when the ships fell into those steel stands and the hulls were punctually destroyed by the bent stands.

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Boats in line

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Salvage

Spice Island Marine

Spice Island Marine let the fallen down ships put up by external companies (e.g. Trinidad) for 5,250. - - US $ per ship independently of size and weight. That caused much additional damage, which did not have to do anything with Ivan. The 09.10.2004 all ships were put up and the marina business functioned as usual. The prices of the marina were the same after Ivan as before Ivan.

Grenada Marine

At Grenada Marine the ships were supposed to be put up by the same external companies, which had put up the ships before at Spice Island Marine. However, Grenada Marine sent the external companies away, after the management had heard about the damage, which these external companies had caused at the ships in Spice Island Marine. Grenada Marine started to put up the ships by themselves with own equipment. That seems to have succeeded:

Damage by putting up is not here well-known from Grenada Marine. Here one worked much more carefully than the external companies did at Spice Island Marine. In addition, putting up the ships was clearly much more inexpensive in Spice Island Marine than in Grenada Marine.

However, putting up lasted very much longer in Grenada Marine than in Spice Island Marine. But we think one has to accept that, since Grenada Marine tried, by careful putting up of the ships, not to cause further damage.

On the other hand, at that time the normal marina business was completely neglected at Grenada Marine.

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other news

Spice Island Marine

Grenada Marine

Grenada Marine required 1,500. - - US $ of alleged "Hurricane salvage costs" from a skipper, even if his ship was taken into the travel lift and set into the water completely normally with not extra work. GM on demand: We had much damage by Ivan and had many additional costs to bring extra equipment into the marina, in order to keep the marina upright there. 1.500, - - US $ is the minimum, which we require per ship, even if the ship did not need additional expenditure from the marina.

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