FIVE-ANCHOR ECO-RATINGS have finally been awarded to both POH and Confed by the Ontario Marina Operators Association's Clean Marine Program.

The City of Kingston-operated marinas join Collins Bay Marina which received its 5-anchor rating in 2005, one of the first in Ontario to achieve it.

Other local 5-anchor eco-rated marinas include Kingston Marina, Treasure Island Marina, and Loyalist Cove Marina.

Local OMOA-member marinas that have no eco-rating at all include Rideau Marina and Blue Woods Marina.

MARINAS.COM has a very impressive database of aerial photographs of marinas all over the world, including many in the region. Have a look.

In Kingston

• Blue Woods Marina
• CFB Kingston Yacht Club
• Collins Bay Marina
• Cunningham Rd Marina
• Kingston Marina
• Music Marina
• Portsmouth Olympic Harbour
• Rideau Marina
• Royal Military College
• Treasure Island Marina
• Trident Yacht Club

In Gananoque

• Gananoque Municipal Marina
• Brennan Marine
• Clark's Marina
• Gananoque Inn
• Gordon Marine
• Hunt's Marina

In Bath

• Loyalist Cove Marina

LITO OCHOTORENA'S FLICKR PAGE has some good photos of yesterday's annual "Don't Rock the Boat" water safety event at Collins Bay Marina.

On K7's Flickr page you can find a photo of the event's man-overboard demonstration, as well as pictures of last weekend's visit by HMCS Kingston taken by Mike Hill and Geoff Webster.

AT COUNCIL ON TUESDAY is the recommendation to use Black Bird Holding, LTD of Belleville for replacing B-dock at Confederation Basin.

They beat other bids from Goderich and Peterborough.

HERE'S THE LINEUP of exhibitors for the Kingston Boat Show this upcoming weekend.

It's a pretty good list, all things considered.

HUB STEENBAKKERS DESIGNATED AS A CERTIFIED MARINA MANAGER.

From Boating Industry Canada:

The CMM designation is a professional qualification and certification program assuring marina customers, investors, bankers, insurers and the public that marina properties are professionally managed and run. The award follows his completion of the Advanced Marina Management course, providing training in site planning, marina-development skills, marina-operation techniques, business strategies, risks and liabilities and environmental policies. Hub becomes only the 4th person in Canada and the 212th person in the world to attain this certification since the programs inception in 1992.

Hub owns and operates Collins Bay Marina.

POSTPONED: The Crew overboard! seminar, originally scheduled for March 28th, is postponed to May 31. The new programme will include on-water practice following the seminar.

LAKE ONTARIO PARK MASTER PLAN - TERMS OF REFERENCE is a 7-page report just released by the City staff for a committee meeting later this week.

The Terms of Reference for the next phase are focused on finding a viable way of putting in place the vision and planning principles agreed to in the visioning exercise. The Phase I Planning Study achieved its goal of reaching a consensus on the future of Lake Ontario Park. Phase 2 of the park redevelopment process has three objectives which are:

• To develop and recommend a multi-year strategic direction and plan for the revitalization and rejuvenation of the park as a public community facility;
• To ensure ongoing and inclusive community consultation throughout the development of the plan and the related implementation strategy; and
• To develop and recommend a long-term financing and budget strategy for the capital construction and operating costs necessary to implement and maintain the recommended development plan.

Totally unlike, say, City marinas.

Request for proposal: MARINA SUSTAINABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY AND BUSINESS PLAN (29 pages) released by The City of Kingston 9 days ago (March 10th).

But the RFP is still not posted on the City of Kingston Tenders, RFPs and RFIs web page.

Update: The RFP was finally posted sometime after 3:30 PM on March 19th.

When it comes to City Marinas we've seen BS like this before.

CITY OF KINGSTON REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL for partial dock replacement of "B" Dock at Confederation Basin Marina.

Interestingly this item apparently doesn't appear in the marinas section of the 2007-08 Municipal Capital Budget.

A a six-year Confederation Basin refurbishment program began in 2006.

A CHALLENGE FROM COLLINS BAY MARINA in support of the International Water Levels Coalition (IWLC).

The IWLC is a citizens group that acts as a watchdog and advocate on water level issues to the International Joint Commission (IJC) and International St. Lawrence River Board of Control (ISLRBC).

The IWLC mission is tremendously important, but their membership, especially in Canada, is quite small. This year, Collins Bay Marina took steps to help expand that membership and strengthen their voice on our behalf.

The challenge is to other marinas and clubs to urge their members to support the IWLC.

We would like to challenge each marina, association, boating business and yacht club on the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario to mount a similar membership drive for the IWLC. Aware citizens, active in making our needs known to government, are the only route we have to protecting our waters, our recreation and our businesses.

Read the challenge and sign-up to become a IWLC member (Cost: $10).

KEDCO'S KINGSTON ONTARIO WATERFRONT WEBSITE IS BACK ONLINE.

Here's the current home page.

Your tax dollars at work; five-figure dollars worth.

Apparently nothing's changed since last November when this first came to light, then immediately taken offline.

It would be interesting to find out: who is well-served by misleading potential visitors to Kingston?

Note the adult and two kids, in a what appears to be a 15-foot canoe, mid-Harbour at dusk in imminent weather. Seriously, how improbable is that? How wise is that?

International-14 class sailboats haven't actively sailed here for quite some time; all "14" sailboats come here from out-of-town, and they are here maybe one-weekend a year. The boat pictured here is Toronto-based, shown in no-wind, flat-calm conditions, which is insulting, a bit like picturing a slalom skier in a farmer's field.

Underwater here isn't blue, it's green or, if anything, it's dark green. There's blue-water diving, but certainly not anywhere near here.

Adding just one more link-button to that web page looks very expensive. Guess how many files you'd need to touch to add another little box to the left of the canoe.

Is the KEDCO "blue belt" website like other websites KEDCO isn't able to maintain?

Take a guess: what percentage of visitors to Kingston ever get their feet wet in Kingston Harbour? A single-digit percentage? One-in-fifty, perhaps?

Take another guess: what percentage of Kingston residents ever get their feet wet in Kingston Harbour over the course of a typical year?

Do you suppose it might be because of fundamental waterfront inaccessibilities that exist here? Just who is KEDCO trying to kid?

It's one thing to try and lure visitors here, but it's quite another to be overtly dishonest about what we really have to offer.

The movers behind this "blue belt" website, Ross Cameron, Don Curtis, and KEDCO, are the very same folks who thought putting the LVEC on waterfront, expropriating MetalCraft Marine, totally eliminating Kingston Marina, and comandeering part of Fluhrer Park for the LVEC was a fine idea.

TOKEN PARK CONCEPT PLANS have finally been posted on the City website.

Download the Phase 1 concepts and the Phase 2 concepts.

Observation: You've got to love how this city does business.

• It plans a public meeting with no documents posted online beforehand.
• At the meeting, attendees must queue to have a brief chance to look at diagrams.
• Then attendees must sit-through the orchestrated sales-pitch.

By not posting plans before the meeting, this assures an unprepared and uninformed audience at the meeting, all the better minimize the chance of derailing pre-conceived development plans.

This is really how our waterfront got so ruined: one step at a time. That's how Block-D got stuffed with tall buildings, and that's how the rest of us ended-up with a token-park.

Here we have a "proposed marina building" with no connection whatsoever to the marina. The foot of the nearest dock, on the west-side of the Radisson Hotel, is 245 m away. The foot of the main docks, on Clarence Street, is over 520m away. That's going to be a great marina building, don't you think?

Here is detail of the juncture between Token Park and the stone breakwater that surrounds Confederation Marina. Note the utter lack of vision: there's plenty of usable space on the stone breakwater. Waterfront cities world-wide that "get it" have piers and breakwalls people can walk on. But in Kingston? Nah! Token Park is really a dog park, a place where the condo owner's pets can "go", nevermind that there's acres of great waterfront space out on the stone breakwall.

APPROVAL OF 2008 CITY MARINA FEES is also on Council's agenda for Tuesday evening. It's on page 38 of the report if the link doesn't bring you directly there.

$220,000 FOR MARINA REPAIRS IN 2008 in a Whig story today. It's all about who should ultimately pay.

But the city's deputy mayor said Kingston has to accept the fact that it is not a waterfront city.

Deputy Mayor Bill Glover said the city has ignored waterfront development and a full range of services for citizens and boaters to enjoy.

Read the whole thing.

THE ADMIRAL'S WALK APPLICATION FOR DRAFT PLAN OF SUBDIVISION is included in the documents for this week's City of Kingston Planning Committee meeting.

Therein is a lousy-quality scan of a "concept site plan", shown below; click the image to go to the source document.

The new theme appears to be, "maximum marina". How such a facility might work in practice, given the extremely limited shoreside space, certainly isn't clear.

A notable oddity: the diagram appears dated July 2006, which is surprising since we've not been shown anything remotely resembling this before.

Related:

• September 3, 2007: No details whatsoever about a marina in the 62-page zoning bylaw ammendment document. Given that omission, you'd be forgiven the sentiment that the developer hasn't exactly being forthright with respect to our waterfront.
• May 16th 2007 in The Whig Standard: Buildings planned for waterfront; Developer proposes $160-million project for pier on Elevator Bay
• July 17th 2007 Planning Committee: The public hearing report (24-page.PDF) on the proposed towers on Elevator Bay.
• May 16, 2007 K7 news item about our Elevator Bay Development public information meeting photo set on Flickr.

The BMCM CARL BRASHEAR, Newport News' newFirestorm 30 fireboat from MetalCraft Marine, is now in service on the waters of Hampton Roads and Chesapeake Bay.

Recall that this was the vessel that mysteriously sank at the dock overnight at the Leeward Municipal Marina on March 21st, 2007.

Here's the marine surveyor's assessment of what happened that night.

BEACH REPORT 2007 is a 36-page PDF just released by Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.

Seven of the Kingston-area beaches are covered in the report:

• Richardson Beach (they call it "Murney Tower")
• Grass Creek
• Rotary Park, (incorrectly identified as part of "Collins Bay Marina")
• Lemoine Beach
• Arrowhead Beach
• Crerar Beach
• Everitt Beach
• Lake Ontario Park (they call it "Lake Ontario Municipal Beach")

Oddly Big Sandy Bay, one of Lake Ontrario's most beautiful beaches, isn't included.

Many of the observations arise from the abject neglect by our municipality for our beaches.

That's not the only beach-related thing that's neglected by the City.

On August 24th we were pleased to report that FINALLY WE HAVE AN ONLINE BEACH REPORT.

But our fears were well-founded: as it turns out, that online beach report is just another web page the City is unable to properly maintain. There has been no update in the two months since August 24th when the information was first posted.

BLUE WOODS MARINA IS FOR SALE. Blue Woods is on the north shore of Collins Bay.

On the Agenda of the September 6th Planning Committee meeting there's a 62-PAGE ZONING BY-LAW AMENDMENT DOCUMENT for the Admirals Walk project proposed for Cataraqui Bay (AKA Elevator Bay).

There are several issues therein, including parking which appears inadequate for what's proposed.

There's mention of a possible marina, but they apparently don't know which side of the pier, west or east, any future marina will be placed.

One point is crystal clear: there will be no off-season vessel storage on the site -- there simply isn't space -- which means that any marina there risks being a money-loser.

Note that a marina is clearly shown on The Forrest Group's website and the yachting theme is central to the project's advertising so far. All this apparently doesn't add-up.

There are also questions about what the developer can and cannot do with the water lot.

Read the whole thing.

Related:

• May 16th 2007 in The Whig Standard: Buildings planned for waterfront; Developer proposes $160-million project for pier on Elevator Bay
• July 17th 2007 Planning Committee: The public hearing report (24-page.PDF) on the proposed towers on Elevator Bay.
• May 16, 2007 K7 news item about our Elevator Bay Development public information meeting photo set on Flickr.

NATHAN BARON'S MINI TRANSAT SLOOP arrived in Kingston yesterday and was launched at Collins Bay Marina. Lots of photos on Flickr.

Nathan hopes to compete in the 2009 Mini Transat race between France and South America.

July 27 2007 UPDATE: Front-page story in The Whig-Standard.

There are still SOME AVAILABLE SAILING CAMP SPOTS in August at the Kingston Yacht Club Sailing School and at the Collins Bay Yacht Club Sailing School. Pass the word.

THE KINGSTON DISCOVER BOATING EVENT returns to Confederation Basin Marina, Saturday and Sunday July 28th and 29th between 10am and 5pm.

Free boat rides for all who wish to give boating a try.

This event is courtesy of many volunteer boat owners and several of our local marinas: Collins Bay Marina, Ed Huck Marine (of Rockport), Kingston Marina, Treasure Island Marina, River Rat Marine (in Landsdowne, ON) with space and dockage provided by the City of Kingston's Confederation Basin Marina.

LAW-ENFORCEMENT THEATRE Wednesday night at Collins Bay Marina as the OPP Marine Unit books a sailor from a group of several yachts from Rochester NY traveling together.

The individual was in small tender, simply going from C-Dock to A-Dock, from one docked yacht to another, while impaired.

Word around the marina is there was no party going on, sleeping boaters on "C" and "A" docks heard nothing unusual, and the guy apparently wasn't lippy with the cops.

There are, of course, two ways to view this.

But there are lessons here:

• Should you be operating a vessel while impaired? No.
• Is the Kingston OPP Marine Unit over-zealous? Apparently so. But then again, nobody witnessed the arrest, and few of us can list hauling corpses out of the water among our duties, so it's hard to say.
• What might this incident cost in American tourism terms? That's incalculable.

  Moreover: How does this story come to find its way onto CKWS-TV News?

You decide. It's all about choices people make, on both sides of the badge.

DAY DOCK CHARGES in effect during July and August at Confederation Basin. It's $3 for the first two hours and $1 per hour after that, for a maximum of $8 per day.

No mention of this yet on the City's Marinas or Flora MacDonald Confederation Basin web pages.

A NEW 65-TON CRANE FOR COLLINS BAY MARINA.

Wow.

There are several waterfront items on TUESDAY'S COUNCIL AGENDA:

Under "Delegations", Marianne Davis, Executive Director of the 2007 Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championship (July 12-21) will speak to Council.

Under "Reports":

• Marine Museum Purchase Status Report. See also today's other K7 news item for details because it's a doozie.
• Front-end financing of the construction of seawall improvements at Block D whereby the costs of repairing and constructing a seawall around the perimeter of Block D adjacent to the City owned lands will be paid by Homestead Land Holdings Limited and LAJJC Inc. and reimbursed by the City no later than December 31, 2008.
• License agreement renewal with Frontenac Condominium Corporation No. 20 for the seawall in Kingston Marina.

Previously (March 20, 2007): List of waterfront items in the 2007-08 municipal capital budget

One year ago, April 10 2006, COLLINS BAY MARINA WAS LAUNCHING BOATS.

This year there's still ice in Collins Bay.

Click for the latest web cam photos from Collins Bay Marina.

We need more waterfront web cams like this.

There are WATERFRONT ITEMS IN THE 2007-08 MUNICIPAL CAPITAL BUDGET which should be approved tonight.

• Under Culture and Rec
  • $30,000 for a Beaches Study
  • $30,000 for Beaches Imprementation
  • $50,000 for Cycling and Pathways Implementation
  • $30,000 for the Lake Ontario Park Master Plan
• Under Marinas
  • $80,000 for Confederation Basin-Power upgrade on E and F docks. E-F docks are on your immediate right, jutting towards the Ramada, as you walk onto the main dock.
  • $50,000 for POH Break Wall floating extenston
  • $40,000 for POH Accessibility Upgrades
  • $30,000 for POH, for the facings of D and E docks. D and E docks are the two closest to the grassy playground area.
  • $10,000 POH launch ramp upgrades
  • $40,000 for Confederation Basin-Marinas Business Case Study (?!)
• Under Planning and Development
  • $75,000 for a Waterfront Strategy
• Under Properties
  • $105,000 for various at the Marine Museum (roof, chimney)

The proposed NORMAN ROGERS AIRPORT MASTER PLAN calls for approach lights, presumably mounted on towers, through Collins Bay Marina, across Collins Bay, over Bath Road, the rail tracks, and into the neighborhood along the flight path.

More info about the operations of the CANADA BORDER SERVICES AGENCY OFFICE IN KINGSTON has been added to our topic on Customs.

It's interesting that Treasure Island Marina, which is just 6 NM East of downtown Kingston, and all points further East are under the jurisdiction of the much larger Landsdowne (Thousand Islands Bridge) CBSA office, which is about 30 NM from downtown Kingston.

MORE MARINA SHENANEGANS IN THE CITY:

Here's a scanned copy of the 11-page City of Kingston Request For Information (RFI) No. CS-AM-2006-02 on the future of Confederation Basin and Portsmouth Olympic Harbour that describes itself as

"Partnering opportunity with the municipality in the provision of capital investment in marina infrastructure and delivery of marinas operations and marketing services"

Read the whole thing.

[Updated]: Click here to view the July 25th 2006 City of Kingston website announcement of the matter. Click here to see the interesting and detailed documents submitted to Council to approve this move in late March, 2006.

Various questions arise from all this:

• Why hasn't this document been widely circulated? It was advertised once in Kingston This Week. Pick-up only from the Midland St office. It was never publicly posted online by the City. Was a notice of this forwarded to, say, the Ontario Marina Operators Association? Were players from the wider marina industry approached? Why such a short leash?

• What is the linkage between this RFI and the Request For Proposals, which apparently would soon follow? Why the rush? The RFI packs onerous production requirements into a short time, and reserves all rights to plans and intellectual property conveyed by respondents. The period for questions, for example, has already expired, just three weeks into this.

• What's in place to protect taxpayers, protect access for boating residents and events, and for equitable treatment for other local waterfront-related interests, both commercial and public?

• Why does all this appear to not pass a basic stink-test? Last April, for example, the The Kingston Brewing Company was precipitously given the task of running #6 Clarence Street, which is now the marina office, in what was the restaurant nearest to Confederation Basin.

This 112-foot Westport luxury yacht recently spent a few hours at Collins Bay Marina. Next stop: Confederation Basin

The City of Kingston has issued a Request for Information for potential partners to "provide capital investment in marina infrastructure" and to "deliver marinas operations and marketing services" for Confederation Basin and Portsmouth Olympic Harbour.

Over at Collins Bay Marina they're already launching boats. "This is the earliest we have ever started the season!" says Hub Steenbakkers, owner of Collins Bay Marina. "It is starting off to be a great season!".

Here are two views from the controllable Collins Bay Marina web cam which you can take for a spin at www.CollinsBayMarina.com/WebCam.html.

At other locations:

• Rideau Marina should begin launch activities in the next week or two, and
• Kingston Yacht Club launch day is April 29th.
• At Portsmouth Olympic Harbour, this afternoon they were hoisting-in the finger docks which winter ashore.

Both the Kingston Yacht Club and Collins Bay Yacht Club have updated their racing and social schedules for the coming months.

Over at Rideau Marina the South boathouse is being torn down. It's being removed because it covers some deeper-water slips that many boaters hesitate to rent because they are under cover. Very soon those slips will be wide-open.

Today The Whig Standard reports that the City is studying improving and expanding our municipal marinas, possibly establishing a partnership with the private sector.

The March 2006 issue of the Collins Bay Yacht Club Newsletter is now available.

The Collins Bay Yacht Club has posted its preliminary 2006 events calendar.

Kingston Marina used two cranes to haul out this 60ft. tug yesterday for a Transport Canada inspection. This boat is due back in the water ASAP with the job of breaking ice for Brockville harbour.

Kingston Marina reports having more boats for winter storage, and more boats for in-water winter storage, than ever before. This picture show's the Anglin Bay harbour full of boats that are too big to be hauled out. Theyare using agitators to keep the ice away. The largest vessel being stored is the Canadian Empress at 108 ft.

CKWS-TV reports that Collins Bay Marina has achieved the Ontario Marina Operators Association's highest honours for environmental best practices.

Collins Bay Marina has other environmentally-related feathers itn its cap:

• Receipt of the OMOA's Robert Eaton Environmental Award “for excellence in environmental practices within the marine industry”.
• Presentation with the DuPont Canada Annual Ecology Award from the Cataraqui Conservation Foundation.
• Seminal work with the OMOA executive in establishing the Clean Marine Program that is now in place across the province.
• Education of boaters and the provision of incentives for participation in environmentally responsible measures and programs.
• The provision of specialized equipment and implementation of appropriate containment procedures to enable their boaters to work safely with potentially hazardous materials in the course of doing maintenance on their boats.