In 2019, Bowdoin College selected Custom Float Services to build and install a state-of-the-art float storage system at the Schiller Coastal Studies Center in Harpswell, Maine, for the college’s 36 Collegiate 420 racing sailboats.
This highly innovative project involved the creation of a 32′-by-120′ system using 18 timber-framed floats. Baker Design Consultants Inc., in Freeport, Maine, provided engineering and site plans for the system, which utilizes CFS float designs and proprietary hardware. CFS used perforated, reinforced plastic deck panels down the center, which increases light penetration into the water column below the docks, in order to promote bottom marine growth. The unique system is designed to provide low-freeboard access at the edges to easily launch and retrieve the racing sailboats, while maintaining higher freeboard in the center. Because of issues with ice over the winter, the system is designed to be hauled out of the water by crane and reassembled on-site each year.
CFS’s marine division towed the float system in two sections to the Schiller Coastal Studies facility. Installation required considerable logistics: CFS repositioned existing moorings and installed two additional moorings to securely moor the expanded system.