Mason Sears was fresh out of the University of Rhode Island with a degree in marine affairs when he started working with a group of investors developing a marina in Portland, Maine, on the site of a former oil terminal in the city’s waterfront. “The project had fits and starts over about a decade,” Sears says. “I went in, and we built a 35,000-square-foot storage building and a marina on the waterfront.”
It started out as Yacht Haven and became the Maine Yacht Center. After the facility sustained damage in a storm, Sears determined that its wooden attenuator docks needed strengthening to hold up over the long haul. A Swedish manufacturer of concrete dock and wave-attenuating systems, SF Marina, kept coming up in his research. “I went from being a customer with them to developing a relationship with SF Marina when we installed a floating breakwater to protect the marina,” he says. “Then I transitioned and started working for SF Marina in a sales role in the North American market.”
Sears grew up boating on Maine’s Midcoast, spending time on sail- and powerboats. He sailed around the world on a tall ship and did some racing, as well. Sears studied coastal resource management at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. He and his family live outside of Portland, Maine. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and space.
How was SF Marina Systems founded?
The roots of the company have been around since 1918 in Sweden, when it manufactured its first concrete pontoons and floating docks. In 1935, the Stockholm Yacht Club was one of the first facilities we built docks for, and from that point, SF Marina Systems has had projects throughout the region.
What are your responsibilities with the company?
Marketing, cultivating the projects, working with the customers on the initial designs, everything that’s going into the project, coordinating with their contractors and engineers, and then coordinating with our factory and our engineers. I’m not involved in the fabrication, but I get involved again when the product is delivered to the customer.
When did SF Marina Systems expand outside of Scandinavia?
It was the late 1970s and ’80s when we went more global. One of the first projects installed in the United States, Saybrook Point Marina in Old Saybrook, Conn., was in the early 1980s, and those docks are still in operation today. We use that as an example when people ask, “How long are these things going to last?”
Have you had to replace or update Saybrook Point Marina’s equipment?
That customer calls us every couple of years and asks, “Should we start to think about replacement?” I ask if everything is still working properly. They tell me it’s working great, so I tell them to keep going with what they have.
Where is the company headquartered?
Gothenburg, Sweden, and the factory is a 100,000-square-foot production facility in the port of Walham, Sweden, about an hour up the coast. We also have a U.S. location in Norfolk, Va. In the States, we currently have projects on the East Coast, in the Great Lakes and in Florida. We did some municipal park docks in Jacksonville, Fla., a superyacht pier in Fort Lauderdale that is an industry-leading dock in the world, and we just delivered a marina for the St. Petersburg Yacht Club.
How many employees does SF Marina have?
Globally, it’s a tough number because there are joint ventures and partnerships. We are represented in 26 countries by different groups, and that covers all the major marine markets of the world.
How many projects are currently underway?
We have 15 to 20 projects at a time around the world. In the United States, it’s a handful of projects at all times. It depends on the size and scope. We may have a municipal dock that’s just one unit versus a more complex system that’s multiple units.
What does S.A.F.E. in the SF Marine catalog and on the company’s website mean?
It stands for secure, adapted, flexible and environmentally friendly.
What is the company’s primary product?
Single-cast, solid concrete floating structures. They can be used to build marinas, to create floating breakwaters and floating foundations for anything from a bathroom building to a hotel. The technology has evolved, and we’re moving into building floating piers for tying up commercial ships and superyachts.
Is there a difference between a floating breakwater and an attenuator?
A floating attenuator and a floating breakwater are the same. Attenuating the wave is altering it, slowing it and preventing it from passing through. “Floating breakwater” is a marketing term to help people understand what it does. From the surface, the floating breakwater or attenuator looks like a floating dock. It just extends deeper into the water.
Does SF Marina provide design, manufacturing and installation?
We make the concrete docks and connection systems. In the U.S. market, we work with the customer’s contractor on the installation. We act as a supplier and work with the installing contractor to ensure that it gets installed to our specifications.
How do your systems differ from a traditional pile-supported marina?
A pile-supported dock is more like a bridge. The pilings go into the ground, and there’s a deck surface you walk on. With floating concrete docks, the floating structure is held in place by pilings, but they’re not connected. We have a pile guide or collar that surrounds the piling so when the water level fluctuates, the dock moves with tidal, flood or storm-surge conditions. We also use bottom-moored docks secured with chain or elasticized systems from Seaflex or Hazelett. You can also have a stiff-arm type system with long arms coming out from the shore, and connect that way.
What are the advantages of your concrete structure versus wood, aluminum or steel?
Some concrete systems are held together with wood, but our system is solid-cast concrete, meaning the precast concrete contains all the strength, flotation, and parts and pieces. There are no moving parts. The concrete structure is the frame. Think of a precast bridge beam that’s all self- contained. There’s nothing to loosen over time. There’s no bolts.
What size are SF Marina’s dock sections?
Everything is metric. Twelve meters is 40 feet, 15 meters is 50, and 20 meters is our standard and measures about 65 feet. Each of these 65-foot units gets joined with our cable connection system. There’s a cylindrical rubber bushing that goes between the two dock sections, and then there are multiple cables that join them, and they can be tightened at the joint. That system has been in use 40-plus years, and we’ve refined the technology to a system that works. It’s not rocket science to build one specific floating concrete structure, but getting them all together, moored or anchored correctly, and having them survive in a storm condition with boats hitting them while tied up to them, that’s where you leap into more difficult design and engineering.
How about the breakwaters?
All the calm locations are taken. We’re the leader in floating breakwater technology. The largest one we’ve made to date is 42 feet wide. Our standard is 32 feet wide, and that has a draft of 12 feet, so that technology is now allowing for the creation of calm basins in locations that weren’t an option in the past.
What’s the biggest difference between your floating docks and breakwaters?
The breakwaters are taller. The 10- to 16-foot-wide units are 6 feet tall. The 20-foot-wide breakwater is 8 feet tall and the units from 20 feet up to 32 feet can be up to 12 feet tall.
Do you design for a certain wave height or storm category?
That’s where you have input from the customer. The marine environment will expose designs and things that aren’t for the long term. It has a way of bringing them to light pretty quickly.
Is SF Marina known for systems that stand up to rough conditions?
We’re known in the industry for our storm-proven technology, for robust designs and high strength. “Still there after the storm” is one of our taglines because that’s what we strive to do with the whole process. Working with the customer, managing expectations as to what they can expect for their site, and encouraging proper engineering and ensuring that the overall design is for the long term.
How much of your business comes from word of mouth?
We do have a good word-of-mouth reputation. We feel that ours is a solid history. The products are stable, and the company is stable. Viewing the long term is critical to the success of the company. We’re much more interested in a long-term customer than something quick that may not be designed to our standards.
Can you point to any of your facilities that have fared well in hurricanes?
We have multiple locations in South Carolina that have ridden out multiple hurricanes, including Patriots Point, which has a floating breakwater and hundreds of slips. It’s now 20 years old.
How does the cost of concrete compare to wooden or metal docks?
Concrete floating docks are more expensive than aluminum and wooden docks. It’s difficult to qualify in a percentage. It’s a magnitude greater in expense than wooden docks, but the lifespan of wood and other material docks is much shorter. The load capacity of concrete is much greater, and the wave capacity of a wooden dock is much smaller. When you speak between a wooden dock and a concrete dock, the concrete dock has greater capacity on all fronts.
What is the typical lifespan of an SF Marinas dock?
We’ve got docks that are 50 years old. Thirty to 50 is what’s to be expected. The dock that was built in 1935 in Stockholm harbor is still hanging around. It’s no longer used by the yacht club, but it’s still there floating somewhere.
If a customer wants to use a combination of concrete and other materials for docks, do you have partners with whom you work?
We collaborate with other manufacturers and integrate wooden docks and aluminum ones into our system. If the customer wants aluminum or wooden fingers on a concrete dock, we can accommodate that.
How important is sustainability when it comes to the design, construction and operation of your marina facilities?
Sustainability is very important to us. Concrete is a long-lasting substance, so the energy that goes into it, you get a long lifespan out of that. That’s where you get the sustainability because it lasts so long in its application.
How do you answer people who criticize concrete because of the greenhouse gas emissions that come from producing it?
That’s understandable, but the energy going into it is balanced by the long period of time that it gets to be used. There are technologies on the horizon that may be applicable to our systems in the future.
Do your systems target a specific size range or type of boat?
Historically, we’ve adapted with the market. We still build small docks for homes on lakes. Our technology runs the gamut from small boats to superyachts and ships. The technology can be adapted for loads.
What other considerations go into planning a marina?
The location of a new facility, the site exposure, the local traditions in how people use their boats and what they expect from a marina all go into how a design is created. We have unique connector technologies, so if it is a storm-exposed site, we can use our center connectors or angled ones and castings in the structure. That lets us build something for when a storm comes. The whole system can move and be flexible so nothing breaks.
Have you had to make adjustments to deal with the stronger storm surge?
With floating structures, they rise up and ride it out. Many marinas that have been hit by storm surge — it’s not the waves that cause the damage. It’s the volume of water. The docks just floated up and over the pilings and were swept away because they weren’t designed for the maximum storm surge. Pile engineering is an important factor, making sure the piles are tall enough. When the piles become taller, the lever arm and load on the piling with the wind and waves increases dramatically. So you make the piles taller, which means it can float higher, but it’s also farther away from its lever point down in the soil.
Has SF Marina systems adapted to increased demand for electrical power when designing marina infrastructure?
Pier Sixty-Six in Fort Lauderdale was a good example. So was Provincetown Marina in Massachusetts, where they are accommodating 300-foot-plus vessels. Providing fresh water requires high-flow volume, and that means a 2-inch water line, not a hose spigot. For electrical power, they need 1,200 amps at the pedestal, so imagine 20 or 25 cables that are 3 inches or greater in diameter all pulled in series to these different pedestals. The captains and boat owners also expect in-dock fueling. We did that at Pier Sixty-Six. For sewage pumpout, everything has to be bigger because you’re moving a lot more waste. Modern fire prevention, alarm systems, security systems and aesthetic lighting systems with LED lights on the surface and underwater, that can be color-changing. Then you have all these other features that need to be located on the docks and tied in with the electrical power and controlled somehow.
Because your projects are based on floating pontoons, are they more environmentally friendly?
Single-cast concrete structures are inert. Marine life, mollusks, creatures attach themselves to the concrete just like they would to a rock. We provide a habitat. Once the organisms attach themselves, it attracts fish and other marine animals. With the huge amount of buoyancy the structures have, a little bit of growth or organisms that attach themselves won’t affect the freeboard.
What are some challenges involved with operating internationally that people may not know about?
Local traditions and expectations, and means and methods, vary greatly among different markets. Working in countries that are fully developed versus those that are marginally developed, you might not have the same access to cranes, barges and heavy equipment. It’s true that as the vessels get larger, support facilities on the land side can be a limiting factor for a marina.
When you’re dealing with basically a desert environment like the UAE, does the concrete have to be engineered differently to withstand the heat?
There are aspects of climate and weather conditions that are important in manufacturing docks in different areas, and there are methods to ensure that you’re getting full strength when it’s being built.
Is the concrete the same that people would see in the foundation for their home?
It’s a different variation. It’s higher strength with different ingredients depending on which region of the world we’re in and the application we’re making the system for. Basically, it’s a higher-strength version of standard concrete.
What are your customers looking for when they come to you for a new facility or to upgrade a current marina?
Many times, it’s an exposed location or they’re looking to update a facility that’s been around for many years. That could call for installing a floating attenuator to protect the old system or allow for a new system to be built on the inside.
Is insurance becoming more difficult for marina operators to afford and obtain?
I was recently on a panel at Docks Expo talking about this issue. I think any marina that has a history of being damaged in a storm, it’s going to be less likely that it’s going to get coverage. And then trying to understand how much coverage is difficult to evaluate between the marina owner and its insurance agent. Our view on insurance is that if you build the most robust system you can, the insurance company will appreciate that because a big claim is less likely. They’ll know what they’re insuring is designed to be there for a long time.
Did you experience supply-chain delays during the pandemic, and have they been resolved?
We did experience major delays in our materials. These delays added weeks and months to certain projects. We are fortunate to have longstanding relationships with our vendors, which kept us stocked with the critical parts and materials to build the docks. Covid was a difficult time. Travel and in-person meetings are essential to our quality control. Fortunately, those difficulties are behind us, and the experiences have readied our group for what the future brings next.
If you go into different areas, do customers have different expectations?
When we go into marinas in Turkey and all over the Mediterranean, the general boating experience is similar. Med mooring is one aspect. Many facilities are set up for the boats to come stern-to to a floating dock, but there aren’t individual docks for each boat. In the U.S. market, everyone wants to tie up to his or her own individual finger dock, which is a more expensive facility, so I guess you could say the services offered in U.S. marinas are typically better than services offered in other parts of the world.
In your mind, what makes a great marina?
People want stable underfoot, ease of access in the marina. Safety and feeling like the boat is well-protected. Concrete floating docks provide that safety and comfort.
This article was originally published in the February 2024 issue.
