The Haines Borough is considering adding a float to the cruise ship dock. Borough officials say it would make it easier for ships to use the dock, and would allow some boats that presently have to anchor out in the cove to tie up.
The Haines cruise ship dock was built a couple feet taller than other comparable docks. The tides in the Lynn Canal are big. Dock designs, and cruise line expectations have changed. For all these reasons, Haines borough officials are considering adding a float to the existing cruise ship dock. Haines Harbor Master Shawn Bell says the current layout is less than ideal.
Bell: “Our dock is a little bit higher than most, and as the tide comes and goes each day, they are having to constantly adjust where the gangway placement is for the different vessels, and some just don’t have the capacity to hand;le the low tides. And so we’ve seen over the years several that need to anchor out, most of the time that’s not by choice.”
Mayor Tom Morphet says he wants to add a floating dock as soon as possible.
Morphet:” I was distressed last summer to drive past that dock, and see people not tied up to it but instead anchored out. Other communities have built these floats like the one that we are looking at, just so that people’s egress and ingress in and out of the ships is smoother.”
Morphet says Haines infrastructure should keep up with the times.
Morphet: “That’s become the standard in the industry, it wasn’t in 1995 when we built the dock, it is today, so if the ships need this, we are going to do it, because that’s the only reason we built the dock in ‘95, was to get them to pull up to town.”
The Borough has spent $30.000 on preliminary designs for the float, and will soon start discussing them with cruise companies, according to Morphet.
The project will cost in the millions of dollars. Morphet says a port development fee, paid by the cruise lines, can be levied to pay for the project.
