The New Patrol Boat Garage

All about the new containers

By Adrian Trice 20th July

Self Contained

Earlier in the year, the club applied to Thanet District Council for planning permission to put three, twenty foot long steel storage containers in the dinghy park as we want a more secure place to house all three patrol boats and the new ATV. Permission was granted, with a few conditions, and we agreed to obtain some quotations. After I had got several prices for three storage containers including delivery, (some of which were astronomical!) we decided to place an order with Boxtainer Ltd. which is a supplier that Dan Armstrong deals with at work. The price was £750 per container. Each container weighs 2.2 tons, and has a wooden floor. The full width double doors fold back 180 degrees for easy access, have a high security hasp cover for the padlock, and will be freshly painted.

Getting them delivered

The containers are BIG, Harbour Street is small, and York Gate is tiny! The hauliers had to do a dummy run to the harbour last Friday to check the York Gate clearance and that they could even make the turn into Harbour Street! After they found that delivery was going to be possible, a price of just over £300 per container was agreed. It seems a lot until you think about what was involved.

Click on the images to view them full size:

Dan and I arrived at the dinghy park at 0730 and moved the three boats from their spaces, the first container arrived at about 0830 on a large flatbed trailer towed by a lorry complete with a loading crane on board, this was skilfully driven through the York Gate, rather him than me!!!! The reason for the flatbed was that putting it on the back of the lorry would have made it too high to go under York Gate.
A second, larger lorry, with the other two containers aboard was parked by Halford’s at Westwood and once the first container had been placed they drove back to pick up the second, and then the third. All three were in place by 1300.

Everything in its Place

Before they could be delivered though, the position of the new containers had to be cleared and the final location decided on.
A working party comprising Doug Spooner, Mick Lawrence, Ben Twist, Peter Holland, Dan Armstrong, Tim Seward and myself arrived yesterday to clear the existing engine covers, grind off the existing fixing posts, as well as clearing several barrow loads of sand. We then did a few trial runs with the patrol boats on their trailers to finally plot the position of the containers to be sure that we had easy access (I wish I had a video of that, it was like a Carry On scene!)

A bit more to do yet...

One of the conditions of planning permission is that the two sides and the rear have to be clad in wood and then stained in brown to match the doors, Mick Lawrence is making a portable ramp, to allow the boats to be pushed over the door frame.

Thanks to all involved!!