President’s Report: February 2023
Dear Members,
I want to start by thanking each and every one of you for the support that you have given me, the Board of Directors and most importantly, our management and staff. Hurricane Ian was one of the most powerful storms to hit the U.S. mainland in recorded history. The deaths and destruction the storm has inflicted are beyond belief. Any of you who live full time or have visited SW Florida know the nightmare that this storm has brought to our beautiful area and yacht club. The availability of equipment, replacement parts and overwhelming demand for skilled craftsmen have been indescribable. Under the incredible pressure and frustrations of dealing with this disaster our team has done a wonderful job in repairing and restoring the club to a point where re-opening in the short term will occur.
The Board of Directors have had weekly meetings, daily visits and multiple conference calls almost every day since the 1st of October. Our last 2 meetings have focused on being able to re-open even though several important items still need to be fixed. We are down to one key item, replace the RO water distribution system. Without this working we have no fire protection for our barns and no pressure to wash boats. We have had electricians and plumbers on premises almost every day since the hurricane and they have rebuilt the system almost in its entirety. There are several key parts that we are waiting for to finish the job. We have been promised that they will be available shortly. The Board will work with contractors to create a water tight seal around the water distribution system to protect the vital equipment from a future hurricane.
The fuel spill remediation will not be an easy fix but as stated earlier we plan to work around this issue to reopen.
Now let’s get to more positive news. Our fuel dock is complete and the wet slip area rebuild is within a few work days of completion. The initial time estimates that we received to rebuild the docks were at least 9 months. We got them done in 4 months. Our thanks to Crocker Marine from North Fort Myers for a great job!
All of the boat batteries are being recharged and almost 100% of them have started after the recharge. All of the boats are being washed and cleaned. We are over 50% completed with this project and it will continue on a daily basis until all boats are charged and cleaned.
Our marina basin has been dredged and cleaned of 14 large dumpsters of debris. Sand was taken out by a barge that worked every day to unclog the basin. The sand came in when the beach from the Marriott came thru porous rocks on their property. This is the second time this has happened. Our requests for a meeting with the Marriott management have not been answered. This issue will be revisited again in the near future.
The Board and club management, along with our Public Adjusters, continue to work diligently to settle our insurance claims. This critical process is time consuming and challenging but we will not yield and I am confident that we will reach the monetary settlement that we are entitled to under our insurance policy coverage.
I must again compliment and thank our incredible management team and employees who have worked so hard to clean, repair and rebuild the club. We are blessed to have such a talented team of workers who are so skilled. Of course, General Manager Chad Edmonds continues to do his job brilliantly.
The Board has devoted an incredible amount of time, work and planning into rebuilding our club as good as new and we are committed to doing that as quickly as possible. We are fortunate to have a Board of Directors that all live locally. Four of us are retired from our businesses and professions which has enabled us to work full time along with our management to rebuild the club.
Sincerely,
Peter Mazzagatti, President
Sanibel Harbour Yacht Club
239-470-9577
pmazzagatti@comcast.net
