New haul-out system planned to speed vessel removals before storms

Plans are underway to overhaul emergency vessel haul-out facilities in coastal areas after delays during Hurricane Beryl left boats and operators vulnerable ahead of severe weather, Coastal Zone Management Unit director Dr Leo Brewster has revealed.

The redesign is part of wider climate-adaptation efforts intended to protect maritime assets, safeguard fishers’ livelihoods and strengthen coastal resilience. Future coastal construction must combine structural resilience with the ability to move vessels quickly, he said.

The proposed facility would include a specialised travelift, or tummy lift, operating from a dedicated finger pier alongside a wide slipway. The design is intended to allow large commercial vessels and smaller private craft to be removed from the water at the same time during emergency preparations.

Under previous arrangements, haul-out operations relied heavily on a single crane to sling, lift and clear each boat individually. This caused delays before storms, particularly when partially submerged or waterlogged vessels needed time to drain before they could be moved safely.

“Structure, in terms of building — building for resilience — is something that we also have to give a lot of consideration for as well,” Dr Brewster said during a tour of the Fisheries Complex. “The intention with the travelift is supposed to be that the vessel can actually sail onto the straps. You lift it up, and then that lift moves and takes it to a location where it can then be placed on either a trailer or the supports.”

Director Coastal Zone Management Unit Dr Leo Brewster. (Photo Credit: Shamar Blunt /Barbados TODAY)

The travelift would operate alongside a traditional slipway, allowing different types of vessels to be handled at the same time, he explained.

“In the meantime, there’s also supposed to be a slipway for the smaller vessels to be able to use—to be able to, if you have a trailer for those vessels, to then have them actually come up onto those and then be taken away as well..

“So it will provide two different opportunities to work simultaneously, instead of just having one crane that’s going to take time to actually lift, to sling a vessel, lift it, place it, and then move it along the way.”

Authorities are also considering long-term storage through a designated onshore boat park next to the haul-out facility. Dr Brewster said the support structures must be engineered to withstand repeated heavy loads from both the travelift and vessels.

“Between having the haul-out facility, the boat park where you need to have those locations to handle the volume of vessels, we’re not at full capacity yet.

“As you can see, varying size vessels can carry different weight; therefore, you have to be able to have a support system that can handle the variation in weight repeatedly, as well as the weight of the travelift carrying not only its own weight, but the weight of the vessels it’s transporting as well.”

The success of emergency operations would also depend on owners moving their vessels early rather than waiting until a storm warning was issued, the CZMU head added, invoking the memory of the late Chief Fisheries Officer Dr Shelly-Ann Cox, who died in June..

“From what I remember Shelly saying, it’s about four days, as long as all the vessels are in place and they need to move, right? They have to be here,” Dr Brewster warned regarding total lead time requirements.

“It can’t be that you determine at the last minute to come in. But if these are here, you can move them, and you can get synchronicity in what you’re doing. Hopefully, it will take about four days to move the majority — maybe not all, but the majority — and this is the reason why.”

(RR)