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NOVEMBER, 2006 - MARINA WORLD ARTICLE
QUEBEC AND THE ALUMINIUM MARINA SYSTEM
Mine is a special love affair with Quebec City, the first European-built city in non-Spanish North America. Quebec City (‘Ville de Québec’ or simply ‘Québec’, once you’re in the Province de Québec) has countless admirers. All Quebeckers love the capital of their province and Canadians from outside Quebec who visit the walled city often love it, too. In 1985 its acclaim become international as it was declared a United Nations World Heritage Site.
In this - the 400th year of the city’s founding - I pause to reflect on my unique vista of the city and, in particular, its marinas.
In 1984, to mark the 450th anniversary of Cartier’s arrival in North America, Quebec City hosted the world’s tall ships. They came in all their bunting-bedecked glory from all over the world and, of course, they had to be received in grand style (Québécois have a reputation as quality-conscious bons vivants to live up to). Sparing no expense and embracing the latest thinking, in 1983 the city built a brand new leisure harbour, a port de plaisance, for the occasion – the Bassin Louise Marina, developed around the old piers.
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Yves Lépine, president and CEO of Canadian marina systems supplier, Structurmarine, takes a fond look at the city of Quebec and its influence in the development of aluminium docks.
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The fully serviced, 400-slip Bassin Louise Marina, able to accommodate boats of up to 50 feet, was a milestone event in marina building on this continent; it was North America’s very first engineered aluminium-framed marina system. And I’m very proud to report that I was the marina builder who skippered that watershed event. I’d seen and used such systems in Europe and recognised their superiority and I absolutely knew when the discussions about a marina for the tall ships festivities got underway, that aluminium technology was the way to go.
I convinced the committee of my beliefs, got the commission and designed the marina. My current Structurmarine team mate Karl Giroux worked with me on the anchoring system, our affiliate engineer Pierre Lasalle contributed on design and concept work and another valued Structurmarine team member, my brother André Lépine, installed it.
An unusual feature of the marina is that it’s accessible through a 160ft x 45ft lock, constructed so as to contend with a 20ft tide at this point on the Saint Lawrence.
Looking back at Bassin Louise today is like returning to one’s childhood home – everything looks smaller than you remember. Did we really think 50 feet was big? And yet as the childhood home of aluminium marina systems in the Americas, Bassin Louise is an affirmation of the many qualities and strengths of what has become a material of choice in our industry. Bassin Louise is now a quarter of a century old, which means it has lived through 25 long Canadian winters. It endures four feet of ice in some years and still it prevails; as strong and elegant as it was when it hosted the tall ships.
Sound engineering and good design paid off then, and have since evolved. Aluminium marina systems have developed. The structural components have metamorphosed: decking, floating and anchoring materials have been improved. My firm is working on Generation 5 installations – fifth-iteration designs, structures and anchoring methods. Superyachts and megayachts served here.
Since 1984, my marina-building endeavours have led me to the helm of Structurmarine, a Quebec-based builder of complete aluminium marina systems and a fast forward to 2008 takes me to yet another city celebration in which aluminium systems play a part.
Quebec City is celebrating, as I mention above, the 400th anniversary of its founding. The event organisers rightly declared that some of the official functions honouring the historic port must take place right on the water. My firm was selected to design and build the floating platform on which many of these festivities were carried out.
It’s a large platform – 5,000 square feet – accessible via gangways on opposite corners. The mandate called for a platform able to receive up to a thousand people at a time – dignitaries, official visitors and journalists at official functions, history buffs etc. It’s stable enough that eye-catching pyramids of full champagne glasses were set up for some events. It was great fun for my teammates and me to see ‘our 400th platform’ on television newscasts in early July.
1984: An aluminium-framed marina? General reaction: Aluminium? Really? 2008: An aluminium-framed floating platform? Universal reaction: Well, what else?
The tipping point occurred at some point in the years between then and now. And Quebec City – ‘my dear Quebec’ – played a role in the worldwide change of attitude. |
