Digging the Future of Yankee Marina & Boatyard

Susan Collins accepting a gift at Yankee Marina and Boatyard, as a thank you for her role in making the dredge happen
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Running a business on the coast is never boring — and that’s one reason why we love it so much! Whether it’s accommodating a surprise visit by a yacht club cruise or battening down the hatches for a winter nor’easter, our crew at Yankee Marina & Boatyard are skilled at pivoting from one task to the next.

The Army Corp makes it all possible

But that doesn’t mean that we don’t do everything we can to make our daily lives — and your time on the water — even easier. To that end we’ve been pushing for more than a decade to get the federal government to carry through on its promise to complete maintenance dredging of the Royal River, and this winter the project will finally be completed (the last dredging occurred in 1997). Beginning on October 20th, more than 82,000 cubic yards of silt will be removed from the anchorage and the channel, carefully loaded onto a barge, and then dumped at a designated area well south of Halfway Rock, east of Cape Elizabeth. The $3 million project is expected to last until January, depending on winter weather conditions.

For boaters, reaching Yankee Marina & Boatyard has never been a problem: just stay between the 15 nuns and cans in the channel between Parker Point and the I-295 bridge. Check the tide chart and at high tide you’ll have even more room to maneuver. But when this dredging project is completed — well before any of our recreational boaters want to hit the water — there will be 8 feet of water in the channel even at low tide.  In addition, Yankee Marina & Boatyard will be hiring a contractor to do maintenance dredging under our docks, ensuring that our depth is maintained for many years to come.

Dredge equipment arrived Oct. 16th

“Even at low tide, there’s navigable of water here in the Royal River,” says Deborah Delp, owner of Yankee Marina & Boatyard. “But this project will make it even easier to navigate the river and make it simpler for our customers to come and go from the harbor to the marina.” She praised the dredging contractor’s willingness to start the project after October 15, when most Maine boaters will have already hauled their yachts for the season, and added that her crew is always willing to guide any boater up the river.