Irene Spares Marinas, Prepping for Labor Day Weekend

Hurricane Irene’s glancing blow on the region last Sunday, Aug. 28, was kind to Barrington’s marinas.

“We had one boat sink,” said J. Michael Keyworth, general manager at Brewer Cove Haven Marina on Bullock’s Cove. “I told the owner to turn it the other way (bow into the waves). It was overwhelmed by the waves.”

The storm surge in Bullock’s Cove did no significant damage to the marina, though, Keyworth said. 

The tropical storm-force winds were far more disruptive. The winds knocked out power in the Bay Spring area for several days, he said, from Sunday morning to Wednesday morning, Aug. 31. Generators kept the office humming until power was restored by National Grid.

“It seriously disrupted us,” said Keyworth of the outage to the marina, which is gearing up now for Labor Day – one of the biggest boating weekends each summer.

“We’ve been doing nothing but putting boats back into the water since power was restored,” he said.

Lavin’s Marina farther south on Bullock’s Cove saw water rise over the bulkhead by a few inches on the south side, said a worker at the facility. But most of the slips were empty when Irene made landfall.

From Friday to Saturday before the storm, he said, “almost all of the boats were removed. We had no problems.”

The marina, too, is getting ready for a busy boating weekend.

Striper Marina on the Warren River at the end of Tyler Point Road had no boats resting at its slips when the hurricane arrived – a condition of the contract with the marina. So there was little boat damage to worry about, said Sean Merryman, a marina employee.

Water rose to about four inches over floor level of the office area, he said, while covering the lower end and lowest levels of the peninsula shared by the marina, Stanley’s Boatyard, and the Barrington Yacht Club – none of which suffered any serious damage.

“We moved everything here to a warehouse in Seekonk,” Merryman said. “The tide was going out when the storm came in. But it took some time for the water to drop." 

Striper has just about all of its boats back in the water with Labor Day approaching.

“Everything is pretty much back to normal,” Merryman said. “It’ll be crazy this weekend.”

Steve Terhune at Stanley’s Boatyard said the business or the boats docked there suffered no damage at all.

“We were lucky,” said Terhune.

The water came to within 20 feet of the facility, he said. But none got inside, where all the gear and equipment was raised up on blocks.