Southport Marina joined a growing national trend in building a dry stack boat storage system. The 50’ high building has capacity for 120 boats for winter storage. Golden Giant has built two so far and a third one is scheduled for 2023 based on the demand of the local and regional boat owners. The trend is to keep the boats out of the water and keep them in better condition.

Dry storage costs slightly more than wet slips but the extra cost is offset by reduced maintenance costs, especially in saltwater environments. The dry stack facility has massive barn type doors that can withstand 140 MPH winds. Marinas like Southport could not expand without dry stack storage as waterfront slips are fully utilized, land-based storage is the only option. Based on current studies from the US Coast Guard there are 375,000 registered boats in North Carolina, the growth of dry stacked storage at Southport Marina is well timed.

The galvanizer worked closely with fabricator Golden Giant located in Kenton, Ohio. The dry stack storage building consisted of hot-dip galvanized material for one building. Communication was key between the galvanizer (operations, plant manager & sales team) and Golden Giant as the project had many expedited truckloads of material. On one occasion a load of material picked up on Saturday, normally a non-shipping day but the galvanizer brought team members in to help with the shipment and delivery. A total team effort joined together to make the project move along smoothly and all timelines were met as the project completed on time. Based on our combined team efforts Golden Giant will be doing another dry stack storage building in 2023.