Explorking

One of the downsides to LMC is having to go up and down the New River. The waterway from Port Everglades to LMC, is quite narrow and can be fairly busy. There are also a couple of bridges that boats need to call on VHF channel 9 to request an opening. Many of our friends and most of the larger yachts get towed up and down the river — Check out Steel Towing; Chris, Jim, and the rest of the crew are very cool. And if you’ve got a mast, make sure to check your clearance, there’s a power line that you don’t want to run into.

Apparently, in the good-old-days, there was crew and captains lounge. From what we’ve been told, this lounge had to go to make space for YOT, the new restaurant. Now there are some work areas upstairs in building 2019. Meagan, who is the Guest Services Manager, generally ensures everything is taken care of up there — a VERY knowledgable and smart young woman. Got a question about LMC, she will know (or find out).

The internet in the co-working space is fast and reliable. WiFi throughout LMC can be spotty. Sarrah, our account manager at LMC, helped us out when we were in Riverbend and asked Streamline to install a WiFi extender on our boat, which made a huge difference. The Streamline team is VERY friendly and proactive; their office is also in building 2019.

There’s a little boat supply store at LMC, Yacht Chandlers, which we didn’t know about for quite some time. To our surprise, the pricing was competitive for the most part — but even better, Mikol and Rachel are both VERY knowledgable and just awesome (we miss them).

Many people who work in the yard are extremely knowledgeable. Of course, there are also lot of people in the yard, who’s advice may not be the best (to put it mildly). Raul from Yacht Refinishing was working on a massive paint project beside us, and he was a wealth of information (the good kind). Walking around the yard and asking questions, whenever someone is standing around, worked like a charm for us. We also ran into Josh at LMC whom we had originally met in The Bahamas. Josh is a very experienced captain and a great docking and boat-handling teacher.

Everyone is very friendly and keen to help. Starting from the president Doug West, with whom I chatted a bunch before knowing that is was the president, all the way to the very talented lift crew. Big thanks to Sarrah (our account manager), Colin (EVP who helped with MultiTech), Diego and Hector (who operate the 220-ton crane), Jon and Kent (who take care of security at LMC), and everyone else we may have forgotten.

PS @ LMC, I’m still waiting for my orange shirt!

Just because a company has a workshop at LMC, doesn’t mean they are going to be capable. We have had a really bad experience(s) with MultiTech (more to come in a few weeks). Craig from Fort Lauderdale Marine Hydraulics, although he was friendly, tried to fix our hydraulics several times unsuccessfully (for which we paid $3,852).

Tip: If you are at LMC, walk to the vendor’s shop, and see how you are treated. If they are friendly and helpful, even the random tech you run into, then that’s a good sign.

While we had our share of poor experiences with onsite vendors, there are also some gems we found. There are some other outside companies that are also allowed to work at LMC — don’t forget about those.

Onsite: David and Sean at DFD helped us with technical drawings to fix the JetThruster installation. Charles at Offshore Marine Inspections helped us to identify the deficiencies in MultiTech’s installation of the JetThruster system. Chris and Bruce from High Seas were great in helping with our hydraulic issues (also thanks to Adrian, Anthony, and Josh). OP Yachts, although we never hired them, seemed nice when we were scavenging for some scrap wood — which they helped us with.

Offsite: We can’t say enough good things about Derek, Alex, and Reed from Fleming Marine Composites. They fixed all the fiberglass damage that MultiTech caused when they removed the JetThruster through-hull holes and prepared the fiberglass for the re-installation.

The east yard, which is also known as Riverbend, is where our stay at LMC started. Riverbend is the rough-part-of-town, in our opinion. It is not dangerous, just crowded, dirty, and far away from things. We much prefer the other bits of LMC.

The women’s bathrooms are generally locked, and you’ll need a key, but we’ve been told that one can get a key for their stay. The bathrooms throughout the yard could all use a fresh coat of paint and some TLC. Secret tip, the bathrooms in building 2019 are nice, new, and always clean.

The image above is a map of where the bathrooms are at LMC. Red are not-so-nice and green are the good bathrooms.

If you have a crew parking pass, parking is a bit easier, but can still be challenging. There were many days when we skipped going out because we would have lost our parking spot. Offsite contractors generally dislike LMC because of the parking and in-part because of the insurance requirements.