Must be the time for boat fires. I never remember hearing of so many is such a short period of time. And, we are all sorry to hear of Captain Sonny Middleton’s hip problems. Sonny is a true friend of the cruising community, and deserves our prayers and good wishes.

It is sad to report that a sailboat caught fire on the Dog River Marina transit dock last night. The good news is the fire was isolated to a single boat. The exact cause is not known but reports are the newly purchased boat was in transit from Florida to Kentucky by a Mississippi owner who moved the boat from Florida to Mobile and returned back to Mississippi leaving the boat unattended and tied to the dock. The weather has been unseasonably cold – below freezing – and several electrical heaters may have been in use which overheated and caused an electrical fire which ultimately caused the boat to burn to the waterline and sink at the dock. Thanks to skilled first responders, the harbor patrol and fire department the fire did not spread.
Please make sure your electrical heater(s) are plugged into a properly sized outlet for the heater wattage with proper size circuit protection.
One final comment – several of the liveaboard owners sleep through this multi-alarm fire – every marina should post a fire response plan and a marina “status” board (i.e. watchman cell number, freezing weather water turn off date/times etc.) – responsibilities need to be assigned, i.e. as simple as the dock staff going boat to boat and make sure no one at risk sleeps through a fire. Preparation is critical to mitigating the unthinkable consequences. If there was a marina fire – how quickly could your boat be underway to get away from the dock? Seconds count.
FYI – Sonny Middleton, owner of Dog River Marina fell yesterday and broke his hip – he will be in surgery today. Our prayers and wishes are with him.
Douglas Pohl
GREY GOOSE

Turner Marine will be the first facility to come abeam to starboard as you enter Dog River from Mobile Bay!

This marina seemed to keep coming up when I was looking for a place to get some work done on my Pearson while I was in the area. With the economy being the way it is, though, I still called around checking rates for haulouts, blocking, etc. and theirs were actually the cheapest by a good bit. I think to haul her out was $7 a boat foot, and that included putting her back in the water whenever they’d finished the work.
They did an incredible job as well, really, really good work. I was very pleased. The Turners are all very nice and accommodating, and Roger (who runs the yard) was always willing to answer any questions or concerns I had.
I also stayed as a transient docker a couple of nights on another trip, and again, their prices were the cheapest, which I really liked. I didn’t qualify for the Boat US discount, but even still it was less than a dollar a boat foot, like seventy-five cents or something. Not to mention anything I needed they pretty much had: laundry mat, Wi-fi, clean bathrooms and showers, they even had a courtesy car and small movie book library up in the office which was really nice of them.
Anyway, just wanted to throw out my recommendation since I didn’t see it on the list. They’re really good and I always make a point to stop in whenever I’m down that way. They’re right there at the mouth of Dog River and Mobile Bay, so it’s really easy to get in and out of.
ndaughter

I would echo the above comments. I stopped there on my Way to Pensacola, to have my mast put back up after taversing the TennTom from Ky Lake. After a week on the hard and talking to other people I just stopped there and decided to stay. Roger is Great, I never had any problems and was treated very well. I had a lot of bottom work done and left under $3500. That inclued haul out pressure wash, bottome job some minor repairs to the keel and rudder, stepping the mast tunning rig and fixing a problem with the spreaders that they found that no one ever notices untill the boat was under the watchful eye of the Turners, so its a great place. Only down side is the water is a bit thin, they were haveing some unusualy low tides, but outside of that its great and I staying to join the gang.
Captain Bear

I arrived at Turner Marine a little less than 2 years ago, coming down from Manitowoc, WI. Our boat needed repairs and a slip before `moving along.’ We found the Turners (owners) and the staff to be professional, honest, hard-working and `affordable’ (relative to marine costs and valuations). Work on any of a boat’s many systems can be done. I recommend Turner’s Marina without question. If I have a criticism, they are busy enough with their maritime & marina workload, that sometimes work orders take a while to get completed.
Mark Middleton