Hurricane Sandy Damaged 65,000+ Pleasureboats

Byline: The Log Staff NEW YORK — The Boat Owners Association of the United States (BoatUS), the nation’s largest organization of recreational boaters, estimated on Nov. 14 that more 65,000 recreational boats were damaged or lost as a result of Hurricane Sandy. The total damage to recreational boats amounts to $650 million, the group reported, making the late-October storm the single-largest marine industry loss since BoatUS began keeping records in 1966. “We are all reeling from the huge impact this storm has had on communities and people’s lives,” said Scott Croft of BoatUS public affairs. “We’ve never seen anything like it. The scope of the damage to boats is unprecedented, affecting large areas from the Atlantic seaboard as far inland as the Great Lakes, with the majority of damage in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. “The combination of boats stored ashore at low elevations and record high surge levels caused hundreds, if not thousands, of boats to float away into neighborhoods, parks and marshes,” Croft said. “The tri-state coastline left no place for the surge to go, but up. While some boats that stayed in the slips did fine, other boats tied to floating docks simply lifted off too-short pilings and floated...