Sunday, July 03, 2016

Arlington Park Kayak Launch

First problem with this Engineer designed ADA accessible ramp to the Kayak launch at Arlington Park in Mobile is a narrow 90 degree turn on a boardwalk that has high sides. Two people carrying their kayak by typical handles cannot get the kayak to the launch without hoisting the kayak above their shoulders.

After making the frustrating difficult  first turn this girl drags her Kayak down the ramp only to face dealing with 2 more difficult turns, both of these 180 degree turns. 

She struggles in the 100+ degree heat index temp to hoist her kayak above the railing in order to get past the first 180 degree turn.

What should have been a quick 2-3 minute drag of her Kayak down the 100 yard ramp to the Kayak launch platform turned into a 20 minute nightmare for this girl. I helped her move her kayak the rest of the way which proved to be even difficult for two people. She could not believe the stupidity of the ramp design. She is right.

It is bad enough that the stupid ass engineer never considered normal transport methods of kayaks in the design of the ramp to the kayak launch. Using kayak handles or a kayak dolly are both normal methods of moving a kayak. This stupid ramp does not allow the use of either normal kayak movement method.

What is even worse is the engineer and authorities know this kayak ramp is poorly designed and downright dangerous but have never fixed the flaws. All that is needed is a secondary ramp without high sides following the ground contour to the platform. Until that happens kayakers will continue to struggle when launching at Arlington Park.

Someone is eventually going to get severely injured or die from a heart attack using this ridiculous kayaker unfriendly public kayak launch. I hope anyone that gets hurt sues the hell out of the engineering firm and the park owner (City of Mobile).

3 comments:

  1. Isn't it great when preventing non existent fraudulent lawsuits comes before actual functionality? Up north you would never see any railing on a launch like this.

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  2. The engineering firm that did the kayak ramp design was from the north (Baltimore, MD).

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  3. The way this ramp is executed, I wouldn't be able to use it myself ... I'd find a place to launch easily.

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