How Pilemate Works

Advantages:

PILEMATE provides extra protection against docking mishaps. Absorbs minor impacts, such as scraping or knocking, without damage to either your vessel or PILEMATE.

PILEMATE holds lines high and dry while slip is vacant.

PILEMATE ICE UNIT is designed to eliminate expensive damage to pilings caused by tidal fluctuations during winter freezes. Leave docks in all year long.

One PILEMATE on a piling actually serves two vessels, since both sides of the piling can use the same PILEMATE.
Attractive finish to the piling at all times. Since PILEMATE floats with the tides and is never below the surface,

POLEMATE covers up unsightly buildup of sludge that can form around pilings.

This Is What People Are Saying About Pilemate:

Whaler's Cove Yacht Club is located on the North Shore of Long Island at the very end of Cold Spring Harbor. Cold Spring Harbor is an apt name due to the fact that there are a multitude of fresh water springs that emanate from the seabed. Therefore, we have a low salinity level in the waters surrounding our Club. With any prolonged Temperatures below the freezing level, the harbor ices over. We are a 50 slip facility consisting of pilings, and floating docks both for the mains and the fingers. Because of the possibility of a harsh Winter, we remove out docks each year and in the Spring we reassemble all. For many years, a harsh Winter meant that many of our pilings were "jacked " from the seabed with the combination of ice grabbing them and the change in tide and therefore water levels. We normally have about an 8 foot change through the tides and with the Spring and Fall it can even be more. So a harsh Winter meant we would have to reset many of our pilings before the docks were reassembled. This could increase our rebuilding expenses two fold or more. Back in 2004, We looked into putting in a bubblizer system. Besides the initial high installation cost, since our docks were pulled, maintenance of any part of the system was very problematic. Also, we normally save some money by turning off our utilities during the Winter. A bubblizer system would require us to keep the utilities going and the expense of running such a system was very costly. At that time, one of our members met Dimitri at the New York Boat Show. He was selling a product that he said would stop the ice from pulling the pilings out. A bit skeptical at the possibility of such a simple system being the solution to our problem, we ordered 6 pilemates and placed them on the most vulnerable of the pilings. That was a year where we did have a lot of ice and the 6 pilemate pilings were the only ones that were standing straight at the end of the Winter. So we then went ahead and ordered the pilemates for all of our pilings.The next few seasons, the Winter's were not as harsh, but this past one ,2010/2011,was, and so far the pilemates have worked. We are adding more pilings to the Club this Spring and have already contacted Dimitri to provide us with new Pilemates for these pilings. If you go to the Pilemate website, you can see pictures of our Club with the pilemates in place.

Bob Basta
Whaler's Cove Yacht Club