Bricksburgh Yacht Club

For as long as Bricksburgh has been around, we've had a harbor area-- and that goes back even to when I was a child.  Pleasure boats and speed boats are a relatively new part of town and they really fit in nicely with the whole island/beach resort feel to the place.

However, there's a big difference between a harbor and a boat dock.  
Check out what is moving in--  click on through!
Before I show you the new setup, let's take a quick look at the facilities we are replacing.
We'd made some rudimentary docks for private boats when we moved the town from the floor to the first generation table, which you can see in this picture:

The docks were really nothing more than a gated boat launch and a couple long plates extending out into the cove area in front of the beach.  Not very impressive and they looked like the after thought that they were.

  With all the new room we were going to have on the two new "second generation" tables, I knew we'd be ready to upgrade to something really cool.   Luckily, Lego had already started the ball rolling.... With this:  Set# 6542 Sail N' Fly Marina.  I patiently waited until I found one on eBay for a good price and here it is!

This is the set as it was designed by Lego.  Certainly as we build it into the town (and the town around it) there will be modifications and improvements-- some of which we already have planned.   As it was designed, the set is quite impressive with lots of details and personality.

The approach to the marina complex (as yet unnamed by us) is up one of the pier ramps.   There are two structures, an engine/machine shop and a surf shop/cafe.  Across from them are a dry dock, some other docks and piers, and a gas pump.

Here's one of the 3 boats that come in the set.  It's sitting up on the dry dock.  The crane works quite well at getting the boats up and down from there, but it does require quite a bit of "swing room"!   The Octan truck, btw, is included in the set-- you can get a closer look at it (and build your own!) by watching this video:

 The Octan truck, btw, is included in the set-- you can get a closer look at it (and build your own!) by watching the video above.

We will probably place some kind of barricades or gates on the adjoining street plate in town so as to restrict access to authorized vehicles only.  We wouldn't want a tourist bus plowing through the cafe and into the ocean!

The Octan machine shop is where the racing boats' engines are rebuilt between races.  This is the best machine shop we have in town at the moment-- at least until the new repair shop is finished.

Here is one of the engines with a cylinder head removed.  There are 3 engines in the set-- for 2 racing boats. That math works out, actually, as I'll explain later in this post.

Very clever drill press design.  Would be even more clever if I'd noticed the "drill" part wasn't straight before I took this picture.  Oops.

This appears to be a lathe of some kind.   Doesn't really matter what it is, as long as it looks cool.

Here's the aquatic version of the Hot Rod Club.   Nice patio area with one small table and a bar under a pergola.   We'll probably try and expand this area and run some more docks off of it.

The pieces used for this big awning are the same ones used on Mia's horse stables.  I really like the railing design here too-- it's all quite simple, but looks quite good.

This is the interior of the boat/surf/scuba shop as it comes from Lego.  The white slope is a radar scope and there's a life jacket and black outboard motor.  Tyler has since added a lot more gear to the shop and you can now get things like flippers and snorkel equipment (among other things).  The 2-story space is really bright too-- I'm glad Lego resisted the temptation to make a shorter building or to cram another floor/ceiling in here.  We're probably going to try and suspend something from the ceiling for sale too-- maybe a surf board?

The bar features ketchup on tap.   Or perhaps some other beverage... You can see the table/umbrella design here is not the typical "antenna" variety.  It uses a long pole that goes through the table disc.   As a result it is much taller than our other umbrellas.  

If anything is disappointing about this part of the set, it is Lego's decision to use a plain white umbrella.  Really??  I mean, they had so many other choices of color-- not to mention all the striped umbrellas they've made over the years.  We'll definitely make a change here.   The mini-lighthouse is a little strange too.   We are likely to move that elsewhere and put a larger one here.

Being a tropical island, Bricksburgh has parrots perched and nesting all over the place.

The red racing boat has a pretty large front compartment.  It isn't really large enough for a person, but I can imagine some scenarios involving smuggling that will make for interesting encounters with the harbor police--- you can pretty much bet on seeing that sometime in the future!

The crane uses a clever bracket to move the boats around.  The engines can be hoisted without the blue plate.  As it comes from Lego, there is no operator controls and cab.  We haven't yet decided whether to try and make a control cab or just a control panel (or tethered remote).  We did add some details to the top of the crane-- can't have aircraft crashing into it at night!

Tyler's hands made it into this picture-- it's really a still from a video that we shot at the same time as these pictures.  The video was accidentally deleted before we uploaded it to YouTube and is gone.   We WILL shoot a new one, but are going to wait until after we make our various improvements and get the beachfront area of the town rebuilt completely.

Sitting at the far end of the farthest dock is the gas pump and seaplane.

The gas pump is Octan-- of course!   Bricksburgh is about 50/50 Octan/Shell at this point.  We should do a market comparison of them at some point!  The seaplane has a neat engine design that really requires video to demonstrate-- or at least it's own series of pictures.  Perhaps I can talk Tyler into pulling it for maintenance sometime.  

If you're going to have a race, you have to have race officials right??   Here's our local ref ready to go!

No question the sportier of the two racing boats, the very classy Octan cruiser passes the start buoy.

The Octan boat has the better dashboard too-- but it also has a lot less space.  The front cabin is completely sealed and cockpit is much tighter due to the wrap around windshield.

When I put the boats side by side you can see the large forward compartment on the red boat.  They're both actually quite similar in overall size but the red boat appears to be much larger.

Alright, remember when I said there were 3 engines and how that was not a mistake?   The engine compartments of both boats are the same size and each comes with an engine, plus one in the Octan workshop building.  The compartments are completely lined with tile pieces so the engines are not fastened down, but rather just snugly drop in.  

Worth noting, the 3 engines are all completely different colors.  They can be easily mixed and matched and to hoist them in and out you just have to rotate the cylinder heads up to vertical.

So that's our new marina as it comes "stock" from Lego.   We'll post a video as soon as we get it all fixed up and installed in town.   Also coming soon, we'll be building a new business across the marina's inlet.  Keep your eyes out for Set# 6595 Surf Shack!!

If you'd like to get a better idea of how it will all turn out, you can watch a video that shows -- roughly--- where everything will eventually go (shown below) and, as always, check back here for updates!

Thanks for visiting us here at www.bricksburgh.com and check out the videos on our YouTube channel at www.YouTube.com/MSIMMONS.