Initial Design of Offshore Floating Marina System

H. Chung* T. W. Oh* S. Namgoong* S. B. Kim* C. H. Jo**

*Ocean Space Inc., Seoul, Korea
**Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering Dept., Inha University, Incheon, Korea

Abstract
Marinas are often located in prime port side locations. In Korea these
locations are already developed and reclamation of the existing
properties poses many difficulties and financial overhead.
Also, to develop a standard marina in Korea with tide ranges up to 8
meters would require considerable dredging and reclamation works
needing long lead times and large SOC costs.
The offshore floating marina system is an independent floating static
level system that does not require fixed location breakwaters. The
entire marina floats with the tide giving a calm consistent berthing
condition for vessels irrespective of the surrounding tide and weather
conditions.
The floating marina system provides also for all of functions needed to
marina comprising a breakwater to protect the vessels, the pontoon
system to house the vessels, a club house and retail tourism precinct,
fuel reservoir and associated support facilities in a turn key self
contained unit.
The modular nature of the system will mean that initial demand can be
met with simple units and then further modules can be added quite
easily without the related expansion difficulties or infrastructure.
This paper contains the main characteristics of the floating marina
system and the design process. The mooring, motion and stability
analysis, the overall & local structural design and the mooring &
anchor system design are briefly introduced.

Key Words:

Floating Marina System, Offshore Floating Structure,

Mooring & Anchor Design

1. Introduction
In Korea, the interest in marine sports and leisure is rapidly growing.
Therefore, the demands of marina facilities are also increasing with the
increase of the number of yachts and pleasure boats.
Marina is defined as facility for mooring of yachts and boats. Existing
marinas are mainly located at shoreline, therefore, in order to build a
new marina, lots of problems related to site selection, local interest
groups, environmental concerns, SOC investment requirements etc. are
raised from the initial stage of the development.

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The floating marina system is different from existing marinas in

concept. This is a completely independent offshore system and it can
provide breakwater in itself by locating mooring boats inside the
floating structure.
This system also absorbs the large tidal variation effect characteristic in
the west coast of Korean Peninsula. The entire marina support facilities
can be installed at the upper deck and available spaces inside the
pontoon.
In this paper, we introduce initial design of the floating marina system,
its main facilities, the mooring, motion & structural analysis results and
the anchoring system design.

2. Main Characteristics of Offshore Floating

Marina System
The floating marina was designed to have a capacity of 200 berths in
one unit and, based on the market condition, to increase the berthing
capacity by installing the additional units to the side of previous units.
To define the waterspace area of marina, boat mix should be
determined first based on demand analysis. Boat mix of 200 berth is
determined as shown on Table 1 referring to the Japanese marina cases
because the social trend of Japan is similar to Korea.
Table 1. Boat Mix (200 Berth)
Boat Length

Number of Berths

32ft

48

34ft

42ft

72

44ft

52ft

56

59ft

Total

200

In one side of the waterspace, berths of dingy class yachts are arranged,
and the other side, berths of cruiser class boats are located considering
the different demand of boating market. Based on the arrangement of

berths, mooring facilities, fairway, turning basin and channel width are
decided as Fig. 1. The whole area of the required waterspace is
calculated as 56,000 .

The area and volume of inner facilities are decided considering the
maximum usage plan on a daily basis as shown on Table 3.
Table 3. Marina Inner Facilities
Facility
Power House
Fuel Storage System
Sewage Disposal System
Water Supply & Storage System
Ballast Seawater System
Boiler Room
Warehouse

Area()
3,500
4,000
3,000
4,500
48,000
2,400
2,400

Volume()
12,120
28,000
21,000
31,500
240,000
19,200
16,800

The draught and freeboard height of marina was decided considering

the maximum wave height, the minimum required pontoon depth,
floating structure motion behavior and the deck wetness probabilities.
The fairway depth of marina entrance was decided considering the
vertical motion of the floating structure and the draught & motion
effect of yachts together.
The main dimension of the floating marina system is shown on Table 4
and the birds eye view of marina is shown on Fig. 2.
Table 4. Main Dimension of 200 Berth Floating Marina

Fig. 1 Fairway, Turning Area and Berth Arrangement

Length
For the upper deck facilities to support marina activities, the required
area is calculated and arranged based on the existing marina study in
Japan and UK as shown on Table 2.
Table 2. Floating Marina Upper deck Facilities
Facility
Area()
Storage and Repair
Marina Support

2,400
3,500

Recreation Center

4,500

Lecture Room
Shower and Management
Management Building
Shopping Center

4.0m

Center of Gravity

3.09m

Center of Buoyancy

1.5m

GM

4469.3m

Displacement

460,000ton

Concrete Hull Weight

280,000ton

200
1,000
600
1,000

Because the offshore floating marina system is an independent structure

away from the coast, it needs its own utility facilities such as fuel
storage tank, power room, sewage disposal system, water storage tanks,
ballast seawater tanks etc. These facilities are located inside floating
concrete pontoons.
The concrete hull consists of outer and inner side spaces with
watertight bulkheads.
The ballast tanks are located along outer hull side and the other
facilities at inner hull side with double bulkheads for safety
consideration during accidental events like collisions with other ships.

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Draft

1,000
600

Heliport

4.5m

400

2,000

Meeting Place

400m

Freeboard

500

Lodging Accommodation
Club House

Breadth

1,000

Lavatory & Shower Room

Observation Tower

400m

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Fig. 2 Offshore Floating Marina Plan (200 Berth)

3. Offshore Floating Marina Design

3.1 Structural Type and Material Selection
The factors regarding location of marina, sea state, weather conditions
and seabed conditions should be considered to decide the type of

structure. The expected location of the floating marina has a depth of

20-30m and the large tidal variation of 8m.
The pontoon type has a lot of construction experiences in Korea and its
wave response motion can be minimized by the size and shape control.
Also, the construction cost is cheaper than other types of floating
structure available in offshore market for a depth of 20-30m.
The offshore floating marina uses concrete as a primary material for
pontoon structure due to anti-corrosion and durability effect.
Steel will be used for upper deck facilities considering its relative
weight advantage.

3.2 Mooring and Motion Analysis

Stability, motion and mooring analysis is carried out to check the
adequacy and safety of the integrated pontoon and mooring system.
For the stability analysis in intact and damaged conditions as shown on
Fig. 3, all the weights of upper deck and inside pontoons are calculated
and LCG, VCG and corresponding draft to all loading conditions are
computed based on the weight distribution.

Case 1

2
4

4
6

Case 2

Hull structure design was performed by the global strength analysis and
the local stress check for construction joints, mooring connectors and
so on.
In offshore structure, fatigue failure should be checked also for longterm wave stresses.
In global strength analysis, the stress and displacement of the entire
floating structure was calculated with full weight distribution and
maximum mooring loads during storm.
The structural analysis has been performed for the critical sagging &
hogging as shown on Fig. 4, the mooring, Fig. 5, the slamming, Fig. 6,
the sloshing and the twisting conditions. In the sagging & hogging
condition check, the pressure distribution under the bottom plate for the
storm condition was estimated.
The offshore floating marina is consisted of rectangular concrete beams,
columns, slabs and walls.
The applied loads for global strength check are self weights, upper deck
facility loads, inside pontoon facility loads, live loads and mooring
loads. It was estimated that the marina hull structure has enough
strength for all the applied loading conditions.

3.3 Hull Structure Design

3
5

frequency, dynamic motion, lateral pressure and stability of the floating

structure.

Case 3

Case 4

Fig. 3 Assumed Hull Flooding Area for Damaged Condition

The complete time domain mooring and motion analysis with 3-D
diffraction and radiation method was performed for the hull modeled
by panel elements.
The significant and most probable extreme motions and accelerations
are computed for 50-year return period environmental conditions as
shown on Table 5.
Table 5. 50-Year Environmental Design Condition
Wind
Current
Wave
Velocity
Velocity
(m/s)
(m/s)
Height(m) Period(sec)
45.0
1.6
5.5
9.0

Fig. 4 Displacement & Stress Results for Sagging & Hogging

Condition

Water
Depth
(m)
20.0

Deck wetness, slamming and sloshing possibility in storm condition

exists during the life of floating marina. Also, it is required to check the
secondary disturbance effect inside marina for the protection of
mooring yachts during storm case.
The probability of deck wetness and slamming is calculated by
reviewing the heave motion that is the largest effect among six degrees
of freedom of motion for the floating marina. The result is that it has
some probabilities of slamming and deck wetness, therefore, they were
checked in detail in hull structure design.
Sloshing is the phenomenon that tank fluids move with the motion of
floating structure. It should be considered for the check of natural

Fig. 5 Displacement & Stress Results for Mooring Condition

Fig. 6 Stress Results for Slamming Condition

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The local stress check was performed with shipwreck loads for the
underwater passage structure connecting two pontoon marinas and for
the piers of shuttle ferry boat with ship impact loads as shown on Fig. 7
and Fig. 8 respectively.
Guide Frame

Fig. 10 Dolphin Jacket Side View

The mooring & anchor system consists of jacket dolphin, the guide
frame connecting dolphin to marina hull and the joint connector
between dolphin and guide frame as shown on Fig. 11.
The jacket dolphin should have proper strength to endure large
horizontal mooring loads as checked in Fig. 12.
The guide frame fixed by anchor bolts to the concrete hull was
designed by steel section as shown on Fig. 13.
The wearing material called bushing is used for the protection of joint
connecting structure. It prevents the damage of guide frame by friction
forces and reduces friction noise during heave motion of marina hull.

Fig. 7 Stress Results for Underwater Passage Structure

Fig. 8 Stress Results for Pier Structure of Shuttle Ferry Boat

Fatigue loads in stress concentrated joints due to repetitive waves
during the entire life of floating marina were checked for mooring
connectors in dolphin anchor system as below Fig. 9.

Fig. 11 Dolphin Jacket System

Fig. 9 Fatigue Stress Results for Mooring Connector

3.4 Mooring & Anchor System Design

The selection of mooring equipment and facilities mainly depends on
environmental conditions, size and shape of floating structure, water
depth, sea bottom topography and soil properties.
The dolphin mooring system is adopted for the floating marina because
of large tidal variation effect characteristic in the west coast of Korean
Peninsula as shown on Fig. 10.
The basic concept of the mooring & anchor system is to design the
component as simple as possible, to transfer mooring forces effectively
to anchor system and to minimize friction forces generated from
vertical motions of large tidal variations. Also, the design should be
economic and efficient type in construction aspect and easily repaired
or replaced during operation and maintenance period.

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Fig. 12 Stress Results of Structural Analysis of Dolphin Jacket

References

Dolphin Pile

Fig. 13 Guide Frame & Anchoring Connector Design

The maximum mooring forces for the design of dolphin anchor was
determined by 50-year return period environmental condition as shown
on Table 5.
The maximum anchor force exerted by the marina structure is about
3,200 ton with appropriate safety factor.
The total 10 dolphin jackets are arranged on both sides of marina hull
to sustain the mooring loads as shown on Fig. 14.

D1

D2

D3

D4

D5

Dolphin Jacket

ABS (2003) Guide For the Fatigue Assessment of Offshore

Structures
ACI State of the Art Report (1985) Offshore Concrete Structure for
the Arctic, Concrete International, pp.2333.
API Recommended Practice (2000) 2A-WSD twenty-first Edition.
Berne (1992) Floating Concrete Structures VSL International Ltd
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Challenges, Mobil Technology Co. Offshore Engineer.
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of Offshore Steel Structures
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Mega-Float and Its Utilization, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.,
Technical Review Vol.38 No.2, pp.3946
Kinney, Schulz, Spring (1997), Floating LNG Plant will stress
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Issue 7, pp. 81~85.
Owen. F. Hughes (1983) Ship Structural Design: A Rationally Based
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Remmers. G, Robert. Z, Paul. P, Robert. T(1998) Mobile Offshore
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The Center for Marine and Petroleum Technology (1998) Floating
Structures: a Guide for Design and Analysis, Oilfield Publications,
Vol. II.

Fairway

Fairway

Dolphin Jacket
D6

D7

D8

D9

D10

Fig. 14 Dolphin Jacket Arrangement of Floating Marina System

4. Conclusion
In this paper, the initial design of offshore floating marina is briefly
introduced.
The primary hull sizing, the required waterspace and facilities of
floating marina of 200 berths were established.
The main characteristic of the marina is the concrete pontoon-type
having mooring basin at the center of floating structure.
The stability, motion and mooring analysis were performed for the
integrated hull and mooring system.
The global hull strength and the local stress in important connecting
parts were verified for the safety of floating structure in operational and
survival conditions.
The mooring and anchor system is selected and designed as dolphin
jacket system with anchoring connector and guide frame to overcome
the large tidal range in Korean coast.
Afterwards, the construction and installation methods of the floating
marina and the operation and maintenance plan in normal and
emergency cases will be developed.
This work has been carried out with assistance of Ministry of Maritime
Affairs and Fisheries of Korea and Korea Maritime Institute.

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