From collection Irving Nevells Collection
LB2012.17.726
Power cruiser tied up in Tibbett's Lok Marina, Bayview Street, Camden, Maine. Down East Magazine's offices can be seen at the right. The Lok Marina, an ingenious boat basin on land, is located on the western shore of Penobscot Bay in Camden, Maine. It is built above the low water mark, at the edge of the harbor and is connected with the harbor by a canal-type lock. In minutes the lock can raise a boat above the tides, ready to enter the basin, which is like a mill pond. Once inside skipper and crew simply tie up and step off onto fixed finger piers and dry, well-lighted docks. Topside repairs are made easier by these piers. The water in the basin gets chemical treatments every night to keep hulls clean. One out-of-the-ordinary feature of Lok Marina is the drydock. An A-frame structure occupies one corner of the basin. The boat to be serviced enters through another lock, the water is withdrawn and the boat is left in slings. This drydock takes about half the time of conventional facilities; and, of course, there is no problem with tides. Lok Marina's basin is large enough to accommodate over 30 boats of varying sizes up to 42' in length and up to a 4' draft. Boats of larger dimension tie on the harbor side of the basin, where 160' of floats are available with 7'at low water. The marina was the brain child of Dr. Raymond Tibbetts, a Camden osteopath, who started inventing things when he was 10 years old. When he was 14, he designed a small gasoline engine for a 6' boat he had built. Until he designed and built the Lok Marina, Dr. Tibbetts had never seen a lock, but he felt that the logic of the principle was guidance enough - a good policy for any do-it-yourselfer. Another innovation is winter wet storage in the basin. Even in the coldest Maine weather only skim ice develops in the basin, as relatively warm salt water is pumped from the bottom of the harbor outside and circulated daily. With ice-free water and a lock for entering, boat owners can greatly extend their active season, leaving and re-entering as they wish. The development of the Lok Marina has resulted in several patents for its parent company, Tibbetts Industries.
