contact: Jeff Matthews

They slipped this one by me while I wasn't looking. I've been told by more than one Master and Commander that I can growl “Aaaarrr!” with the best of 'em and am a natural helmsman aboard a small sailing craft. Now if I can just remember not to call that thing (photo, left) the “steering wheel." I do not, however, care much about loud and expensive rafts with motors of the kind that moor (or park) in front of my balcony all summer (links here and here.) That is no doubt why I didn't  notice the construction of the Marina di Stabia near Castellammare. They started in the year 2000 and it was completed in 2007. The marina is part of the general redevelopment of the urban-blighted coastline between the mouth of the Sarno river (noted here as one of the most polluted waterways in the inner solar system) and the town of Castellammare, home of the shipyards below the height of Mt. Faito at the beginning of the Sorrentine peninsula.

The marina bills itself as an MDL Mediterranean Network marina and one of the largest private marinas in the Med. MDL Marinas is a British firm founded in the 1970s and (from its self-description)...

 "...has  played a central role in the development of the modern-day marina, providing easy-to-access fully serviced pontoon berths, high quality on-shore facilities and 24-hour staffing...[with] a portfolio of 21 marinas and boatyards in prime boating locations in the UK, Spain and Italy..."

In any event, verifiable expansions of the acronym MDL include Meteorological Development Laboratory, Magnetic Density Level,
Mucosa-Derived Lymphocyte, and Mitglied des Bundestages, in the unlikely case that the marinas are members of the German Federal Parliament. It could also be the name of my website written by Arabs. (If you know what MDL stands for, please tell me. Earliest postmark wins!)*

The vital stats on this particular marina:

Type: private marina;
Coordinates: 40°43’,03 N 14°28’,32 E;
Moorings: 1300; maximum boat length 75 meters;
Lighthouse and light: red light signal south, red and green light signal north,
‘binate’ red and green fixed light signal;
Access hours: continuous.

Although the marina itself is in operation, the entire project to redevelop that part of the waterfront continues and is in the hands of the major Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas. Published sources speak of an eventual "... futuristic multi-functional complex...built on the ashes of the old warehouses, with showrooms, shops, restaurants, a 4-star hotel and a multiplex cinema." All that plus my 75-meter yacht. Let me at that steering wheel!

*Marine Developments Ltd., thanks to Prof. Warren Johnson. He wins the boat.


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