A Marina Bull 2 at Grove Harbor Marine in Coconut Grove, Florida

Wiggins Lift Co Inc has delivered a Marine Bull 2 forklift to Loggerhead Club & Marina and showed its marine capabilities at the recent Miami international boat show.

Wiggins Lift is benefiting from an industry trend toward building larger water-going vessels and the dry-storage industry’s challenge to house more of the large boats in higher racks with tighter building footprints.

Erik Bishop, a harbour master with Loggerhead, expresses satisfaction with Wiggins equipment that he says has a 52,000 lb (23,400 kg) lifting capacity and a tight turning radius to move vessels between the water and his 300-boat dry-storage facility. The Wiggins unit "can lift a 10,000 lb (4,500 kg) boat and put it on a shelf 64 feet (19.2 m) in the air," Bishop reports. "Unbelievable."

Seven Kings Holdings Inc of Jupiter, Florida owns a dozen geographically dispersed Loggerhead luxury marinas and dry-storage facilities along Florida’s East and Gulf coasts.

In spreading the word, Wiggins Lift has utilised a Waco, Texas public relations and promotion firm to develop numerous digital placements through the video-centric social networking site Vimeo LLC, a subsidiary of entertainment magnate Barry Diller’s New York-based IAC/InterActiveCorp.

Among projects discussed in Vimeo messages, Wiggins Lift built a complex forklift to move payload within the mission bay of the US Navy’s new fleet of littoral combat ships incorporating Wiggins’ patented Stabilift sea condition compensation system.

Mike Wiggins manages the Oxnard-based business, which members of his family have operated for 55 years.

The National Marine Manufacturers Association produced the boat show and a related sailing exposition from 11-15 February in Miami, Florida.