BRASILIA: Beating out big global rivals, a family business from Pompano Beach has won a contract to supply floating docks for the 2016 Summer Olympics rowing competition in Brazil.
It took AccuDock employees about a month to build the custom docks at the company’s factory off Powerline Road. The last of nine 40-foot shipping containers with the supplies is set to leave Florida this week, so the docks can be ready for rowing tests this summer in Rio de Janeiro.
AccuDock founder John Harrison said the contract is “worth millions” — among the largest yet for a company that began in 2007 with a simple idea: to build a sturdy “working float” you could stand on when cleaning the sides of boats from the water. That plastic float aimed to replace make-shift options like working from a piece of plastic foam with plywood on top.
Harrison and his son Jason then tweaked and expanded their concept to docks. When a customer in the Orlando area said rowers would prefer docks a couple of inches lower to the water for their races, the Harrisons obliged. They swapped out their month-old installation at no cost — and built a reputation for customization.
The rowing community quickly took note. AccuDock was chosen to provide floating docks for the 2013 World Rowing Championships in South Korea and more recently supplied docks for Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota, which will host the 2017 World Rowing Championships.
“There are not many competitors that can get as low to the water as we can,” said Jason Harrison, 28, who runs the fast-growing business. “We can build to order, when others can’t.”
That’s partly because AccuDock makes its products by hand, not from molds. It builds docks from plastic foam encased in polyethylene sheets — a plastic similar to what lines the backs of pickup trucks. And it welds the sheets together with plastic, using all U.S. materials in the process.
“Having our U.S.-made, U.S.-sourced materials going to the Olympics is worth more than the dollar amount,” said John Harrison, 58. The veteran mariner spoke during a tour of his clean, well-organized factory that has earned tough-to-obtain ISO certification for its standardized procedures.
It’s not just rowers or Olympics organizers who are impressed.
Marina Products, a division of Decks and Docks Lumber of Clearwater, used to make its own floating docks and instead switched to selling AccuDock’s product, said Lois Laing, general manager of the chain’s Dania Beach locale. The dock-accessory supplier has forged a partnership with the Harrisons.
AccuDock now employs 30 people making docks, aluminum gangways and other products that float — even some topped with 40-foot-high scaffolding to be used alongside U.S. Navy ships. That’s a big change from making one key item with five employees just five years ago.
