It’s a weekend boaters’ nightmare: backing a boat up to launch it and the trailer and truck end up in the water.

At Mangrove Park, a 4-acre city park and boat ramp along Federal Highway on the Intracostal Waterway, that’s the fear many boaters face.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s low or high tide,” said Leo Cid, an experienced boater. “The ramp is too steep and the trailer gets stuck on the concrete at the bottom of the ramp.”

City officials admit the ramp, built just a couple of years ago, is intimidating to many boaters due to its steepness. But the cost to fix it is too high and it is not a top spending priority.

Mangrove Park includes a boat ramp with staging docks, boat trailer parking spaces, benches, a bicycle rack and restrooms. The $2.6 million park was built with a grant from the Florida Inland Navigation District along with Palm Beach County and Delray Beach money.

“There should be a warning sign,” said Cid, who owns a boat repair business and launches boats from Delray Beach ramps almost daily. “A lot of the people who use these ramps are not experienced launchers.”

That’s what one city official proposed last month when commissioners considered a proposal to fix the ramp.

At a workshop meeting where officials discussed how to fix the ramp, Environmental Services Director Richard Hasko told officials the cost could be between $250,000 and $400,000. Since then, he said it could cost only about $200,000.

“It’s too much money,” said Commissioner Gary Eliopoulos. “We ought to have a sign that says, ‘Boat at your own risk.’ But this is an embarrassment.”

Hasko said the ramp meets allowable steepness and is functional, but boaters claim trailers often hit the bottom of the ramp before the boat can float. Hasko said the land conditions at Mangrove Park are different from nearby Knowles Park, which also has a boat ramp.

“But [commissioners] made it clear to us that the reconstruction of the ramp is not a priority,” Hasko said. “We’ll see if we can find some grant funding somewhere.”

Cid said he avoids the ramp. While the new park and ramp was supposed to alleviate ramp traffic and lack of parking at Knowles Park, the only other boat ramp in the city, many say it has only made matters worse.

“Boaters use the ramp at Knowles and then go park their trailers at Mangrove,” Cid said. “Then people can’t use the ramp [at Knowles] until that person comes back from parking. It’s a mess.”

Maria Herrera can be reached at or 561-243-6544.