News · Thumb Coast
Caseville harbor installs a HandiCaptain so boaters can board without the hard step
CASEVILLE, Mich. — Caseville Municipal Harbor opened a HandiCaptain boat-boarding station on Oct. 1, giving people with disabilities, mobility challenges or age-related limits a steadier way from the dock into a boat, the Huron Daily Tribune reported.
Melissa Begley, co-owner of the HandiCaptain Company of Lake Leelanau, called the Model B marina unit a first-of-its-kind universal-access boarding station. Inventor Adam Begley said the idea started about 20 years ago when he needed a safe way to get his father on and off a boat.
“Some people, when you have a mobility problem, you look at that foot, it looks like a mile and it can be very scary,” Begley told the Tribune. “So this eliminates the barrier to getting from here on land onto the boat.”
The company said private home units start around $7,000 with a 450-pound lift limit. The marina Model B starts at about $38,000. A nylon sling can lift a wheelchair user from a chair into the boat. Caseville reached out to the Begleys, and the installation was funded by the Department of Natural Resources, Melissa Begley said.
Mayor Kenneth Rathje tested the lift after it was installed and called the ride smooth. He said marketing Caseville as accessible should draw both visitors and people who want to live there.
The Coast Guard’s 2024 recreational boating statistics, cited in the Tribune report, counted 150 incidents during loading or unloading of passengers or gear, with 48 deaths and 78 injuries.
Sources:
Tyler Davis, Huron Daily Tribune / Record-Patriot, “First of its kind HandiCaptain installed at Caseville Harbor,” Oct. 5, 2026, https://www.recordpatriot.com/news/article/handicaptain-accessible-caseville-harbor-22447159.php
Photo: Notorious4life, “Caseville Harbor Light (Michigan),” Aug. 5, 2019, Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/), cropped and color-corrected, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caseville_Harbor_Light_(Michigan).jpg
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