TAMPA - Florida's housing funk already has battered the state's single-family home and condo markets. Now, signs are appearing that the once-hot 'rackaminium' industry - basically condominiums for boats - is beginning to feel the heat.

Sales at Tampa Harbour Yacht Club in South Tampa, which might be the area's highest-profile rackaminium project, are 50 percent behind schedule, said project developer Steeven Knight. Meanwhile, Kirby Cay Scheimann, a managing director of Marinas International, which owns and manages marinas nationwide, said some of the momentum in the entire rackaminium industry has been lost, as banks tighten their lending practices and some investors put their money elsewhere.

So far, there's little evidence that the rackaminium projects are failing, but the money doesn't appear to be coming as easily as expected.

'There are some site-specific locations where rackaminiums work, but it's no where near the broad-based appeal people thought it would be,' said Scheimann, whose company owns Harborage Marina in downtown St. Petersburg, among other properties.

In recent years, dozens of marinas across the state have stopped renting boat slips to boaters and began selling slips instead. Smaller boats are stored in two or three-story rackaminium buildings, while bigger yachts are stored in the marinas' wet slips, called dockominiums.

Some boating advocates are aghast at the trend, because many average boaters can't afford the high prices of rackaminiums and are being squeezed out of marinas.

This week, Knight said the sluggish real estate market is creating challenges for rackaminium and dockominium projects. On West Tyson Avenue in Tampa, Knight is building a luxury club with dry-dock storage for up to 700 boats and wet slips for another 40 yachts. Tampa Harbour Yacht Club sits on land formerly occupied by Bayside Marina and Rattlefish Raw Bar & Grill.

The slips don't come cheap, running from $125,000 to $600,000. But Knight is marketing the yacht club as part of a prestigious boating lifestyle, instead of just a place to store boats. In that vein, he recently closed Rattlefish Raw Bar - once a thriving seafood house - and is turning it into a private clubhouse for rackaminium and dockominium owners.

So far, he has sold 114 dry rackaminiums and one wet dockominium, which is about half of what he had expected to sell by this time, Knight said. To save on expenses, he has cut some of his in-house sales staff and outsourced sales to a local real estate firm, Century 21 Beggins Enterprises.

Buyers Getting The Jitters

For now, the slumping real estate market is giving potential rackaminium buyers the jitters and causing them to hold off on purchases, Knight said. His company, Fort Myers-based Yacht Clubs of the Americas, is counting on the market coming back strong. According to its Web site, www.ycoa.com, he has high-end rackaminium projects planned or already operating in Naples, Key West, Fort Myers, Sanibel, Stuart, New Smyrna Beach, Jacksonville, the Bahamas and Destin.

Knight received a $200 million loan last year from iStar Financial, a New York-based investment firm, to finance some of those projects. Despite the sluggish sales, Knight said his lender is committed to the projects and is hanging with him. He is also stepping up his marketing efforts, by signing an agreement with wildlife artist and TV personality Guy Harvey to market his Key West yacht club, Knight said.

'We're still selling inventory, even in an industry that's affected by real estate,' Knight said.

Scheimann said he knows of other rackaminium projects facing slow sales, but was hesitant to name them this week. His company is in negotiations to manage several rackaminium projects on behalf of their developers.

Scheimann said some projects will perform well. But overall, the industry faces new challenges, such as tighter lending standards by banks. Also, the industry had been counting on purchases by investors, who were betting the slips would continue to rise in value.

However, 'the investors aren't there like they were before,' Scheimann said.

'I Don't Think We're In A Decline'

This week, a few Bay area rackaminium projects insisted their sales are holding up well, even with the real estate slump.

Sales representatives of Turtle Cove Marina in Tarpon Springs and Marker 1 Marina in Dunedin say their sales have at least met projections.

Roger Fruits, a real estate broker handling sales for Turtle Cove Marina, which is at the end of Tarpon Springs' sponge docks, said the marina began selling about 100 dry slips and 10 wet slips a year ago. To date, it has sold all of the wet slips and has sold roughly half its dry slips, which run $40,000 to $150,000.

'I think the market's very stable. I don't think we're in a decline,' Fruits said.

Developer Frank Maggio, who built the Nautico Yacht Club, a sprawling rackaminium and dockominium project near the Skyway Bridge in St. Petersburg, did not return calls for an update on sales.

Reporter Michael Sasso can be reached at (813) 259-7865 or msasso@tampatrib.com.