If you owned a Marina.....
 

I have a serious question about Marinas. If you owned a Marina, or could do something innovative with a marina, what would you do?

This hypothetical marina would be on the Great Lakes, have about 100 slips (30 to 60 foot) with most rented seasonally to weekend boaters looking to "get away" from the big cities, have plenty of land, and be very convenient to one of the Great Lakes. The owner would not want to be in the restaurant or bar business. Doesn't mean one could not be placed on site, just not run by the owner. And remember, most of the slip renters want some peace and quite after 11 pm or so.

Also, what could a marina do in the winter months to bring in a bit more cash flow other than the usual service functions?

Just hypothetically, that is.......

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

NO needless Revving of engines at the docks :D

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

First off.....I would never own a marina or marine repair business. Then you will have to give up boating .....you know what I mean!

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

My thought exactly. I like boating to much to get into any kind of boat service, sales, marinas, etc.

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

I've never dealt with rack storage. I suspect it would be good use of an empty building in the summer, but don't those owners with racked boats want to use slips? If so, then some number of slips would have to be reserved for the racked boats? Are those slips paid for by use, or included in the rack fee? Are racked boat owners open to having their boats filled up, cleaned, warmed up, and waiting for the owners to arrive? What would a customer be wiiling to pay for that level of service, and could you get enough customers to go with that level of service?

The gym sounds like a neat idea. Anybody here own or operate a gym? What resources are out there to learn about the business?

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

OK Fred....1st off your signature link is wrong....correct it

When you deal with hypotheticals....you bring in the intangible's

Then to get into the marina business....winter work is gel coat repair and touch up....got to do alot of ground pounding to generate enough work for your gel coat employee, because you will be out generating work for him or them. Also, mechanical repairs can lead into Nov or maybe Dec. Then start dewinterizing in late March and early April. Now being up north alittle further, then time factor might be different
Of course if you make enough money, you and the family can go south for the winter.....just a thought

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

Ok, did it, works now!


Now, what about sailboaters? How does a power boater learn to treat sailboaters with respect? But seriously, the marina has some large sailboats becuase it is blessed with deep water. I guess I'd have to learn to just get along, eh?

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

In/out service with person on call till midnight fri.Sat night

Allow and promote barge homes for year round living 60ft max.

Reliable Merc small service dept. mostly for emerg./small repairs/ winterizing. Same person to do shrink wrap.

Small in house brokerage business

A restaurant that serves breakfast and middle of the road
American food all day - hip Burger Joint

70 ton travel Hoist

Fish cleaning station

Powerboats only

Depending on location maybe half dozen small retail
spaces - 1 for summer clothing store

Small ships store with not a lot of useless junk.

Incredible Customer Service

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

Just treat people very nice! Just like U would want 2 B treated on your time off or vacation!! My 2 cents, the service world in a lot of cases, is falling short! Let's face it, boaters R spending a lot of $ on luxury non essential items! It helps the economy on many levels. :D

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

Yup, for sure on the service level.

If I could pull this off, my place would be a destination point, not the town.

Been boating since 88 with a 28 Carver and then a 42 Carver, taking a 2 to 3 week trip almost every year. I've learned quite a bit about both high and low levels of customer service, and would hope to provide stellar service - mechanical/repairs, sales, after-sales, gas dock, and taking care of the tenants.

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

You just need both types of rack storage:

Build a Dry Storage facility with a year round strip club attached. The fuel dock and bar will make you all the profits you need, the rest of the revenue will pay your fixed overhead costs.


Call it: All Racks......................

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

Rack storage with clubhouse/restaurante/gym/tennis courts etc woudl be great. Id settle for rack storage that doesnt beat up my boat though. One that can tak eit out when you come in and not make you leave it there for them to move. open later then 5. lots of floating docks covered in bumpers.
of course no one will want to pay extra for these features. so itll have to be storage fees and club fees optional if you want the extra stuff.

or maybe a marine with covered slips and lifts instead. id prefer that to rack storage, buy less efficient.

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

Ya, I'd like a strip club too, but that won't fly. And my wife would not find humor in my hiring practices!

I can't say much about the marina, but it does have heated and unheated inside storage, as well as outside storage. Has a large travel lift. Has a few prime movers, and I believe one of the big ones has a mast that goes down below grade to launch small boats. There is no rack storage there now. They have a well equiped service department, but has a bad reputation - lots of opportunity with it. There is a ships store, and there is room for a small strip mall / hamburger joint / summer supply store. But buying the place would be a huge financial thing, and building in the first few years would be a stretch.

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

That when you look at boaters as a dollar sign $$$$ sail boaters or power boaters....even paddle boaters

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

I have gone through this with a client, call me and I can offer suggestions that have worked here, your example could have been my guy.... 270-554-0720... BTW - at the expense of pulling my own chain, I am THE small biz guy in Western KY, have been down this road many, many times.... no fee for talkin...

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

interesting thread, though i am not an owner, i have worked for 2 different marinas with rack storage. Rack storage is a great idea but there are a few things to keep in mind....you have to have nice equipment and a clean facility, you mentioned the marina you are looking at does not currently offer rack storage and though you can build a big building for a reasonable price, forklifts are not cheap. If you decide to go through with it then go and try to find reliable staff that are capable of running a forklifts and dont mind working every weekend during the summer. I guess im used to it, been doing it for about the last 4 years, but it still kill sme when i see everyone else out on a beautiful Sat. and im workin :(

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

No cat boats. byrdman that means you

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

i would have hookers............ :drink:

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

I would charge sailboaters 10x normal gas prices and give powerboaters a discount! :evilb:

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

Even if you charged them 10x's the gas price you still wouldn't get them for one fill up for a powerboat. And, they'd probably STILL brag about how little fuel they use. BORING, I know it's all money but we are powerboats only and will stay that way.

Cheers,

Andy

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

Clean showers,
Ample security,
Electrical outlets wired correctly,
Sell ice at the rack facility.

or build condos.

ed

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

Kinda off from the norm here, but we bought a marina about five years ago, that was a little run down with 26 covered slips, 12 campsites, a bathhouse on a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. It previously sold gas and had a rundown store. We decided to tear the store down and get rid of the gas and not be open to the general public. So we rebuilt the docks and now everyone there is permanent and pays year round. You can't have a campsite without a boatslip. It doesn't make a great deal of money, but it easily pays for itself and maintenance as well as insurance. Last year we installed a large coommercial ice machine and we give it to our members. We found that our tenants treat this place like their own. They pick up and maintain the community areas and their own spaces. They bring our attention to potential problems and help fix them. The only boats I work on are mine and friends that need a hand with theirs. Most of our tenants are fishermen/women. There's nothing like fresh rockfish on the grill on a Saturday night. And of course, lots of alcohol.
Good luck and this is just the way that we do it.

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

Build condo's with boat slips. they are closing a few marinas around here doing just that

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

It also doesn't hurt to see that marina properties appreciate in value very consistantly.

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

I'll chime in after the coffee kicks in :)

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

unfortunatly I do

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

Fill a whole dock with boat lifts but don't charge an arm and a leg for the lift. Just tack $10-15 a foot on top of the storage fee. :D

Next thing you know everyone will want a lift and your marina will be filled with speedboats! :cool:

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

:evilb: :evilb: :evilb:

(don't let your new wife to be hear that... :drink: )

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

I have owned a marina with 300 rack dry storage building and 43 wet slips to 50 feet. Feel free to contact me for specific questions.

As for sailboaters: usually, they show up on friday night with a $20 bill and a t-shirt. They would make it through the weekend without changing either one.

Seriously, I had a written policy charging sailboaters double the haul cost for travel-lift service and a minimum hourly fee for stepping masts with the forklift. They are just not worth it. A sailboater wil say "but I only need it for about ten minutes, not an hour". Your response should be to politely tell them to get their own $400K forklift and do it somewhere else.

Tom

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

Definately strippers!! :drink:

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

I live in a small town on Georgian Bay that literally has 10 marinas in a space of 3 miles. The best ones have dredging equipment (due to the fluctuating water levels of the great lakes), not just regular and high octane gas at the pumps, but mid-grade and 50:1 also. They also have good parts stores and large winter storage facilities. Some have rec facilities and gyms and one even has a small hotel too. Come to think of it, I guess that a marina can have everything, but to me, competitive prices and A1 customer services does it for me.

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

I own a marina. Went to the bay for a poker run. Nice town!

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

I'm glad to hear someone handles these cheap fu#ks appropriately. Marina's that cater to them seem to have no clue the coin they're sacrificing.

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

We have never worked on a sailboat in our 20+ years career.

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

Thats one hell of a career for a twelve year old... :D

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

One thing about rack storage. Make sure you have enough dock space for boats on a busy weekend. You will have a lot customers giving you hell if they have to wait for their boat.

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

I'm going to call some of you marina owners Monday.

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

Charge the sailboaters $2.50 a gallon for water! :eek:

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

RIGHT ON!!!!! :evilb: :D

Re: If you owned a Marina.....
 

I hate these damn bloboaters. I was at my Cougar pulling the drives today. Some guy, clearly a sailboater, comes up to me and starts asking questions about what i was doing, and "oh, why does it have three drives, does it have 3 engines", so I tell him yup, 3 572s. He says the boat is too loud and the water is everybody's so why do I have to ruin it for him; he's seen me on the lake. I just told him I'll make sure I find him on the lake and burn a few hundred doing circles around him in the summer. What an ass. He walked away pissed.
If the ass would have kept at it, I would have laid into him about sails up in harbors, tacking in the breakwall, being a slob, leaning at a 30 degree lkist, and dump the stoopid hat. But I pissed him before it got to that.

If this deal goes through, I will actively work at replacing them all. What a bunch of morons.