MarineMax Evicts 30 Boats for being "Too Old"

[wingssail]

I see this as a part of a trend. The trend being that boating as I know it is becoming more expensive and difficult for the less well to do.

The bigger, newer boats can command higher slip fees. So, move out the older, smaller ones to make room for the more profitable ones.

In my marina new, high dollar value, powerboats are filling the vacant berths. If the marina becomes full we can expect prices to go up. Boat yard fees are also going up, as are repair costs. It is all around becoming more expensive and that is not just inflation.

New marinas are not in the cards. Very expensive and zoning and environmental regulations make them pretty much impossible, so we can only expect more demand for a limited resource.

I'm old, maybe I can hold out until I am too old to do this any more, but my kids and grandkids won't be able to have this lifestyle.

By the way, I have an old boat. It was built 43 years ago. I could be evicted based on the age of my boat. I'd rather see a policy of evictions based on a certain standard of maintenance and (I don't know how you would measure or enforce this) based on how much the boat was used. In other words, keep the slips for boats maintained well and used frequently. The derelict boats would not pass that test.

[RichV2020]

This has been great, over 60 posts in a week, and the range of responses has been all over.

One theme is "Don't judge a book by it's cover ". Very few responses on how they are doing it (they haven't notified the owners, and just not sending renewals).

A lot about corporations and making money from both sides. At least they are a public-traded company as apposed to private equity firm like the ones that own West Marine and some of the marina chains. It's very hard for a business, public or private, to compete with a private equity firm and their seemingly bottomless check book.

One thing I've noticed in 26 years of running my own business is when the economy is down, the vendors are my best friend, and when the economy is up, there are a lot of requirements to work with them. It goes in cycles, and we are in an amazing cycle for boats now. I'm for treating people right and many businesses have been successful doing that.

I posted the original post.

[kzmike]

Originally Posted by Ringmaster

Marina BS is one of the reasons why I sold my boat a couple of years ago. The spring Covid took off my marina wouldn't allow anyone to come to the yard to prep their boats for launch. Then they had the gall to bill people for being on the hard beyond their "winter storage time". When I was finally able to launch in JULY I left the place leaving them with a open slip for the summer. So you tell me how they made out stiffing me for extra time on the hard. F**k them.

Exactly! They sure manage to grab all the bucks they can and many give you the feel of a creepy public laundromat with equally unclean restroom facilities. I consider it theft...taking money for virtually no services. And, no one holds them accountable for their fails. I feel that if a boat runs and is registered by the state, it is NOT a derelict. Some moron arbitrarily deciding my boat is too old to be "worthy" is simply elitist clap-trap.

[kes]

I believe that this particular situation with MarineMax in Quincy, MA that the OP started this thread about is more about them being able to sell new boats and not non-renewing derelicts.

In Massachusetts right now availability of slips to the number of boats is very, very tight with long waiting lists. Mooring fields have very long wait lists as well. These wait lists are often years and years long.

This situation is leading new boat dealers who also own marina slip space to make choices -

Choice 1: don't make a new boat sale because the customer has no place to berth it

Choice 2: Non-renew existing slip holder contracts with those that have older boats that were not purchased at that dealer/marina and are not spending their other dollars at the marina facility inclusive of service layup / storage.

We're starting to see more and more of Choice 2 by marinas in our area.

A prime example of this is when a boater re-powers elsewhere and shows up in the spring with new a new outboard or outboard(s) hanging off of the transom of their vessel. This gets instant attention of the marina. I know that the boater really wanted Yamaha, but he should have considered what the marina sells in order to preserve the relationship and support the berthing marina. That's how you retain berthing in a non Yacht Club for profit marina.

Locally to me there is a marina that has gone to a policy of: in order to retain a berth one must commission, service, decommission, winter store with the marina or you're gone. I know of a half a dozen boaters who had been there for decades who did not and they all received their non-renewals two years ago.

As a marina broker, I've seen similar situations develop as new marina owners are paying hefty prices for these facilities with the associate equipment and business cost of retaining good employees and expensive inventory. The monthly nut is pretty high.

Not that I like what is happening to some good people just trying to enjoy their leisure time, but the money has to come from somewhere and it certainly isn't coming from the boater who doesn't support their marina beyond berthing fees.

[jmschmidt]

Yeah, but their boats are ugly.

[PirateFoxy]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Having been to a number of RV parks with a 10yr rule in a 15yr old RV, it's a half truth.

As long as the RV appears to be in good condition, they seem to forget to ask about the age.

Probably see the same thing if you show up in a classic boat in pristine condition.

I was going to comment the same thing. We haven’t tried to get into any of the age limited parks yet because so far we’ve just been doing state parks and so on, but we’ve been told by multiple people that our RV, even though it is old, would pass muster at all but the super high end places, because it obviously isn’t just-off-the-lot brand new, but it just looks like a sort of generic well-kept RV.

It seems to mostly be to keep the junky stuff and things like school bus conversions out of the campground.

[Lemsteraak]

I think having a marina is a very difficult business. They are cookie cutter or franchises, each area is different too. It isn't alway money that is the motivator. In Paris France, there is a wonderful marina right in the heart of town. Great place to live, but their incentive it to make the place accessible to tourists. If you have an annual contract, you have to leave for at least 30 days out of the year so they can use your berth for visitors. Works well for everyone, they get tourists, don't get any derelict boats and if you are lucky, you get a nice place to keep your boat for 11 months out of the year.

The San Francisco Marina is interesting. They brought in advisors to learn what is "best practice. They needed to update the marina, it was getting old and pretty well worn out. The advisors came in with a whole new plan and layout. The average size of berths went from 30 feet to 38 feet because new cruising boats are larger. San Francisco is not a cruising destination and the larger cruising boats never appeared. They kicked out all the small boats that daysail the Bay and now they are trying to entice them back. They didn't choose to listen to their customers.

Find out what motivates the owners of your marina and fit in. Personally, I love Yacht Club marinas, but they really aren't marina because you have to put in your time. Our club requires at least 10 hours of work and that is the minimum. You will really appreciate how much work goes into keeping a harbor in good shape when you have to do the work.

[Tellie]

Originally Posted by Bycrick

There’s no free lunch. I lived in a marina where the owner lived right at the head of the dock. There was no "big, faceless corporate bureaucracy" to deal with. But if you irritated him, you were GONE at the end of the month. He ran it as his private fiefdom.

The question then is "What made him that way". Some people consider that "The other side of the story"

[Bycrick]

I have no idea what made him that way. But I thought it was eminently sensible. It was his marina. And named after him. He lived there and watched the place like a hawk. He considered it his primary residence and I’m sure felt that he had the right to invite, or not, people who shared his space. I had no problems at all with him.

But the dirty, unmaintained boats, with people who were constantly complaining about something being wrong, were quickly moved out. The rest of us did just fine.

My point was that dealing with one opinionated private owner isn’t always better than dealing with a big faceless corporation.

[Jake Tanley]

Similar thread from September


https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...it-255759.html

[NavyDave_andMe]

September's thread became contentious pretty quickly, I thought.
We bought our soon-to-be-40-years-old boat just over a year ago and were considering marinas up and down both sides of the Florida coast. If you haven't looked for a FL marina lately, you have no idea how difficult it is to find a slip that's reasonable both in price and distance to the open water. If we didn't have a shoal draft, the search would have been even harder. Waiting lists at some places are upwards of five years, and in many popular marinas, they are no longer even adding to the waiting lists.
While conducting the search, we were frequently asked to confirm the condition of our boat. I don't know if this is a new practice. It seems to support the "eviction" principle of boats deemed "unworthy" of a slip. If I remember correctly, a couple of marinas wanted us to send pictures. I was very glad and relieved that, for once, we had a pretty boat. In fact, at one marina we were given a deal for a number of months...we were the only sailboat at the dock and attracted endless admirers who would mosey down from the fishing charters and pontoon rentals, which made the marina owner very happy. Good for him, less good for privacy for us.
--Cheryl

[PirateFoxy]

Originally Posted by Tellie

The question then is "What made him that way". Some people consider that "The other side of the story"

I know some people who boarded horses who got like that and oh, the stories they had. I bet he has some doozies.

[mvweebles]

Odd thread. Every industry has a $/unit metric. Hospitality is revenue per available room. Restaurants is revenue per check. I'd guess for a marina, it's revenue per available foot.

Nothing personal, it's just business. When I was delivering boats, took me less than a year to figure out that delivering old sailboats was a quick path to the poor house compared to delivering new powerboats.

Feel free to buy a marina and preserve a romantic notion of a lifestyle. Just know you'll be bidding against buyers and a seller motivated by profit, not a storybook ending.

Peter

[Tellie]

Originally Posted by PirateFoxy

I know some people who boarded horses who got like that and oh, the stories they had. I bet he has some doozies.

I'm not a marina owner but I'm in and out of marinas all over Florida. I hear a lot of stories, both sides. As much as I hate to say it as a sailor myself, but if I were a marina owner, I'd be looking at the larger power vessels as well. Though no knock against the sailors here on this forum, right or wrong, sailors do have a well-earned reputation in marinas. Space is getting tighter here every year. Whose gonna make out like bandits as well in the very near future are the private homes with rentable dockage space. Expect that to double as well. Many of those homes are owned by sailors who bought here years ago. I wonder how magnanimous they will be when they see the rent increasing all around them.