DIY Boatyards a dying breed?

[dhill]

Hi all,

I created this thread as a continuation of the digression in the original Sump Pump post, for which I am equally guilty... [see Post #16]

Moderator note: Initial posts duplicated from another thread for continuity.

Hi Dave,
On our '86 E35-3 that sump pump is part of the cabin light wiring. With those on the switch will operate the pump. Our season was too short to take showers or use that pump. But see if you have power with cabin lights on.
Good luck,
Jeff

Hi Jeff,

I'll have to try that once I'm able to get back on the boat. Unfortunately, the boatyard does not allow me to go on the boat while it is on the hard, so it will be next spring! I have a frozen zipper over the port side salon settee, so that complicates the tracing. I'll have to work on fixing that as well!

It looks like you are doing fabulous things to your boat - very inspirational!

Thanks!
Dave

 

[Dave G.]

the boatyard does not allow me to go on the boat while it is on the hard

Wow, what is the reasoning behind that rule? I'd be way behind come spring launch time without access.

 

[dhill]

Wow, what is the reasoning behind that rule? I'd be way behind come spring launch time without access.

Yes, exactly. Unfortunately, more and more boatyards in Maine are steering away from allowing DIYers to work on their boats. As best I can tell, the reasoning is two-fold:

1) Liability / Insurance - I believe this is the main reason they don't allow people on the boats while on the hard.

2) Revenue - Boatyards I've talked to look to maximize revenue per square foot of space, outdoor as well as indoor. If they allow DIY work, their revenue per square foot goes down.

When I was shopping around for boatyards, those that did allow DIY work qualified the statement with a "for now" at the end.

So, I prioritize work that requires the boat to be out of the water for the boatyard and try to do the rest myself. I'm hoping to put the boat back in a bit earlier this spring so I can tackle boat projects before summer, when folks, including myself, want to go out in the boat. I try to take as many pictures as I can so I can plan things during the winter...

Dave

 

[Christian Williams]

But they'll let you board the boat on the hard, right? I mean, I need to drain the tanks? I left my sunglasses?

 

[Filkee]

Yeah, the little throw away line about no more painting your own bottom got dropped into the holiday greetings email this year under the guise of “environmental concerns”. Because you wouldn’t want to spill any of that ablative paint before it got a chance to come off your hull in the lake.

 

[Dave G.]

Yeah, the little throw away line about no more painting your own bottom got dropped into the holiday greetings email this year under the guise of “environmental concerns”.

So how in the heck do you get the bottom painted ? Truck it somewhere else ?

 

[Filkee]

Pay a lot of money to the good people at Safe Harbor and then wait because they have no staff to do the work. Or apologize for failing to read your corporate holiday email?

 

[Dave G.]

Pay a lot of money to the good people at Safe Harbor

Wait a minute, are you saying that if they apply the paint the "environmental concerns" magically go away ? Hmmm sounds like ALL the "paying customers" should have a sit down with management.

 

[dhill]

But they'll let you board the boat on the hard, right? I mean, I need to drain the tanks? I left my sunglasses?

Retrieving your sunglass - yes, with permission. Draining the tanks - no, the yard needs to do that.

 

[Dave G.]

Retrieving your sunglass - yes, with permission

Well, I guess I couldn't/wouldn't own a boat in the northeast as the yards up there seem to have conspired against their own paying customers. I don't like paying people to do things I can do easily and I also couldn't afford the $100+ an hour they would charge to do them. They may sight liability and environmental concerns but it sure smells like pure greed. I'm sure hoping this isn't a sign of things to come everywhere.....

 

[Loren Beach]

We have been dealing with this for over two decades here. The normal constraints of supply/demand have been slowly shunted aside by the larger issue of disappearing boatyards. Every time an older yard location gets bought up to create a new condo or other business/industrial use, we recreational boaters lose another choice. Sometimes a yard will cite "insurance" for their policies, but it's a red herring for them having so many wealthy boaters to pick from that the fading constituency of middle class boaters gets squeezed out.
Generally speaking, the guys with the big checkbooks also own the larger boats.

We smaller boat owners have less competition now, for our business. Given the increasing value of waterside land and the constant acquiescence of local governments to the clout of developers, the longer term survival of this ancient industry does not look too good to me. (At least not for a slowly-fading middle class.)

Locally, we nowadays have access to a reasonable-cost yard only because it is a two hours trip from my moorage. The nearby pair of metro area yards are catering to commercial and wealthy boat owners nowadays, more and more.

It's sad.

AND----- now we need a new thread about our (well intentioned) whining about the cost of boat yards. We are very far afield from the thread title. This makes searching the site difficult too.
If there is no further relative info I shall next close the thread. And yes I am at fault, too!

 

[Prairie Schooner]

Well, I guess I couldn't/wouldn't own a boat in the northeast as the yards up there seem to have conspired against their own paying customers. I don't like paying people to do things I can do easily and I also couldn't afford the $100+ an hour they would charge to do them. They may sight liability and environmental concerns but it sure smells like pure greed. I'm sure hoping this isn't a sign of things to come everywhere.....

It hasn't gotten to that point in the Rhode Island area, yet. We were at a large Safe Harbor yard last off-season and were able to do anything we wanted and were equipped for. They make an effort to have power available within 100' of every boat. A water faucet was nearby as well. There were environmental guidelines we had to follow like vac system for sanding, monitoring some chemicals used, etc.. We're at a smaller independent yard this year with similar allowances/restrictions. We have a power outlet 15' from our boat. Some yards, I hear, have the level of restriction Dave Hill describes. Others have rules like the yard crew has to do anything below the waterline and outside contractors have to register and sometimes pay a fee. It's a tough business to be in for sure, but if we were facing the restrictions described in Maine, it would put boat ownership out of our reach. Hopefully there will always be some yards open for us.
In some of our immediate experience, and that of friends, there can be a kind of shotgun wedding if being forced to use the yard crews. They don't always have qualified people doing the work. It's not universal, but I don't automatically assume that if a yard crew (or marine 'professional') does a job that it will be done right. On the jobs we did have the yard quote, there was a 6-8 week backlog.
@dhill - Dave, we paid about $2,650 last year for winter storage, including haul and splash. Mast unstep and step was a separate fee. How does that compare to what you're charged? If the storage fee were dramatically lower, I could see a better case for mandating all work be done by the yard.

 

[Filkee]

It hasn't gotten to that point in the Rhode Island area, yet. We were at a large Safe Harbor yard last off-season and were able to do anything we wanted and were equipped for. They make an effort to have power available within 100' of every boat. A water faucet was nearby as well. There were environmental guidelines we had to follow like vac system for sanding, monitoring some chemicals used, etc.. We're at a smaller independent yard this year with similar allowances/restrictions. We have a power outlet 15' from our boat. Some yards, I hear, have the level of restriction Dave Hill describes. Others have rules like the yard crew has to do anything below the waterline and outside contractors have to register and sometimes pay a fee. It's a tough business to be in for sure, but if we were facing the restrictions described in Maine, it would put boat ownership out of our reach. Hopefully there will always be some yards open for us.
In some of our immediate experience, and that of friends, there can be a kind of shotgun wedding if being forced to use the yard crews. They don't always have qualified people doing the work. It's not universal, but I don't automatically assume that if a yard crew (or marine 'professional') does a job that it will be done right. On the jobs we did have the yard quote, there was a 6-8 week backlog.
@dhill - Dave, we paid about $2,650 last year for winter storage, including haul and splash. Mast unstep and step was a separate fee. How does that compare to what you're charged? If the storage fee were dramatically lower, I could see a better case for mandating all work be done by the yard.

Interesting. I’m at a Safe Harbor facility so maybe it’s a sign of things to come at the others. They are rapidly buying up the yards around the lake.

 

[Nick J]

Wow, I have a new appreciation for the Everett Marina's yard. They're not the super friendly, know you by name yard you hear about from other DIYers, but they're fair and their policies are clear. Other than billing questions and the quick exchange with the staff during the actual haul out, I haven't had any interaction with them. I'm with you Jeff, if I couldn't do some of the work myself, boat ownership would be out of reach.

 

[Prairie Schooner]

Interesting. I’m at a Safe Harbor facility so maybe it’s a sign of things to come at the others. They are rapidly buying up the yards around the lake.

Yeah, who knows where it will end up. There are eleven Safe Harbor marinas in Rhode Island, according to their map. And it's a small state. Rumors of foreign money and future development plans abound. SH purchased yards seem to become far more bureaucratic, losing the small town feel. It's sort of like the Borg. In their defense, they typically pour a lot of money into upgrading facilities and promoting activities, from food truck nights to SH Race Week, and 'members' have reciprocal values at other SH yards when traveling.
This got me more curious about the company and I found these two articles interesting:

Sun Communities Acquires Safe Harbor Marinas for $2.11B - RVBusiness - Breaking RV Industry News

A Dallas company that operates 101 marinas nationwide is merging with a real estate investment trust in a cash and stock deal valued at $2.11 billion, according to a report in the Dallas Morning News. Safe Harbor Marinas announced the deal Tuesday (Sept. 29) with Sun Communities Inc., a publicly...

rvbusiness.com

Baxter Underwood, Safe Harbor Marinas: Turning the Parking-Lot Analogy Into a Hospitality Analogy - Megayacht News

Baxter Underwood: Space is a very important component to service. Lauderdale Marine Center’s 60 acres make it quite a large facility. The

megayachtnews.com

It's probably a great model for many people. Friends who are 'members' and take their boats south for the winter love the reciprocity. There's a predictability, like franchise restaurants. In the end, I tend to be an advocate for Subsidiarity. We're at a small yard for our summer mooring and another for winter storage this year.

Sorry Dave, I wandered a good deal afar of your sump pump.

 

[dhill]

Hi all,

I created this thread as a continuation of the digression in the original Sump Pump post, for which I am equally guilty...

@Prairie Schooner - The outdoor storage rates charged by the boatyard are quite low ($3.50 per sq. ft.), but that rate does not include anything else. The typical going rate around here is $7.50/sq. ft., which can include hauling, wash, block, and relaunch), which would be $2,625 for my boat, but still would not include winterizing and commissioning or painting the bottom.

At my current boatyard, storage comes out to $1,225 for my boat. $800 - to haul, pressure wash, move the boat to its storage location, and winterize the engine. $600 - to paint the bottom, $1,000 - launch and commission. Altogether, it's about $3,625.

@Filkee - In 2021, Safe Harbor Shelburne Shipyard allowed me to work on the boat after I bought it to prepare for sailing to Maine. A lot of other people were working on their boats there as well. Sad to hear they changed some of their policies.

One of folks in my marina bought an inexpensive piece of land and put a barn on it to store and work on his boat...

Dave

 

[Dave G.]

I pay $3 sq ft includes pressure wash, haul and splash = $945. DIY winterize $25, Bottom Paint (VC-17) DIY $300. Total=$1,270. I love the barn idea but the practicality is a no go in my situation at least.

 

[Loren Beach]

Speaking of a "semi DIY" yard experience, our refit/repaint was done at a shop several miles away from the haul out place, down river about 20 miles. For ten months I worked alongside the ship wright / owner as a helper/laborer. His hourly rate was less than the lesser-skilled yard guys, and the work quality was excellent. If I had contracted for what would have been an inferior paint job at the boat yard, the cost would have been at least 50% more. Probably worse than that since the boat yard would not allow me to do any work that competes with them.
Best of all was being in a climate controlled building. The boat yard has a shelter, but not an enclosed building.

I do wonder if other geographic areas have craftsmen that you have to search out, since they are likely booked up for a year ahead, or more. My guy suddenly had a hole in his bookings, and I decided to take the leap into a refit.

 

[Dave G.]

His hourly rate was less than the lesser-skilled yard guys,

"lesser-skilled" is probably a generous description of most yard guys I have encountered in the past. The absolute lack of knowledge, skill and basic common sense has always been a problem in my neck of the woods. Most of the marinas/boat yards here are at most 6 month operations annually so kind of hard to keep the good ones around I guess. Just another reason to do as much DIY as possible.

 

[Prairie Schooner]

. . . - The outdoor storage rates charged by the boatyard are quite low ($3.50 per sq. ft.), but that rate does not include anything else. The typical going rate around here is $7.50/sq. ft., which can include hauling, wash, block, and relaunch), which would be $2,625 for my boat, but still would not include winterizing and commissioning or painting the bottom.
. . .

How do they figure square feet, length x beam?