Local family marina negotiating with Safe Harbor.

ZZ13

Well-Known Member
Nov 25, 2009
5,319
Lady's Island, SC
Boat Info
2001 400 Sedan Bridge
Engines
Cummins 450 Diamond
Anyone have any skinny on Safe Harbor. What kinda operation should I expect should the sale go through?
 
The marina I'm at was acquired by Safe Harbor in 2016. The first year felt great. They made some nice (modest) improvements to the facility and were very strategic in improving the staff/leadership. It's been a bit downhill since then, in my opinion. They've considerably increased the slip rates, the critical capital/repair projects are not progressing and folks are leaving the marina. It's unfortunate seeing the number of empty slips we have now compared to 5 years ago...

Maybe you'll have better luck!
 
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Want to save a few bucks? Join a yacht club.
 
Ditto to Stee as we're at the same marina. 56 open slips this year. The most I've ever seen in my 12 years of being here. One would think that perhaps slightly lowering prices, and filling all the slips might be a wiser move but nope they just keep raising prices and watch the slips slowly empty out. I was talking with the GM about it, and told him oftentimes less can be more and he looked at me like I had 3 heads. So I said, how does it look when corporate comes through, and sees all the empty slips and less revenue? Zero response, and he all the sudden had more pressing issues to tend too. Shocker.
 
Ditto to Stee as we're at the same marina. 56 open slips this year. The most I've ever seen in my 12 years of being here. One would think that perhaps slightly lowering prices, and filling all the slips might be a wiser move but nope they just keep raising prices and watch the slips slowly empty out. I was talking with the GM about it, and told him oftentimes less can be more and he looked at me like I had 3 heads. So I said, how does it look when corporate comes through, and sees all the empty slips and less revenue? Zero response, and he all the sudden had more pressing issues to tend too. Shocker.

This is something I'll never understand. Our marina never recovered from the 2008-09 depression. It sits half empty, while others are 90%+ full. Yet we are still the most expensive around. To me it's worth doing the math -- be $100-$200 cheaper than everyone else and make up the lost revenue in volume. Get yourself to 80% full and you're golden.
 
Cut prices a bit, fill the place up and increase revenue with additional sales of good and services.
Those concepts are not foremost in their minds when they buy marinas. It's all about the bottom line and if they get some write-offs along the way. so be it.

Great customer service, which most of us would gladly pay a bit more for, is not part of the picture when bean counters are running the show.
 
Well, I don't know about this company, but I'm not an advocate of consolidation....I think, in my experience, most best run marinas are family or private single marina companies...I also think it helps with competition.

My marina was family run and while not run super efficiently, the new owner inherited it with a complex purchase and has never owned a marina before...They have private equity as owners, a management company for the complex, and the complex management hired a marina management company for the marina...And, they don't want to spend money on upkeep let alone upgrades...Yes, the price has increased considerably in the past few years with the economy...Yes, several boats have moved on... To give you an idea of a simple issue, they won't let packages be delivered to the marina and the showers close at 10pm and no laundry...Yes, they want / accept transients...
 
Bill,

Is that the same marina I stayed at last fall - thinking it was Port Royal area?

The marina I stayed in - granted a one night stay while I was moving through - I thought was very well run. Docks were in good shape, staff there was outstanding.

If this is where I am thinking, the previous management set a very high bar for someone coming in.
 
Bill,

Is that the same marina I stayed at last fall - thinking it was Port Royal area?

The marina I stayed in - granted a one night stay while I was moving through - I thought was very well run. Docks were in good shape, staff there was outstanding.

If this is where I am thinking, the previous management set a very high bar for someone coming in.
Yup, that's it.
 
Well, the sale completed a few weeks ago. We are now officially Safe Harbor Port Royal. All the staff was retained. And the former general manager of this marina is now the general manager for both this marina and the Beaufort Downtown Marina (also now managed by Safe Harbor). Safe Harbor also recently acquired Skull Creek Marina on Hilton Head, for those of you familiar with the area. So far we've lost our monthly credit approach. So now everything is pay as you use. And our legacy WiFi has totally failed. But they are promising new and improved within a month. And the restaurant renovation is setting new world records for construction delays. Other than that, it's all good.....
 
Safe harbor put new Wifi in our marina this year. The free part is okay to check the weather but you would have to pay for the stronger streaming package to watch tv. It’s 100% outsourced not sure if they use the same company everywhere... this year they did away with early signup discount for winter storage saved about a buck a square foot. Everything else stayed including next years summer slip fees stayed the same price but that’s probably because we are at 50% capacity
 
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They put new Wifi in our marina this year. The free part is okay to check the weather but you would have to pay for the stronger streaming package to watch tv. It’s 100% outsourced not sure if they use the same company everywhere... this year they did away with early signup discount for winter storage saved about a buck a square foot. Everything else stayed including next years summer slip fees stayed the same price but that’s probably because we are at 50% capacity

We’ve got a local transient marine for residents of our town. It’s on the bay and the other side of the parking lot is on the ocean.
Rates are very reasonable. Especially for old guys like me. We get half price during the week. It’s so reasonable that a group of old coots uses it as their summer marina.
If I didn’t own my dock property I would probably do the same. But then my wife would never find me.....
Their WiFi is free, but like with many things that are free, you get what you pay for.
 
So more to report. The legacy WiFi was pretty sketchy. Worked sometimes and sometimes you could stream a show. So Safe Harbor just installed a new robust system with 14 antennas all over the marina. Good news is it works reliably and is free for texting/browsing. Bad news is streaming support is $40 per month (which I won't buy).
 
So more to report. The legacy WiFi was pretty sketchy. Worked sometimes and sometimes you could stream a show. So Safe Harbor just installed a new robust system with 14 antennas all over the marina. Good news is it works reliably and is free for texting/browsing. Bad news is streaming support is $40 per month (which I won't buy).
They did the same thing to us. I can stream off my iPad to watch shows or movies...you should play around with it... in our case no one around me uses it. If you had a lot of users bandwidth would be a problem. They had installation pains at first but seem to be over it. They also have great customer service over the phone. My camera is attached to it and it streams fine. I wouldn’t pay the premium either
 
Safe Harbor bought the marina where I bring my boat for service. The service manager I knew and trusted left. Thankfully my service advisor stayed. She gets things done. Life goes on.
 
i hear safe harbor is in the process of getting Haverstraw marina... I guess they are like a giant monster swallowing up these facilities. hope some needed improvements are made, but hope serious rate increases aren't in the forecast. there are many "regular folks" at that marina that would definitely feel the pinch. lets hope they aren't trying to follow te real estate trends and make everything super high end for the few
 

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