On the second day of the Association of Marina Industries Conference & Expo in Daytona Beach, Fla., a keynote panel addressed the present and future of electrification for the boating industry.

“This is happening today,” said Alex Cattelan, chief technology officer at Brunswick Corp. “Connectivity is happening today. From a marina perspective, there’s an opportunity to better manage how the consumer is serviced, but what’s really important to the industry is that it’s well-integrated and seamless.”

The conference brought together more than 110 companies in the marina industry, from construction contractors to dock builders to accessories suppliers and more. Electrification was just one of the topics discussed in keynote presentations and 25 breakout sessions held Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 at the Ocean Center. Others included improving workplace communication, how to lure new hires, determining if a rental club would be a good fit at a marina, and preparing for and surviving a hurricane.

Electric propulsion, foiling boats and autonomous operation have been creating a futuristic buzz in the boating business for the past couple of years. Now the facilities that host and store boats (and welcome their owners) need to keep up with the technology. Marinas must provide charging stations for electric boats. How will they entertain boaters while vessels charge? When more than one boat needs to plug in to a quick-charging station, who gets priority? Does the presence of more electrically powered boats increase the risk of electric shock drowning in freshwater locations? Do rack storage facilities need to be modified for boats equipped with foils?

When it comes to the electrification of boats, “These transitions take time, and people don’t evolve easily,” says Sean Marrero, president of Watershed Innovation, Correct Craft’s technology-focused subsidiary that includes Ingenit, a company that builds electric boats. “There are a lot of reasons why boating is a difficult use case. I’m not an engineer, and I’m not a politician. I’m not here to change your mind. I am here to give you a perspective of what’s going on.”

Ingenity has had some of the first electric boats on California’s Lake Tahoe, including a wakesports model and a hybrid catamaran/pontoon. “With every boat we sell, we need to have a charging solution,” Marrero says. “Flexibility is important because there aren’t a lot of boats yet.”

When it comes to the questions that many boaters have about electric power, including range anxiety, Marrero says, “It’s a hard question to answer because the answer depends on how you use the boat.” Simply put, more speed requires more power, which reduces range. “For people who aren’t going very far very fast, electrical is a good solution,” Marrero adds.

With electric propulsion, one of the biggest changes facing boaters and marinas is how a boat is refueled. A gasoline-powered boat may fill up every week or every other week. Electric propulsion systems need to be charged before every outing.

Marrero uses the dynamic pricing approach that theme parks employ to illustrate how marinas may need to adjust how they deliver electric power. Theme parks have general-admission rates, but those who want shorter lines at the best rides are willing to pay more — sometimes much more. “You’re going to be selling electricity at some point, and some people are going to want to use their boats more, so you need to come up with your own dynamic pricing strategy,” Marrero says.

Unlike the automotive industry, which has brand-specific charging systems, marine manufacturers appear to be working toward standardization. Ingenity has worked with other builders of electric boats so that everyone uses the same hardware and charging systems. For example, the CCS standard uses 30- to 50-amp AC overnight charging or a 100-kW DC system that tops off batteries in about an hour and a half. “They all exist. They just need to be applied,” Marrero says.

Giving an example of how connectivity can help with boat service, Marrero says Ingenity had an electric boat in Austria. On a Friday afternoon, a remote monitoring system showed that the batteries were charging and derating at an atypical rate, threatening the boat owner’s weekend plans. Similar to an internal combustion engine, the charging system was cooled by raw water. Marrero told his service representatives to check the in-line raw-water strainer. Sure enough, it was clogged. A technician cleaned out the strainer, and things returned to normal, so the owner had a fun weekend on the water.

In that same vein, Brunswick’s Cattelan says marinas could use autonomy to stage boats and employ connectivity to have them change slips on their own, to more smoothly run rental and service operations. “We can think of a number of ways that will help marinas manage boats, summon boats, assign slips,” she says. “We have to do it so the boater sees value in the product focus.”

For the shorter term, Cattelan says, Brunswick is focused on where electrification is first taking hold: on smaller boats. This explains the development of the new line of Veer boats from Brunswick, the first of which is 13 feet with a 4-foot beam and can be powered by a portable Mercury Avator electric outboard or a 4-stroke.

Cattelan says Brunswick is working on five boats that integrate electric propulsion technology and have energy storage systems to take the place of a generator. Her colleague Dan Ryks, the senior category manager of electrification at Mercury Marine, suggested that newcomers who start with electric boats could come from having experience with cars that run on the same motors. “They’ve adapted their lives to adjusting range,” Ryks says. “Marine is different. We are going to have to deal with it.”

When it comes to charging, there are two approaches: high-powered DC systems that people use to top off a system while they stop at a dockside restaurant, and longer-term, level-two AC systems. Some type of AC system is already in place at many marinas, but for those that don’t have it, Ryks says, “Installing the infrastructure is expensive, and it takes time. It’s not going to happen overnight.”

Rent or Own?

Two areas where electric boats could make sense is in rentals and shared-ownership clubs. In a breakout session at the conference, two presenters talked about the advantages that a rental business can bring to a marina or boatyard.

“When I bought my first yard, I had this crazy vision of being able to offer everybody who came through that door one-stop shopping,” said Steve Arnold, owner of Marina Holdings, the parent company of Yarmouth Boat Yard in Yarmouth, Maine, and Moose Landing Marina in Naples, Maine. The company also has the Freedom Boat Club franchise for southern Maine, with five operations at fresh- and saltwater locations. “For me, lifestyles and budgets were the learning point over the years. Not everybody wanted to be in the boating lifestyle or had the budget.”

He was initially skeptical of boat clubs, as were his salespeople. Arnold attended a seminar on clubs and was intrigued by the presenter, a Freedom franchisee. “By the end of the first break, I was sitting next to him,” Arnold says. “We went through the numbers, and I remember him telling me about the members and monthly dues, and I said, ‘I’m in.’ ”

Arnold says his initial concerns about the boat club cannibalizing sales didn’t happen. Some club members ascended to boat ownership. “Families have tight schedules, and professionals want the white-glove, turnkey experience,” he says. “Disposable time versus disposal income. What does a family want to do with its time in Maine?”

He gave a quick cost analysis: Entry to the Freedom Boat Club is a one-time fee of $7,500, followed by $4,788 for the first year of membership. Looking at a $100,000 boat, purchasing with 10% down would be an upfront cost of $10,000, plus $5,500 tax and delivery fees for a total of about $26,000 and that doesn’t include the estimated $6,550 for maintenance, insurance, launching and hauling. “It’s a staggering number,” Arnold said. “We show this to people when they’re thinking about it, and it’s an effective tool.”

When a marina owner looks at the numbers, Arnold says, each slip should provide a certain amount of revenue. “All our slips are quarterly pays, and that assures I have 100% buy-in for storage,” he says. “People get a slip, they pay for storage even if they haul away their boat for the off-season.”

For a boat club, a franchisee should plan on signing eight to 10 members for one boat. A marina that adds a boat club will see increased use of its facilities, including more money being spent at the fuel dock, and on dining and supplies. Because boat clubs have higher net margins, they do well in a recession. A property should make sure it has adequate parking for the extra people that a club brings in. Arnold has another piece of advice: “One thing critical to do for me was to run it as a separate business. Don’t let someone from the marina run it.”

While Freedom Boat Club is run by individual franchisees, Circle of Boating is a club run by Suntex Marinas at its own facilities. “We want this circle continuously spinning,” says Mark Jaraczewski, vice president of Circle of Boating. “We want to create first-time boaters. We want to create renters. Our growth will continue. It supports our ancillary business.”

While Freedom Boat Club has more than 370 locations worldwide, Circle of Boating has 335 rental boats at 25 location and 218 club boats at 20 marinas. “The younger generation is geared more toward boat clubs than ever before,” Jaraczewski says. “The industry is changing daily. You have to know your customers.”

Although renters basically have no emotional investment in the boat, a club member usually treats the boat like an owner would because that’s how the member feels. “Members of a boat club are more responsible than a boat renter,” Jaraczewski says. “We have less accidents with a boat club because it’s his or her lifestyle.”

Reservations are handled online, and the booking window is short. Most Saturday reservations are booked within 24 to 48 hours. Jaraczewski estimates that 2% of boat club members become boat owners.

Because consumers desire an overall experience, Suntex has an advantage, he says, because it owns the marina that’s home to the club. “We talk about how our team talks to the customer, how our marina is perceived,” Jaraczewski says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a little marina on a little lake. There are still opportunities. It’s a lifestyle. It’s important that you represent that lifestyle.”

To ensure that employees know what’s expected of them, Suntex runs a dockhand university and sets standards for operations. Looking ahead, Jaraczewski says leads on boat-club memberships were up 35% in January. “We think the trend is going to continue based on the leads we’ve seen.”

Online Slip-Booking

Customers book boat-club reservations online. They set up a sea trial online. Now they want to find a slip, even a transient one for a weekend, the same way. Dockwa is one of many apps that help make that happen.

“We’ve spent the better part of the last eight years doing one thing, because a marina is not a hotel, it’s not a self-storage facility, it’s not an RV park,” says Mike Melillo, the company founder and CEO.

As of early February, 3,670 marinas had a relationship with the Dockwa platform that most people use to find a transient slip. Dockwa also wants to streamline operations for marina owners to manage transient slips.

“At the end of the day, we’re not opinionated, but we want to know what’s good for the boater and good for the marina,” Melillo says. “It’s about allowing you to better anticipate the needs of your customers.”

The company had 41 employees, including six engineers, in December 2021. In early 2023, Dockwa had 104 employees and 33 engineers working remotely from 26 states. After starting in the Northeast — the headquarters is Newport, R.I. — the firm now has 20 people on the other side of the country in the Pacific Northwest and along the West Coast.

For marinas, Dockwa can help track slip availability using a digital waiting list. When a slip occupant at a given marina is leaving for a week, the marina can let a transient into that slip.Beyond slip-booking, Dockwa bought Marinas.com and will be integrating it into the software later this year to make a float-plan tool available.

Up to Code

With all the talk of electrification, Chris Dolan, vice president of Marina Electrical Equipment in Williamsburg, Va., held a session on electrical-code compliance with a focus on the National Electrical Code 555 and the National Fire Protection Association Standard 303. Dolan specializes in designing electrical grids for marinas and is a member of the NFPA 303 Committee.

The NEC 555 and NFPA 303 overlap in many areas and apply to any location on the water that a boat can use, including a restaurant, dockominium, waterfront bar and more. It also applies to fixed and floating piers.

Some of the most important requirements are that for a floating dock, electrical equipment must be 30 inches above the water level and 12 inches above the dock in a normal high-tide condition. For fixed piers, all connections must be 24 inches above high tide and 12 inches above the deck.

An emergency shutoff switch must be located on shore to cut off all power to the marina. It must be at least 5 feet away from the docks and must be 12 inches above the electrical datum plane. Maximum voltage requirements recently changed; for docks, it’s 600 volts, and a marina must use National Electrical Code tables for service and load calculations.

Transformers must be located where they won’t be submerged, and they must be suitable for wet locations. The bottom of the enclosure must be 12 inches above the deck, and the housing must have a weep hole to prevent condensation from damaging internal components.

Anything metal on the dock that could become energized must be grounded. “The definition of likely in code speak is, could it happen without something falling out of the sky?” Dolan says. “If it won’t be hit by a meteor, but it could be energized, ground it.”

Signage warning against the dangers of swimming at a marina must be posted at every entry to the facility. The signs should warn about the potential of electrical shock and possible drowning. “Try not to allow swimming in your marina,” Dolan says.

Modifying and upgrading new equipment requires meeting the most current codes, and NFPA should have a record of the standard that equipment was installed. Receptacles that provide power to boats must be at least 30 amps and fasten with a twist-and-lock connector. For larger boats, a 60-amp cord must have a pin-and-sleeve connection.

Perhaps the most important rule coming down the road will take effect Jan. 1, 2026, Dolan says — and there will be no grandfather clauses or adoption delays. NEC Standard 555.36 Ground Fault Protection will require that a boat plug in and not trip ground-fault breakers at a receptacle before it can occupy a slip, even as a transient. Marinas will be required to have a way to test a boat for electrical leakage. Dolan says the options can range in cost from $300 for smaller boats up to $10,000 for large yachts.

“We’re trying to cut off electrical leakage from getting into the water,” Dolan says. It’s one of many challenges marinas face now and in the future. 

This article was originally published in the March 2023 issue.