View Single Post
Old 07-10-2016, 07:18 AM   #14
CaptTom
Guru
 
CaptTom's Avatar
 
City: Southern Maine
Vessel Model: Prairie 36 Coastal Cruiser
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 2,717
The prices above are pretty close, although I think you can cut the daily slip rental down quite a bit if you stay out of the touristy places and go for the fringes of the big bays. Obviously, there are reasons some places are more popular than others, and you pay in other ways when you're trying to live in more isolated locations.

As for what it costs to run a marina, I know quite a bit about our own marina's finances in Southern Maine. Nobody is getting rich, believe me. The truly successful ones either run multiple other businesses (restaurants, repair yards, brokerages, etc.) out of the same facility, or have multiple locations.

Travelling through Maritime Canada, I'm seeing a lot of marinas. Most here were originally created by the federal government, and a lot of the overhead has historically been covered by them. There seems to be a transition going on to push more of the costs to the provinces and municipalities, and to turn the old fishing ports into recreational marinas, with some mix of public and private management and expenditures. It'll be interesting to see which models end up succeeding.

We could do a whole new thread on the finances of running a marina. It's an interesting subject.
CaptTom is offline   Reply With Quote