All of these experiences and my own as well tell a story.
There are too few boatyards for the amount of work out there in the summer time boating season. In the winter these same boatyards starve I think.
Boatyards also want to delay because they (at least the ones here) charge you a daily storage, and dunnage rental fee while you are waiting for them to get around to doing the work.
I will share a story that worked for me.
I picked up a severe vibration that was isolated to the transmission on a previous boat. The boat was a vee drive and you needed to pull the engine to change the tranny, something I am not tooled up to do. It was late April, and the season was just ramping up. I bought a new tranny and had it sitting next to the boat on the hard.
I asked the boat yard owner how long to change out the tranny, and he told me that there was a long line and he might be able to get to it in June. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a wad of cash, and started counting hundreds. I held out $500 and asked him to re-look at his schedule. He looked me in the eye, took the $500 and said that I just made it to the front of the line. I was back in the water 3 days later.
Next story/lesson is to never give a boatyard a date long in the future. They will sit on your boat renting you dunnage and storage space and get after your boat a week before your “due date”
Last bottom paint I had done was in late march, before the season got going. The boat yard owner asked when I need the boat back. I asked him when could he get started. He said today (remember boat yards starve in the winter). I told him I wanted the boat back in 1 week. He asked why one week and I lied telling him I had a spring trip planned. We pulled the boat that day and I was back in the water in a week.
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