Marina Recommendations Please

[time2innovate]

My wife and I are searching for a marina or similar facility where we can keep a 40 ft OAL trawler in a covered slip on an annual contract and can commute to conveniently from our home in central Indiana to spend weekends and vacation weeks for the next few years before retirement and a possible great loop adventure. We have been looking in the Kentucky Lake Barkley / Kentucky Lake area but will welcome all suggestions. The ideal facility would be clean, well kept, quiet, with usual utilities, moderate climate to not have to winterize, provide pleasurable short trip boating experiences, and be convenient to a grocery store, home improvement center, a few restaurants, hotel for guests, and other amenities to serve as a comfortable home-away-from home for a few years. We have an additional thought to move the boat to a marina in Madison or Jeffersonville, Indiana one hour car ride from our home for a few months (June through August). So, it would be most ideal if we could work out a prorate on the annual contract and allow the slip to rented to a seasonal or transient boater and use the prorate savings toward transient dockage in Indiana. Thank you for your consideration and suggestions.

[Alabama Boater]

FYI...
I live on the Tennessee River in north Alabama. I do not winterize my boat but my dirt house in less than ½ mile from the marina. On several occasions, over the last several years, I have had to run my generator during freezing weather because of power outages. Cold weather in the south drives up power usage because most homes use electricity for heating. Grid failure is not unusual. The same is true for marinas ... system overload. Before my second move to the southland, I had a boat in Guntersville, AL, the most southern point on the Tennessee River. I lived south of Atlanta, commuting to the boat weekends, during the summer. Being new to the south, at that time, I didn’t winterize. Didn’t need to!! I found myself heading north to Guntersville at 1:00 AM one morning because of the extended freeze warning … already into the 2 day. I made it in time but had ice crystals coming from my fresh water lines as I drained them. I had power when I was winterizing but later found out the marina lost power for over a day. Needless to say, the next spring the marina was very busy repairing boat water systems and replacing engines and generators.

Boats located at a distance from the owner, even in the southland, need to be winterized or reliable arrangements made with someone to look after the boat.

[Tink]

x2 what Alabama Boater said. I live in Tennessee on the Cumberland river (which becomes Lake Barkley) near LBL (Land Between the Lakes) and you must winterize here.

[ssobol]

Didn't a bunch of marinas in that region suffer roof collapses a winter or two ago due to snow accumulation?

[Shrew]

Originally Posted by time2innovate

So, it would be most ideal if we could work out a prorate on the annual contract and allow the slip to rented to a seasonal or transient boater and use the prorate savings toward transient dockage in Indiana. Thank you for your consideration and suggestions.

This is highly unlikely. Many seasonal contracts have stipulations prohibiting sub-leasing. If the marina rents transient slips, they're not going to split the money with you, even if it is the slip that you have a seasonal contract for.