Canadian Yachting June 2021 - 52

They even had an old StarCraft come to Queen's Cove. The owners' home marina couldn't get the work done that season.

winter work and there is no downtime
at Queen's Cove. They offer a significant
discount to encourage winter work and
now the shop is booked year 'round.
It's no longer a seasonal business and
even the yard workers are busy 12-months
a year. With full-time employment, the
marina has become a real career choice
and John Swick is supporting his people
to cross train for winter work and more
varied tasks.
Last winter two of their yard staff
took the ABYC Marine Systems course
and introduction to Marine Electronics.
John has found that it is better all round
to hire good people and help them build
their careers. Their fibreglass technicians
have all done the West System courses in
Michigan for repair work and fabrication
as well as other manufacturer specific
training. It is a big cost and an investment
of time, but John sees the advantages and
this year, with the rise in online education, his people have had an easier time
increasing their skills.
We talked about the types of repairs

that people were looking for. Painting is a
big one and the marina is investing in that
area for both maintenance and restoration.
A great-looking boat is simply worth
a lot more to enjoy or to sell. Another
thing John shared was that last summer,
Queen's Cove was getting more impact
damage because people were getting out
and boating more. That raises the odds of
a mishap. The abundance of new boaters
was probably a factor as well.
Another interesting thing that John saw
last year was that people who previously
used their boat mostly as a cottage, were
going boating, leaving the marina more
often. Fuel prices were very reasonable
and that may hold for this year too.
Again, this spring there are few brokerage boats available for would-be buyers,
but there is a big demand. Some will be
disappointed, but for those who already
have a boat, or who might settle for a brokerage boat that lacks features they were
looking for, doing some upgrades can
make sense.
An example of an upgrade might be a

CANADIAN YACHTING | JUNE 2021

new windlass, or a replacement for the old
one. Some people upgrade their electronics, audio systems, install swim platform
extensions, or invest in new thrusters to
make docking easier.
These are jobs that would normally be
done over the winter, but any time might
be a good time in this market. If adding
bow and stern thrusters make it possible
to dock your old boat more easily, the cost
might make good sense.
People are starting to view the price
value relationship differently now. For
example: a re-power is like buying the
boat again, but If you see the cost of a new
boat, it makes sense. The same is true in
the cottage boat market as more and more
people are re-powering. Queen's Cove
recently re-powered a 24-foot Limestone
and an older Chris-Craft by Grew. Such
a boat may only be worth $30,000, but a
new one would be $150,000, so a $35,000
repowering job may be a much better
investment.
We also wanted to ask; how do people
pay for this?

Canadian Yachting June 2021

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