Reviewed by Gary E. Wilson, President & Designated Broker · Managing Greater Seattle rentals since 1982
A marina's rent roll behaves unlike any other property type. The tenancies are long — boaters frequently hold the same slip for a decade or more — the customers all know each other, and the inventory cannot be reconfigured. You have the slips the docks were built with, in the lengths and widths they were built in, and demand does not arrange itself to match.
That combination puts unusual weight on two things: how slips are priced against the sizes people actually want, and whether the waitlist can be explained. The first determines revenue. The second determines whether the marina is a pleasant place to work.
Wilson Management manages moorage facilities in the Puget Sound region. This page covers leasing and waitlist administration. For the wider service see Marina Management.
The Moorage Agreement
Moorage is not a residential tenancy and should not be documented as one. The agreement has to address a set of questions specific to keeping a vessel in the water at somebody else's facility.
- The vessel itself. Identified by name, registration, length overall and beam. Length overall matters because it is what the slip has to accommodate, and it is routinely understated by owners describing their boat by its hull length rather than including bowsprit, swim step, davits and anchor.
- The slip. Assigned specifically, with whatever rights the facility retains to relocate a vessel for maintenance, dredging or reconfiguration. A facility with no relocation right cannot maintain its own docks without negotiating with every affected tenant.
- Insurance. Required coverage and evidence of it, kept current. This is the provision most likely to lapse quietly and most likely to matter after an incident.
- Use. Whether the vessel is a residence, and if so on what terms — see Liveaboard Policy.
- Maintenance and work aboard. What an owner may do at the slip and what must happen in a yard, which is an environmental compliance question as much as an operational one. See Environmental Compliance.
- Utilities. Shore power and water, how they are charged, and the condition of the tenant's own cords and connections.
- Condition and seaworthiness. The facility's right to act where a vessel becomes derelict, sinks, or presents a hazard. This is the clause nobody wants and every facility eventually needs.
- Termination and vacancy. Notice, and what happens to a vessel that does not leave.
This page is general information, not legal advice.
Pricing by Length, and the Sizes Nobody Wants
Slip rates are conventionally set per foot of slip length, which is straightforward until you notice that per-foot pricing treats every foot as equally desirable. It is not.
Demand in most Puget Sound facilities concentrates in particular size bands, and those bands vary by market. Some facilities have a waitlist years long for 40-foot slips while 26-foot slips sit empty; others have precisely the opposite problem. Uniform per-foot pricing across a facility with that kind of demand skew leaves money on the table at the popular sizes and produces persistent vacancy at the unpopular ones.
The useful discipline is looking at each size band as its own small market:
Where there is a waitlist, the rate is below market by definition. A queue is a price signal. That does not mean an immediate correction — long-tenured customers and a community that talks to each other argue for a measured approach — but a facility with a multi-year waitlist and static rates is choosing to under-earn.
Where slips sit empty, holding an aspirational rate produces nothing. An empty slip earns zero at any price, and a hard-to-fill size is frequently better filled at a discount than held.
Where a vessel fits a larger slip, there is judgement to exercise. Putting a 30-foot boat in a 40-foot slip fills the slip, and it also removes that slip from the size everyone wants. Whether that trade is worth it depends on the waitlist behind it.
Beam matters as much as length in some facilities, particularly with the growth in catamarans and wider modern powerboats. A slip that is nominally long enough but too narrow is functionally unavailable to a large part of the market, and that constraint should be understood rather than discovered when a tenant arrives.
The Waitlist Is a Trust Instrument
In most property types a waitlist is an administrative convenience. In a marina it is close to a governance document, because the customers are a community. They see each other at the docks, they notice who arrived when, and if somebody appears to have jumped the queue, everybody hears about it within a week.
A waitlist that cannot be explained is a permanent, low-grade source of conflict. A waitlist that can be explained removes the topic entirely.
That means the mechanics have to be deliberate:
Recorded properly. Date of application, vessel dimensions, the size band or bands sought, and current contact details.
Segmented by what is actually being waited for. A single ordered list across a facility with several size bands does not work, because the person at the top may be waiting for a size that has not come free. Lists by band reflect reality.
Maintained. Positions go stale. People buy elsewhere, sell the boat, or change what they need. A list nobody has contacted in three years is not a waitlist, it is a historical record, and offering a slip down a list of unreachable people wastes weeks of vacancy.
Applied consistently, with any exceptions written down. Facilities often have legitimate priorities — an existing tenant moving between sizes, for instance, may reasonably rank ahead of an external applicant. That is defensible if it is a stated rule and indefensible if it is a decision made case by case.
Auditable. When a slip is allocated, the record should show who was offered it, in what order, and what each of them said. That record is what ends an argument rather than starting one.
Turnover and Vacancy
When a slip comes free, the vacancy runs until a vessel is in it and paying. The work in between is straightforward and worth doing quickly: confirm the slip's condition and utilities, work the waitlist for that band in order, verify the incoming vessel's dimensions against the slip rather than accepting the owner's description, confirm insurance, and complete the agreement.
Verifying dimensions is the step most often skipped and the one most likely to cause trouble. A vessel described as 38 feet that is 42 feet overall does not fit, and discovering that on arrival day is a bad start to a long relationship.
Guest and Transient Moorage
Nightly and short-stay moorage fills capacity that annual tenancy does not, and it operates on completely different rhythms — seasonal, reservation-driven, weather-dependent, and administratively heavier per dollar earned.
It is worth running deliberately rather than as an afterthought, because it monetises slips that would otherwise sit empty while a tenant is cruising, and because it introduces prospective long-term tenants to the facility. A number of annual customers begin as visitors.
What Owners See
Monthly reporting through the owner portal shows occupancy by size band, rate achieved against each band, waitlist depth, move-ins and departures, and guest moorage activity.
Reading occupancy by band rather than as a single facility number is the point. A marina at 96% overall may be full of long boats and empty of short ones, and those two situations call for opposite decisions.
Frequently Asked Questions
How should slip rates be set?
By size band against local competing moorage, not as one uniform per-foot rate across the facility. Demand concentrates in particular lengths, and a single rate under-earns at the popular sizes while leaving the unpopular ones empty.
We have a three-year waitlist. Does that mean our rates are too low?
A queue is a price signal, yes. It does not necessarily mean an immediate correction is wise, given long tenancies and a community that talks — but a facility with a long waitlist and static rates is choosing to under-earn.
Should we put a small boat in a large slip?
Sometimes. It fills the slip, and it also removes that slip from the size band people are queuing for. The answer depends on the waitlist behind it.
How do you keep a waitlist credible?
Segmented by size band, contact details kept current, positions maintained rather than allowed to go stale, exceptions written down as rules rather than made case by case, and an auditable record of who was offered what and in what order.
What if a vessel is bigger than the owner said?
Dimensions are verified against the slip before the agreement completes. Length overall includes bowsprit, swim step and davits, which owners routinely omit when describing their boat.
Do you handle guest moorage?
Yes. It monetises slips left empty while tenants are cruising, and a meaningful number of annual tenants start out as visitors.
What happens if a boat is abandoned or sinks in a slip?
That is what the seaworthiness and derelict-vessel provisions of the agreement exist for, and it is an area to confirm against current Washington law before relying on the contract alone.
Get Started
A marina's revenue is decided by how its size bands are priced and its reputation by whether the waitlist can be explained. Wilson Management, Inc. administers both deliberately.
Request a free analysis or contact us. You can also reach our Bellevue office at (425) 453-0089, 1380 112th Ave NE #203, Bellevue, WA 98004.