By Greg Ellison

(Oct.  8, 2020) Return on investment and liability concerns were raised during a meeting last Wednesday on the proposed expansion of boat slips at the Ocean Pines Yacht Club.

Recreation and Parks Director Debbie Donahue opened the meeting at the Ocean Pines Community Center, where a small contingent of slip holders gathered to hear about plans to build extra slips at the end of the  “A” and “D” docks.

“This year we had lot of issues with boats parking at will and had to hire additional security,” she said.

Initial cost estimates for the expansion are between $50,000-$70,000, with the sum likely to be recouped within three years, Donahue said.

Ocean Pines Marina manager Ron Fisher said plans call for four additional boat slips on “A” dock and two more on “D” dock, intended for Yacht Club visitors for a maximum of two hours.

“These boats today are either being turned away for the restaurant or they’re coming in and docking in your slip if you’re out in the bay,” he said.  “We know we’ve had a security problem, because in many cases they’re taking the dock line with them when they leave.”

Fisher said the extra slips could attract around 120 additional patrons per day on weekends and 80 during weekdays or about 680 customers a week over roughly 13-weeks during summer.

Fisher said based on an average expenditure per person of $30, gross revenue at the Yacht Club would increase by around $20,400 per week.

“Based on a net revenue estimate of 10 percent, that would be $26,520 net per year,” he said.

Fisher said Worcester County permit restrictions would limit the additional slips for transient use only.

“The county will not allow us to lease the slips, because we don’t have adequate parking,” he said.

Donahue said transient uses are the sole option short of providing extra parking at the Yacht Club

“We can’t collect money off of them unless more parking was made available,” she said. “We’ve used up every inch at this moment of space that we can for parking.”

After exploring other docking options, the only feasible alternative was adding slips, Fisher said.

“We can’t put in floating docks [because] we don’t have space without interfering with the gas dock,” he said.

Public Works Operations Manager Nobie Violante, who has been gathering cost estimates from marina contractors, said the slips are pre-fabricated and would be transported on tractor-trailers.

“It’s a two-week build time once materials arrive here from Florida,” he said.

Fisher said planning is underway on how to monitor and enforce the two-hour use limit.

“We’re looking at increased security and penalties for parking in the marina lot,” he said. “We’re also working with the police department to see how we can deal with people docking in your space.”

Managing boat traffic at the marina is also a goal of the proposed facility expansion.

“We basically started this because it was a bigger liability for us with the boats coming into the marina and docking in slips,” he said. “We have had incidents where they … actually hit boats, they’ve been intoxicated going out [and] one person fell off the dock.”

Fisher said there is always the risk that boat operators lack insurance, but the same risk is inherent for other eateries with dockside accommodations.

“We certainly hope they’re insured,” he said. “The fact that they’re going to be at the end of the dock it’s less likely that we’re going to have any damage to boats that are in the marina.”

OPA Board member Doug Parks, while noting more research about liability issues is required, said the need for additional dock space is a result of improved marketing.

“This has been a somewhat recent development because before the Matt Ortt Companies was running the Yacht Club there wasn’t any demand by people coming up in boats,” he said. “It’s a good problem to have in the sense that there’s now more demand.”

Donahue said contingent on county approval, the project could be completed before next Memorial Day.

“As we move forward with this in the permitting process, we are very realistic in the fact that we have some things that we still have to work on before it ever gets to the board,” she said.