Water Marks: How Changes in Boats and Boating Will Steer Marinas in New Directions
Published on September 1, 2017
While predicting the future is an inexact science at best, the need for financial foresight frequently justifies the attempt. For business owners, the ability to anticipate where their markets are headed and to adjust accordingly is critical to their long-term success – especially when they’re facing major demographic, economic and technological shifts.
The future of marinas clearly rests on the future of boats and boaters – both of which are undergoing significant change. But this does not mean that everything will change everywhere all at once. Futurists have a tendency to predict singular futures in which technological innovation creates a totally new universal reality without any of the behavioral or market preferences of the past. The result is boldly naïve forecasts like the 1954 Mechanix Illustrated story “Flying saucers for everybody!” or the current vogue for imagining cities instantly filled with driverless cars.
The marinas of the future will emerge more gradually, through a series of adaptations to changing customer demands and expectations. Technology will play a pivotal role in these changes by reshaping what boaters have traditionally come to expect from their time on the water.
Multiple Courses and Markets
A recent discussion during the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show tackled the question of the future of marinas head on. The panelists explored the question largely from a developer perspective, concluding that as boat ownership shrinks and the average size of those owned boats and yachts grows, marinas must become amenity-rich destinations catering to a different clientele. These marinas will feature a smaller number of larger slips, along with an increased number of mixed-use offerings and attractions. As one of the panelists told a reporter from the South Florida Business Journal, “We are designing the facilities for the boat that’s [arriving] 25 years from now. If we build it for the boat of today, we would be out of business in the next 15 years.”
Across the Atlantic at the ICOMIA World Marinas Conference in Amsterdam last year, another panel of experts reached some very different conclusions about the future of Europe’s marinas. They concluded that large numbers of European boaters own and will continue to own smaller boats, but would prefer not to visit traditional marina facilities. These boaters aren’t looking for high-traffic, commercial destinations. They want undeveloped getaways: quiet places of natural beauty that can be accessed and enjoyed from the water. The challenge to developing this market lies in the lack of services in more remote locations, and the need for improved environmental performance and protections. The answer could emerge in part from the European Union’s larger Blue Growth strategy, leveraging an approach that prioritizes more sustainable development in the marine and maritime markets.
Do both of these market scenarios describe where marinas are headed? The answer is yes and then some. “The future of marinas” will be plural. Rather than a singular, dominant facility type there will be more diverse, niche market approaches supported by complementary business models. Similar to the idea of a balanced slip mix, a mix of new facilities will emerge in the overall market, catering to different customer needs and preferences.
Ownerless Boating
A co-worker who grew up in Maine recalls the time his boat-owning father, weary after a long weekend of ship repairs, sat him down for a talk.
“Son, there will come a time when you want to buy a boat. The best advice I can give you is this: resist the urge to buy a boat.”
Numerous boat owners have felt this fatigue at one point or another, but this anecdote also speaks to a larger demographic trend currently troubling the U.S. boating industry. Today’s boat owners are older and aging fast, and it’s unclear when and to what extent the next generation of boat owners will enter the market. The shift runs deeper than their recreational relationship to the water. It also reflects what numerous social scientists and market analysts have observed as a larger generational preference: a desire for convenient access to services and amenities without the long-term costs and responsibilities of ownership.
This shift in attitude regarding the desirability of ownership will create new opportunities for the marina industry. Slip revenues will be a smaller part of a larger business model based on providing rentable boating opportunities and experiences for people who don’t want to own boats.
This is essentially a hospitality industry model, and it has already manifested itself in a number of Airbnb-style boat rental services. Boatbound and GetMyBoat in San Francisco and Cruzin in Fort Lauderdale are creating a growing, online marketplace for boat rental. Rentals are also increasingly common in the megayacht community, helping to defray the ownership costs of a 90-foot vessel with a crew of 10.
While liability and insurance concerns present hurdles, peer-to-peer boat rental makes a lot of sense for both boat and marina owners. According to a U.S. Coast Guard survey, the average recreational boat in the U.S. is used 17 days each year. Boat rentals can increase marina traffic and revenues, turning otherwise parked and empty vessels into revenue-generating assets. Boat timesharing is another model that’s likely to emerge in this market, with marinas providing a berth and support services for groups of people sharing the annual costs of ownership.
Marinas are increasingly likely to become boat-owners themselves, offering water-based transit and excursion services in addition to boat and slip rentals. This trend is already well under way, with marina management groups reporting boat rentals as a top source of revenue in their annual revenue reports. Market analysis consistently suggests that owning a small fleet of vessels can be economically advantageous for many operators.
New boat technology will also feed this trend. The Dutch company Soel Yachts recently unveiled its SoelCat 12 electric catamaran. At a price tag of $600,000 U.S., it’s probably a good idea they aren’t targeting private owners. Instead, the solar-powered SoelCat is being touted for its ability to provide water taxi services and transport for destination marinas and resorts. When docked the catamaran can be used like a power station, putting as much as 15 kVa of solar energy back into the grid. Soel Yachts estimates this is enough power for five households. Given the growing electrical needs of the contemporary marina, especially in more remote locations, an excursion vessel that doubles as a mobile power station offers some serious advantages.
The Movable Marina
Previous Water Marks columns have commented on the trend toward more movable, reconfigurable marina infrastructure. The flexibility to change slip sizes, accommodate new vessels, or adjust to fluctuating water levels is becoming increasingly important, both for market response and resiliency. Dock and marina-system manufacturers are responding by developing products that provide this enhanced flexibility.
EZ Dock’s new EZ Kayak Launch is a good example of flexible design – not to mention a smart and timely response to the continued growth in the paddle craft market. Their one-piece, floating system works for both canoes and kayaks, with a design that meets accessibility requirements, as well as the needs of beginning paddlers. It’s essentially an open-ended chute, with a v-shaped entry/exit to stabilize the craft, and integrated handholds and paddle notches. It can also be conveniently attached to almost any existing dock system.
For fans of Buckminster Fuller, nothing says “the future” like a geodesic dome. Perhaps that’s why Freedomes has placed one at the center of its new Marina Domes product line. Freedomes is marketing this primarily as temporary, water-based event space. It features a flexible, floating building platform with docks that can be attached to it in a variety of configurations. Their claim: “This is how marinas will look in the future!” is overstated, but the option for pop-up marina space to support seasonal events seems likely to take hold as part of the larger flexible infrastructure trend.
It’s not only the docks that will be moving around. Solar-powered pumpout facilities and generators will also be on the move to better serve customers – and potentially to serve multiple marinas. The East Shore District Health Department (ESDHD) in New Haven, Connecticut, is partnering with a local marina to provide a fully electric, zero emissions, solar-powered pumpout vessel as part of their regional program to reduce waste in the Long Island Sound. For boaters looking for a secluded getaway on the water, solar-powered pumpouts could extend a critical service to these more remote locations.
The Electric Shift
Although the internal combustion engine isn’t going away anytime soon, growth in the electric motor market will usher in a new era of sustainable boating and Clean Marinas. This represents a historical return of sorts, since electric motors were widely used to propel passenger boats on inland rivers and lakes from 1880 to 1920. While electric vessels have continued to operate in environmentally sensitive areas, their wider commercial viability has been limited until now. Advances in solar and wind power generation, along with new battery and fuel cell technology, are promising to take electric vessels to new places.
It’s already taken boats around the world. Tûranor PlanetSolar, the world’s largest solar-powered boat, was the first ever solar electric vehicle to circumnavigate the globe in 2012, and did so without using fossil fuel. Earlier this summer, the Energy Observer, another experimental French vessel, left Paris for a six-year cruise around the world, powered by solar panels, wind turbines and a state-of-the-art hydrogen fuel cell system. The boat uses sun or wind power during the day, and at night taps into hydrogen reservoirs produced by the electrolysis of sea water.
Similar to New Haven’s solar pumpout and the SoelCat 12 mentioned above, broader commercial applications of solar and electric boating are beginning to take hold in the international market. India launched its first solar ferry last year, and is working to export the technology to other parts of Asia. And Monaco’s famous boat show now includes an annual Solar & Electric Boat Challenge, a design competition to create the renewable future of boating. It won’t be too long before marinas in more remote, environmentally sensitive areas are incentivizing electric boating as part of Clean Marina programs – certainly in conjunction with the European Union’s Blue Growth strategy.
Boating Bots
It wouldn’t be the future without robots, or at the very least high-tech automated systems. Technological innovation will bring new forms of automation to marinas, but it will do so in ways that augment rather than displace the fundamental experience of boating. Significant investments and upgrades in marina wireless and information infrastructure will be needed to support customer communications and expectations in an increasingly automated and connected world.
Automobile manufacturers are extremely active in the driverless R&D market, but the recreational boating industry does not appear to be headed in that direction. Current driverless boat testing is centered primarily on military and marine industry applications. Just last month, BAE Systems and its partner organizations received funding for the U.K.’s first autonomous boating test program, and have begun testing autonomous inflatable craft off the coast of Portsmouth, Southampton. Coastal security, rescue operations, and oil-platform inspection are at the top of their research agenda.
Even though driving their own boat will remain a key part of the experience for most boaters, there will likely be some enhanced piloting applications to assist with docking and adjusting for difficult wind and wave conditions. Smart maneuverability coupled with new engine technology will also allow for smaller turning circles, helping to make the most out of limited marina real estate and perhaps resulting in a change to conventional marina fairway standards.
Autonomous boats are most likely to make their initial appearance as marina service or delivery vehicles, or as excursion craft for short trips. They will also be used to provide up-to-date weather, navigational and bathymetric data. Autonomous Marine Systems (AMS) uses fleets of drones to collect and transmit hydrographic data. Described as “the world’s first self-righting catamaran,” AMS’ solar-powered Datamaran houses sensors and communication devices, along with an on-board computer. Its navigational algorithms help it maintain the course needed to provide ongoing data collection and transmission within a specific geographic area. Marinas could make use of similar drones to supplement their online navigation resources.
Refueling could also become an automated process. Land-based robotic fuel pumps are already being tested at gas stations. Automated fuel pump systems for heavily trafficked marinas could provide significant environmental and safety benefits.
Even with so many new developments on the horizon, the marinas of the future will still draw heavily on their past. There are fundamental and enduring reasons why people are attracted to boating that transcend new trends and technology. That core experience of boating will continue to drive marina development and improvements. No matter how high-tech or low-tech the boat, how marinas make that on-the-water experience more accessible, more sustainable, and more memorable will determine how effectively they attract and engage the next generation of boaters.
David Lantz is the practice manager for SmithGroupJJR’s Waterfront Practice. He can be contacted at David.Lantz@smithgroupjjr.com.
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