I docked my sailboat at Winter's Sailing Center for the winter of 2020-21 and for the 2021 sailing season. Having kept my boat at two other marinas over the past ten years, I must say that I have never experienced such a succession of negative encounters and poor service as I experienced at Winter's.
I should first say that Brandy, who works in the office and most of the boatyard staff, all really try to be helpful, but Brandy is without authority and the boatyard people are poorly managed. Brandy apologized for several lapses, and explained that the team that fulfills her work orders actually reports to someone at Riverside Marina, and Brandy has no influence in getting work done for her customers.
The management people at Winter's, and at Riverside Marina (also owned by Glenn Winter) are shockingly uninterested in their marina customers. Clearly, the sale of new boats is far more lucrative and thus more important to them. As a result, the facilities are poorly maintained, and requests for repairs are ignored. I should have known that this marina was not first class when I realized that they don't even have finger piers between slips. Each owner must build his own ramp from the dock to the boat to board. I've never seen this in any other area marina. Many slips are unusable and a surprising number were never filled during the boating season. I do not know whether it is true or not, but Winter's looks like a business that is not expecting to be around for too much longer.
Some other examples:
When I docked the first time, I attempted to wash my boat and found that the faucet did not work. My neighbor in the next slip said that he had been asking for his to be repaired for the past 6 years, and finally gave up, borrowing the faucet from the other side of the dock, thus running his hose across the route of other people with boats farther along the dock.
I also observed that the entire dock was covered with Canada Goose feces, to the point where you couldn't avoid them walking on the dock.
I reported both of these conditions to Glenn Winter, who responded by saying that he expects customers to clean the docks themselves, and that I should use the faucet from accross the dock, since fixing the defective ones is not a priority for him.
I also had problems with delays in splashing my boat, even though I had reserved time well in advance. The evening before my scheduled splash, I got an e-mail telling me that "technical difficulties" necessitated a delay of a week, since they scheduled all launchings for a single day of the weak for resource reasons.
In conversations with other boat owners and boatyard staff, I learned that my experiences were common. When I told one neighbor that I intended to talk to Mr. Winter, he advised me not to bother. As he put it, "The fish rots from the head." How true, how sad.
I waited until I left Winter's Sailing Center to post this. I hope it will save other boaters from having to face the same problems I faced. read more
