Fall is the busiest stretch of a seasonal marina's year. Every boat needs a winter agreement, a list of services, a haul-out date, a spot in the yard, and a current certificate of insurance, and most of it still moves on paper, voicemail, and a whiteboard in the office. One missed reply turns into a boat with no spot and an owner on the phone.
SlipRight runs winter storage as one flow, from the offer the owner signs to the day the boat comes out, and every step shows up on the boat owner's phone.
The winter offer, with the services on it
Build the winter template once from your catalog: storage by the foot, on stands or a cradle or a trailer, shrink wrap, engine and water-system winterization, bottom wash, and anything else you sell. Each line can be required or left for the owner to choose, priced flat or per foot, or priced later as a quote. The template asks for a haul-out week from the Mondays you set, a launch week for spring, and whether the boat may be pulled earlier or later. Offer a payment split, such as half on acceptance and half in January, and let it require autopay if you like.
Send it to every winter customer at once. Each owner picks their services, their weeks, and their payment plan, and signs from their phone or any browser. More on the offer itself in slip contracts that boat owners sign on any screen.
Haul-out days, handed out and sent
The calendar's Haul-outs tab brings in every accepted winter offer with the week its owner asked for, and lists the boats that have no day yet at the top. Settings hold how many boats the yard hauls in a day and which days it works.
- Fill the week hands each waiting boat a working day, the ones who said earlier first and the ones who said later last.
- Move any boat to another day if the yard needs to.
- Send dates tells each owner their day by email, push, and the bell: "Haul-out: Fri, Oct 16".
The owner's My slip shows the day with Ask to move, which opens a message to the office with the boat and the day already written. A boat moved after the dates went out reads Moved since told until the office sends again. Launches work the same way in spring.
The yard on its own map
The winter yard gets a map of its own, drawn over the aerial photo like the docks. Outline each yard area around the ground where boats sit for the winter, then drag it to move it or a corner to reshape it. Once the spots are on the map, each one shows who is in it, and a boat owner sees their own spot from their phone. A boat owner can hold a summer slip and a winter spot at the same time, and My slip shows both.
A winter layout, planned for you
Placing a hundred boats so that nobody's boat is stuck behind one that launches a month later is a puzzle most yards still solve with a pencil. Suggest layout solves it for you. Pick which boats go in (the ones with a winter storage offer, or every boat without a winter spot yet), which way they face, and how much room to leave between them.
SlipRight orders the boats by launch week, so the first to launch is never blocked in, and keeps the spots clear of buildings, roads, docks, and the water. It can plan several yard areas at once. The plan shows on the map as a draft, and nothing is saved until you say so.
Leave a boat out with the mark beside it, turn the rows, or try again. Any boat that doesn't fit is listed with the reason. Use this layout adds the spots, numbers them, and puts each boat in its spot.
Registration and insurance, current before the boat comes out
Settings → Paperwork says what every boat filed at your marina needs: registration, insurance, or both, and what the insurance must show, such as a liability floor and your marina named as additionally insured.
- Boat owners upload their documents from My slip, and the office hears about it.
- The office reviews each one, confirms its expiry date, and accepts it or sends it back with the reason.
- Every boat has a status: Missing, Needs review, Expiring soon, Expired, Rejected, or Current, worst first on the Paperwork page.
- Reminders go out when a document turns Expiring soon and on the days you pick, from 30 days before it expires to a week after.
- Ask for paperwork sends one letter, in your marina's name, to every owner whose paperwork is missing or expired, or for one boat from its record.
- For each office step (accepting an offer, setting a launch day, assigning a slip, booking a stay), Warn shows the office what's not current, and Stop waits until it is.
- One export gives your insurer every boat with both statuses and their dates.
The January balance, collected
The second half of a winter split comes due when the office is thinking about spring. With autopay on, it charges the card or bank account on file on the due date, tries again three and seven days later if it fails, and sends the owner a receipt, or a note saying what happened. SlipRight takes no cut. You pay Stripe's rate and nothing on top. Anything still unpaid is marked Overdue on its own, with a late fee if you've turned them on. Marina billing software covers the rest of the money side.
Your yard, your way
Every yard runs winter a little differently: indoor and outdoor storage, rack and cradle, a shrink-wrap crew with its own schedule. Your catalog, your terms, your custom fields, and your calendar settings bend to fit. If your winter runs a way we haven't covered, tell us how your yard works.
Sign up or Request a demo. We move your data free, so this winter's customers can be on SlipRight before the first boat comes out.