June 13, 2005
Floating host | Susan Henderson, dockmaster at Wayfarer Marine in Camden, doesn't just jockey boats — she's also a waterfront concierge
By Taylor Smith
For generations, Maine's thousands of miles of coastline and thousands of near-shore islands have made the state a virtual mecca for recreational boaters. Well-protected harbors shield sailors from rough weather, and more than 150 marinas, yacht clubs and town docks service recreational boaters from York Harbor to Addison and beyond. Some harbors are simple affairs with public moorings and limited amenities, while others boast sparkling marinas featuring hot showers, launch services and wireless Internet access.
But because those amenities are an attraction to boaters spending their vacations cruising up and down the Maine coast, on-the-water facilities like Wayfarer Marine Corp., a marina and boatyard in Camden Harbor, increasingly have become a link to the real world.
Boaters can pull up to the dock, stretch their sea legs and check their e-mail. And in boat-friendly places like Camden, which last summer was listed as having the prettiest harbor on the East Coast by Soundings, an Essex, Conn.-based boating newspaper, skippers and first mates can step off their boat and be within walking distance of grocery stores and movie theaters. As a result, people like Susan Henderson, Wayfarer's dockmaster, are spending less time wrangling boats into dock space than they are catering to guests' queries. Whether it's the best spot in town to get a leg wax or which store carries the best steak, it's become the dockmaster's job to know.
Henderson, 36, started at Wayfarer 11 years ago after a stint as a registrar at the short-lived Center for Creative Imaging in Camden, an educational facility funded by the Rochester, N.Y.-based Eastman Kodak Co. that shut down in 1994. She took a job as a receptionist at Wayfarer, where her great-grandmother had worked decades before. Since then, Henderson has worked as a human resources manager and safety manager for Wayfarer, as well as taking care of stockroom duties. But she jumped at the chance a few years back to get out of the stockroom and onto the docks. What can I say, she says with a laugh. I'm actively downwardly mobile.
This September, Henderson is planning to leave Wayfarer to spend a year sailing her 1960 Pearson Triton, a 28-and-a-half-foot fiberglass boat, down to the Bahamas. Before she skipped town, Mainebiz asked her about her evolving role as dockmaster, people's changing view of vacation time, the fall of fax machines and the rise of floating docks. The following is an edited transcript of that conversation.
Mainebiz: For the uninitiated, how would someone go about making a reservation at Wayfarer? Do you have to call months ahead?
Henderson: A lot of the return customers reserve months ahead of time, because they have a specific spot that they want. Other people will call the day ahead. For transient customers, we have three or four slips and about 1,000 ft. of straight docks. We wrap the boats about three deep on the dock. It depends on the length and the shape of the boat ˆ whether they raft up well together ˆ but we can fit anywhere between 20 and 40 boats on the docks. In July and August, we're usually filled, but we usually have space in June and September. We also have some harbor floats and we have 60 moorings in the harbor.
Along the dock, it's $3 per foot for boats under 50 ft., then it's $4 per foot. For boats with an 18-foot beam, [we charge] $6 per foot, mostly because they take up more space. Moorings are $30 per night, and the harbor floats are $45. It's all first come, first served, especially for the harbor floats, because we have a limited supply. They're the best deal in town.
What exactly is a harbor float? Why is it so sought after?
A harbor float's a moored float with no land access, so you have to come [into shore] either by our launch service or your own dinghy. The floats are relatively private, and they give you the advantage of being tied to a float ˆ or as somebody put it, it gives you a boat with a porch. Especially for people with dogs or children, or for someone with a mobility problem, it's much more convenient than being on a mooring.
Do you have seasonal customers ˆ people who will stay with you for the entire summer ˆ or are most of your customers transient sailors or boaters who will spend just a night or two before heading to other destinations on the coast?
We have about 20 seasonal customers. Camden Harbor is a very small harbor, and space is very limited, so we keep a few of the spots for the transients. Because of its harbor ordinances, Camden Harbor is more geared toward transients. [The town] wants more people to enjoy the harbor, so they try to limit the amount of time people spend here. They prefer that boats are only on transient moorings and harbor floats for a maximum of two weeks. That way, it gives others a chance to get in and see the harbor. We can make special arrangements with the harbormaster if we need to, but [the harbor committee, which is made up of local residents and businesspeople] likes a little bit more turnover.
What happens if the weather turns bad? Will the harbormaster turn people away or pack people into the harbor?
We'll pack the mooring field [and] we'll try to keep as few boats on the dock as possible because they tend to damage each other in really heavy weather ˆ especially the sailboats with their rigs swinging around. In really heavy weather, the mooring field is a little exposed, so we have a list of hurricane holes that people can go. Those are very protected spots. Most people are pretty astute with the weather with all the services now; they'll be calling days in advance and we can give them recommendations.
So what's the protocol when a boat is coming into Wayfarer?
When they come in, what typically happens when they approach the harbor is that they call us on the radio, we welcome them to Camden and direct them to wherever their space in the harbor is. Then we generally pick them up in the launch and bring them in [to shore].
We've created our own small brochure with important phone numbers and VHF channels and other marine-related things they might need. We'll have phone numbers for the harbormaster, the pump-out boat ˆ which for boaters is important ˆ the yacht club, our launch. We also list all the car rental locations, taxi services, bus service, bicycle rentals, laundry services and provisioning. We also have a full selection of the town's brochures: We go to the [Rockland-Camden-Lincolnville] Chamber of Commerce and get one of everything and put them together in a book. The chamber is just across the harbor from us, so when people come into the dock, the harbormaster and the chamber of commerce are right there.
Camden is also a very nice walking town. You can walk to the grocery store, and there's a very nice wine emporium. There are restaurants and bars, all within walking distance. You can walk to a pharmacy, you can walk to the movie theater, the post office.
What kind of amenities do you offer to the cruiser who's coming in off a rough week at sea?
We have a small grocery store, Megunticook Market, on site. Every day they have fresh pastries for breakfast, and you can order a specific lunch ahead of time and they'll bring it to your boat. If you say you're provisioning your boat and you need steak and whatever else and give them a list, they'll bring that over, too. You don't even have to leave your boat. There's also a grocery store [French & Brawn Market Place] that will provision boats. You can call your order to them and they'll bring it down to your boat. I don't even think there's an extra charge for that.
We also have laundry facilities on site with brand new machines, brand new shower facilities and bathrooms, and places to watch television. People will also have their mail forwarded here and we'll hold it until they arrive. That's always been popular. We have Internet access, and we offer Wi-Fi service. With the Internet and e-mail, it's very common to see people sitting on the dock with a laptop.
That must be quite a change from 10 years ago. How did people stay in touch before they could log on to the Internet from their boat's cockpit?
We used to use the fax machine heavily a decade ago. A lot of businesspeople still needed to conduct business while they were away, so they'd be faxing documents back and forth with their offices. We have some notary publics on site, so they'd be looking for things to be notarized. We still use it, but that was sort of the only choice back then.
It was really difficult for them [to do business during their vacations]. They had to schedule their trips where FedEx would drop off. Because Maine's a rural state, there are some places where FedEx will only pick up and drop off once a day, so people wouldn't have time to get their packages, do whatever they need to do with them and get it back out the same day. Now, people will know something's coming in on morning delivery and they'll get it back out that afternoon. I guess people don't understand vacations anymore.
What are some of the most common questions you're asked by shore-bound cruisers?
The most common is, Where should we go to eat? And then you have to walk them through the What do you want to eat? question. What food do you like? You'll get through that, try to find the appropriate place for them, then make reservations. That's probably 80% of it. Then people ask for hiking trails, health clubs and some strange ones, like, Where can I kennel my dog because the dog doesn't like it on the boat? Or, We need to do a car shuffle between here and Bar Harbor; how do I get that done? They're looking for directions in and out of the state, they're trying to get their travel arrangements made. I've spent many a Saturday afternoon trying to get somebody home in August, when all the car rentals are booked in Maine. They'll have a family emergency, or someone will have to leave. We'll have to put together flights, trains, taxi services, just to get those people home. That probably happens a dozen times a season.
There's usually a weird one every day; people will come in and ask where they can get their legs waxed. Today, somebody asked if we're having fireworks in Camden [this summer]. I told them that we're not because there are nesting eagles on the island in the harbor, and we don't have fireworks when the baby eagles are in the nest. They asked where else in Maine there were fireworks, so I had to research all the fireworks sites in Maine that they could see from their boat.
What's your job like when you're not playing concierge to the marina guests?
Many times a day, we check the boats on the docks, on the harbor floats and on the moorings to make sure everything's okay. We make reservations for people coming in and charge them for it; we sell ice, we sell fuel and we talk to people about what they want. We also print out the weather for people every day. We'll try to keep a list of current events happening in town. We try to arrange the docks so they're the most efficient for people. If you come in, and say your wife doesn't like climbing over other boats to get to the dock, then we'll move the other boats out of the way. We spend a lot of time moving boats. It's a constant shuffling ˆ it's like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
Does the marina also handle repairs?
Repairs are mostly what we do; the marina is almost a sideline for us. We have 85 employees, and the majority of them are involved in the yard. In the wintertime and most of the year, we store about 175 boats and do all the refit, repair and maintenance. We have a 100-ton Travelift, so we can haul [boats] quite rapidly if we need to. If a customer calls from out in the bay and thinks they hit a rock, we can haul them out. We also have people on call during the weekends, so if a customer is in trouble, we can get the yard crew or a mechanic on board. We're a full-service yard, so we have mechanics, carpenters, riggers and electronics people available.
In your 11 years at Wayfarer, have you seen an increase in the number of people cruising into Camden Harbor?
It seems like we've had more new customers along with our existing customers. It's getting so crowded south of here. The more people that come up here, even if the weather's bad, [they see that it's] still so beautiful. With the number of islands and harbors here, within two hours, you have a dozen places to choose from. You can sail around the same small area for weeks and see something new every day.
But because those amenities are an attraction to boaters spending their vacations cruising up and down the Maine coast, on-the-water facilities like Wayfarer Marine Corp., a marina and boatyard in Camden Harbor, increasingly have become a link to the real world.
Boaters can pull up to the dock, stretch their sea legs and check their e-mail. And in boat-friendly places like Camden, which last summer was listed as having the prettiest harbor on the East Coast by Soundings, an Essex, Conn.-based boating newspaper, skippers and first mates can step off their boat and be within walking distance of grocery stores and movie theaters. As a result, people like Susan Henderson, Wayfarer's dockmaster, are spending less time wrangling boats into dock space than they are catering to guests' queries. Whether it's the best spot in town to get a leg wax or which store carries the best steak, it's become the dockmaster's job to know.
Henderson, 36, started at Wayfarer 11 years ago after a stint as a registrar at the short-lived Center for Creative Imaging in Camden, an educational facility funded by the Rochester, N.Y.-based Eastman Kodak Co. that shut down in 1994. She took a job as a receptionist at Wayfarer, where her great-grandmother had worked decades before. Since then, Henderson has worked as a human resources manager and safety manager for Wayfarer, as well as taking care of stockroom duties. But she jumped at the chance a few years back to get out of the stockroom and onto the docks. What can I say, she says with a laugh. I'm actively downwardly mobile.
This September, Henderson is planning to leave Wayfarer to spend a year sailing her 1960 Pearson Triton, a 28-and-a-half-foot fiberglass boat, down to the Bahamas. Before she skipped town, Mainebiz asked her about her evolving role as dockmaster, people's changing view of vacation time, the fall of fax machines and the rise of floating docks. The following is an edited transcript of that conversation.
Mainebiz: For the uninitiated, how would someone go about making a reservation at Wayfarer? Do you have to call months ahead?
Henderson: A lot of the return customers reserve months ahead of time, because they have a specific spot that they want. Other people will call the day ahead. For transient customers, we have three or four slips and about 1,000 ft. of straight docks. We wrap the boats about three deep on the dock. It depends on the length and the shape of the boat ˆ whether they raft up well together ˆ but we can fit anywhere between 20 and 40 boats on the docks. In July and August, we're usually filled, but we usually have space in June and September. We also have some harbor floats and we have 60 moorings in the harbor.
Along the dock, it's $3 per foot for boats under 50 ft., then it's $4 per foot. For boats with an 18-foot beam, [we charge] $6 per foot, mostly because they take up more space. Moorings are $30 per night, and the harbor floats are $45. It's all first come, first served, especially for the harbor floats, because we have a limited supply. They're the best deal in town.
What exactly is a harbor float? Why is it so sought after?
A harbor float's a moored float with no land access, so you have to come [into shore] either by our launch service or your own dinghy. The floats are relatively private, and they give you the advantage of being tied to a float ˆ or as somebody put it, it gives you a boat with a porch. Especially for people with dogs or children, or for someone with a mobility problem, it's much more convenient than being on a mooring.
Do you have seasonal customers ˆ people who will stay with you for the entire summer ˆ or are most of your customers transient sailors or boaters who will spend just a night or two before heading to other destinations on the coast?
We have about 20 seasonal customers. Camden Harbor is a very small harbor, and space is very limited, so we keep a few of the spots for the transients. Because of its harbor ordinances, Camden Harbor is more geared toward transients. [The town] wants more people to enjoy the harbor, so they try to limit the amount of time people spend here. They prefer that boats are only on transient moorings and harbor floats for a maximum of two weeks. That way, it gives others a chance to get in and see the harbor. We can make special arrangements with the harbormaster if we need to, but [the harbor committee, which is made up of local residents and businesspeople] likes a little bit more turnover.
What happens if the weather turns bad? Will the harbormaster turn people away or pack people into the harbor?
We'll pack the mooring field [and] we'll try to keep as few boats on the dock as possible because they tend to damage each other in really heavy weather ˆ especially the sailboats with their rigs swinging around. In really heavy weather, the mooring field is a little exposed, so we have a list of hurricane holes that people can go. Those are very protected spots. Most people are pretty astute with the weather with all the services now; they'll be calling days in advance and we can give them recommendations.
So what's the protocol when a boat is coming into Wayfarer?
When they come in, what typically happens when they approach the harbor is that they call us on the radio, we welcome them to Camden and direct them to wherever their space in the harbor is. Then we generally pick them up in the launch and bring them in [to shore].
We've created our own small brochure with important phone numbers and VHF channels and other marine-related things they might need. We'll have phone numbers for the harbormaster, the pump-out boat ˆ which for boaters is important ˆ the yacht club, our launch. We also list all the car rental locations, taxi services, bus service, bicycle rentals, laundry services and provisioning. We also have a full selection of the town's brochures: We go to the [Rockland-Camden-Lincolnville] Chamber of Commerce and get one of everything and put them together in a book. The chamber is just across the harbor from us, so when people come into the dock, the harbormaster and the chamber of commerce are right there.
Camden is also a very nice walking town. You can walk to the grocery store, and there's a very nice wine emporium. There are restaurants and bars, all within walking distance. You can walk to a pharmacy, you can walk to the movie theater, the post office.
What kind of amenities do you offer to the cruiser who's coming in off a rough week at sea?
We have a small grocery store, Megunticook Market, on site. Every day they have fresh pastries for breakfast, and you can order a specific lunch ahead of time and they'll bring it to your boat. If you say you're provisioning your boat and you need steak and whatever else and give them a list, they'll bring that over, too. You don't even have to leave your boat. There's also a grocery store [French & Brawn Market Place] that will provision boats. You can call your order to them and they'll bring it down to your boat. I don't even think there's an extra charge for that.
We also have laundry facilities on site with brand new machines, brand new shower facilities and bathrooms, and places to watch television. People will also have their mail forwarded here and we'll hold it until they arrive. That's always been popular. We have Internet access, and we offer Wi-Fi service. With the Internet and e-mail, it's very common to see people sitting on the dock with a laptop.
That must be quite a change from 10 years ago. How did people stay in touch before they could log on to the Internet from their boat's cockpit?
We used to use the fax machine heavily a decade ago. A lot of businesspeople still needed to conduct business while they were away, so they'd be faxing documents back and forth with their offices. We have some notary publics on site, so they'd be looking for things to be notarized. We still use it, but that was sort of the only choice back then.
It was really difficult for them [to do business during their vacations]. They had to schedule their trips where FedEx would drop off. Because Maine's a rural state, there are some places where FedEx will only pick up and drop off once a day, so people wouldn't have time to get their packages, do whatever they need to do with them and get it back out the same day. Now, people will know something's coming in on morning delivery and they'll get it back out that afternoon. I guess people don't understand vacations anymore.
What are some of the most common questions you're asked by shore-bound cruisers?
The most common is, Where should we go to eat? And then you have to walk them through the What do you want to eat? question. What food do you like? You'll get through that, try to find the appropriate place for them, then make reservations. That's probably 80% of it. Then people ask for hiking trails, health clubs and some strange ones, like, Where can I kennel my dog because the dog doesn't like it on the boat? Or, We need to do a car shuffle between here and Bar Harbor; how do I get that done? They're looking for directions in and out of the state, they're trying to get their travel arrangements made. I've spent many a Saturday afternoon trying to get somebody home in August, when all the car rentals are booked in Maine. They'll have a family emergency, or someone will have to leave. We'll have to put together flights, trains, taxi services, just to get those people home. That probably happens a dozen times a season.
There's usually a weird one every day; people will come in and ask where they can get their legs waxed. Today, somebody asked if we're having fireworks in Camden [this summer]. I told them that we're not because there are nesting eagles on the island in the harbor, and we don't have fireworks when the baby eagles are in the nest. They asked where else in Maine there were fireworks, so I had to research all the fireworks sites in Maine that they could see from their boat.
What's your job like when you're not playing concierge to the marina guests?
Many times a day, we check the boats on the docks, on the harbor floats and on the moorings to make sure everything's okay. We make reservations for people coming in and charge them for it; we sell ice, we sell fuel and we talk to people about what they want. We also print out the weather for people every day. We'll try to keep a list of current events happening in town. We try to arrange the docks so they're the most efficient for people. If you come in, and say your wife doesn't like climbing over other boats to get to the dock, then we'll move the other boats out of the way. We spend a lot of time moving boats. It's a constant shuffling ˆ it's like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
Does the marina also handle repairs?
Repairs are mostly what we do; the marina is almost a sideline for us. We have 85 employees, and the majority of them are involved in the yard. In the wintertime and most of the year, we store about 175 boats and do all the refit, repair and maintenance. We have a 100-ton Travelift, so we can haul [boats] quite rapidly if we need to. If a customer calls from out in the bay and thinks they hit a rock, we can haul them out. We also have people on call during the weekends, so if a customer is in trouble, we can get the yard crew or a mechanic on board. We're a full-service yard, so we have mechanics, carpenters, riggers and electronics people available.
In your 11 years at Wayfarer, have you seen an increase in the number of people cruising into Camden Harbor?
It seems like we've had more new customers along with our existing customers. It's getting so crowded south of here. The more people that come up here, even if the weather's bad, [they see that it's] still so beautiful. With the number of islands and harbors here, within two hours, you have a dozen places to choose from. You can sail around the same small area for weeks and see something new every day.
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