(article from the Nov/Dec 98 edition of Marina Dock Age)

Haven Harbour Marina was built on the verdant banks of history, in a quiet inlet of the Chesapeake Bay known as Swan Creek. History is hinted at in the old-world spelling of the marina's name. It's respectfully retold in the marina’s brochures, which trace the area's commercial fishing heritage back to the early 1700s. And it's memorialized in the on-site Watermen’s Museum, a homage to the oyster and crab industry that shaped the Bay's identity.

History is also important to Bill Brawner, whose family first came to Maryland in 1631. Brawner, who developed a love of boating during childhood summers at Cape May and Martha’s Vineyard, is president of the Washington-based real estate management company that purchased the marina in 1986. The Brawner Company dredged the entire marina, rebuilt the docks and renovated the main buildings while retaining the character and charm of the community.

Like the marina, the town of Rock Hall in which it's located bears a blend of historical and contemporary influences. "Rock Hall has undergone a huge transformation over the years, but it still is a small fishing village of a few hundred families, and that was true 100 years ago," said Jonathan Jones, general manager of Haven Harbour Marina. "As the fishing industry is in somewhat of a decline, recreational boating has taken its place." And as Brawner's vision of a more progressive yet historically relevant marina took the place of existing facilities, Jones signed on in 1990 to be a part of it.

"Bill saw a lot of marinas that were kind of run-down boatyards with jackstands and oil drums around, but there were a couple of them that were beginning to understand that you had to provide land-based recreational amenities-a place to get something to eat, a pool, nicely landscaped grounds, shuffleboard, croquet, horseshoes, paddleboats, bicycles. We find quite a few of our slipholders go out sailing and come back here because there's no where else as nice to go." With much of the Chesapeake Bay for boaters to cruise, there is no higher compliment.

"There's a tremendous amount of attention to detail in terms of the maintenance here. When you walk around, you don't find cigarette butts in the parking lot; you don't find the ashtrays full; you don't find spiderwebs on the power pedestals because they're washed once a month. The place is kept very well organized. It looks like a country club here, yet we’re a serious working boat yard and I think we hide that very well."

Jones, hiding places include three repair buildings. One is "the big shop", a heated, dust-controlled 60-by 40-foot building that the TraveLift drives into where paint jobs and larger repairs are performed, and the other is used for fiberglass and rudder repairs of smaller boats.

The other facility is a 60- by 24-foot mobile tent that can be wheeled around and draped over vessels. "It's translucent, so even in the middle of winter, it could be 70 degrees inside the tent just from the solar gain," said Jones. "Plus we can heat it so it provides another indoor work space during the winter months. And people love to have indoor-storage, so if were doing a major laminate job that takes a month, the customers have indoor storage for the period of time that the boat's being worked on."

What Jones doesn't try to hide is the work being done on his customers boats. "There's got to be a lot of follow-up, a lot of customer contact," he insists. "We leave what we call "on-board" reports, on every boat that we work on to let the customer know when we were there, what we did and what condition we left the boat in. We call, fax, and e-mail customers. We have-a digital camera we use if we're right in the middle of a job and we encounter something unusual or something we're trying to show a customer. We can take a visual image of what we're trying to describe and e-mail it right to the customer.

"The classic thing with boat repairs is a customer being told it's going to cost $10,000 to get his engine replaced, and the next thing he knows, he gets the bill and its $15,000," said Jones. '"ou avoid those things by staying in communication with your boat owner."

After the boat has been serviced, customers are given a questionnaire to gauge their satisfaction. According to Jones, "The name of the game in this business is customer service. In every organization, mistakes are going to be made, and the way those mistakes are handled is what sets one organization apart from another."

Haven Harbour's expansive menu of maintenance and repair services sets them apart from others as well. With the ability to do rigging, electronic work, painting, fiberglass, major structural work, high-tech composite repair, diesel and gas mechanical work, major engine overhauls, fabrication, carpentry, and cabinetry work, they've earned a deeper definition of "full-service" Many marinas say they're full-service because they have tenants or subcontractors that come in and provide the services," said Jones. "We made the decision a while ago to have all the services here under one roof and under our control." Jones says the profits from his service operation may soon meet or exceed those from slip rental, which suggests the decision was a good one.

Haven Harbour Marina has also earned respect for its decisions in environmental policy, including its commitment to dust-free sanding. With sailboaters comprising about 70 percent of the sliprenters, the marina's dust-free sanding policy applies to employees and slipholders alike. Tarps are also placed under every boat being sanded for the collection and proper disposal of any debris. To Jones, this is purely common sense, as the buildup of copper and toxic chemicals in the soil can create enormous liability. "If you're constantly sanding off bottom paint and letting other chemicals into the ground, every time it rains, that stuff ends up in the water, and what is the water? It's the playground. It's 'we make our money. - This creek out here in the bay that everyone enjoys seeing the ducks and fish and crabs in, it's only of value if it's clean," said Jones.

A vegetated buffer surrounds the perimeter of the marina with foliage and wood chips to filter storm water runoff before it drains into the creek. The TraveLift wash-down area is equipped with a catch basin that empties all pressure-wash water into a three-chambered cistern to filter out sediment and particulate matter. Water in the cistern is therefore filtered three times before its return to the creek, and the cistern is emptied two or three times a year in an approved landfill. Jones says he foresees such practices becoming mandatory in the future, and looks toward even greater strides. "In Broward County, Fla., there's a guy named Scott Miser with Associated marine Technologies who has the ability to recycle all of his pressure-washer water completely. It's a closed-loop system. We have one piece of that in place. At some point, we could recirculate the water further and reuse it. That may happen someday."

In the meantime, Jones gets slipholders involved in environmental maintenance by providing them with fuel containment booms on the docks, recycling bins on the shore and newsletters that keep them informed of earth-friendly products and practices, such as a bottle that suctions over the fuel vents of boats, catching any escaping fuel. Jones said customers are usually eager to participate in the beautification of their marina, especially if it was beautiful when they found it. As the public became more involved in keeping things clean, their demand for pumpout facilities rose. "We had a dramatic increase in the amount of sewage we were asked to pump," said Jones, who replaced the marina’s diaphragm pumpout with a vein-pump model, which he said is faster and more powerful. "You open the valve a little and bam! In a just a second it's gone." The docks hold two of these facilities, allowing simultaneous pumpouts of two boats, and for $7 to $10 more per pumpout, those who don’t want to wait can have their holding tanks emptied on by a company called Safe Harbor Sanitation. "Not only are pumpout services a must", said Jones, but "you have to make it accessible. You have to make it easy."

The general manager's mission is to implement this ease in as many areas as possible. "In boat yards, if there's a charge for (collection of) contaminated fuel or antifreeze, it usually ends up either being drained in the parking lot, being pumped overboard or whatever," said Jones. "We have an environmental compliance charge of 1 1/2 percent on all of our work orders, and that allows us to collect all of the stuff and pay to have it disposed of.

Environmental responsibility can be used to the marina’s advantage in many cases, Jones pointed out. For example, by adding recycling bins, Jones was able to reduce the volume of trash he paid to have hauled away by 20 to 25 percent. And collecting all his customers' waste oil in a Resnor furnace – a furnace specifically designed to burn waste oil - he is able to heat the service buildings in winter.

Jones also holds a seat on Maryland's Clean Marina Committee, which has developed a guidebook and award program to inspire environmental awareness in the state's marinas. In addition, Jones plays host to the Living Classrooms Foundation, a nonprofit outreach group that teaches hands-on ecology lessons to inner-city kids. Jones said activities like that one and allowing the local Brownie troop to teach swimming in the marina’s pool are a way of maintaining ties with the community.

The Brawner Co. has also worked to grow the community with the construction of eight single-family homes across the street from Haven Harbour. Marina amenities are available to residents in "The Hamlet", as it’s known, as well as those who rent the nearby bungalow for the weekend.

"The homes have a Victorian character to them. They were part of the vision," explained Jones. "We didn't come in here to try to make every dollar we could out of Rock Hall; we came in to try to create the wealth by creating this environment." We congratulate Haven Harbour Marina for their creation and for earning the 1998 Marina of the Year Award.