An Uncertain Future
Madaket Marine is forced to choose between houses or boats
by Peter B. Brace Independent Writer
Island electrician Billy Ellis feels fortunate to have a mooring in Nantucket Harbor, and does not bother with the expenses of storing his two boats at a boatyard.

COURTESY MARINAS.COM

Rather than languish on years-long waiting lists for yard storage on raised racks or ground boat stands, Ellis sets and pulls his own mooring each spring and fall. He launches and hauls his 19- foot Pro-Line and stores his other, 33-foot boat on his property at Milestone Crossing when he can't get a slip for it at the town pier.

"There's a huge waiting list for moorings," said Ellis. "Being local, I have multiple boats, but only have one mooring because the waiting list is so long."

Regrettably, Ellis let his second mooring permit lapse, losing it and the ability to keep both his boats in Nantucket Harbor. Yet, that did not convince him to try to get into one of four island boatyards.

"As a regular homeowner on Nantucket, if there's anything I can do myself, I try to do it myself," he said.

Ellis is one of Nantucket's fortunate boat owners, able store his boat on his property and moor it in the harbor. With the island's four boatyards at or near capacity, the town's 2,100 moorings on a five-year waiting list and many residential areas prohibiting boat storage on their lots, boaters have limited options for storage.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent From way up here, Madaket Marine's growing pains seem so miniscule and puny. However, even from this aerial photo several hundred feet above the boatyard on Hither Creek at 20 North Cambridge St., it's easy to see the west end's only boatyard has a serious lack of boat storage space. Currently, Madaket Marine is working on a revised expansion plan that does not include more slips (like the one's in the photo, above) and a residential conversion option should storing more boats on land prove impossible.

While at least one yard is taking new customers, Madaket Marine is not offering new boat storage, having scrapped its waiting list several years ago when it had grown to a decade long.

However, unlike Brant Point Marine, Grey Lady Marine, Nantucket Marine and Glyn's Marine, the west end's boatyard cannot commit to the usual seasonal storage of the 200 or so boats, either on the ground or in its 84 rack slots.

In mid-January, due to the steadily climbing costs of the myriad petroleum derived products they use, and the exorbitant permitting cost of a boatwashing pad and runoff collection system, Madaket Marine owners Crowell Freeman, Jr. of North Andover, Mass., Joseph Freeman of Boston and Harvey Saligman of St. Louis, Mo. filed for an expansion modification of their special permit with the Planning Board. To keep pace with their burgeoning expenses and remain financially buoyant, this trio sought to add 66 slips to its existing 60 and three more rack systems for storing an additional 81 boats.

Rebuffed by the Health Department and the Conservation Commission, not to mention Madaket residents, Madaket Marine's owners pulled their plan from discussion to rework it into something more palatable without new slips.

Unsure whether they could secure the permits for more racks, and fearing the loss of their investment, the three owners are hedging their bets by filing residential subdivision plans with the Planning Board for the dry land portion of their property.

PHOTOS BY ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent Boats in the water, and stored on racks at Madaket Marine.

"It's a possibility that the marina won't be open at this time next year," said Kim Sparks, Madaket Marine's Chief Administrative Officer. "It's just a shame that the last water access [boatyard] on Nantucket could no longer be here."

ANYTHING TO BE ON THE WATER

Although harried by rising fuel prices, storage and mooring waiting lists and inadequate parking at the island's three heavily congested public boat ramps, boater enthusiasm is showing no signs of ebbing. But lack of storage capacity on land and in the harbors is likely to gradually fend off new boat users on Nantucket before gasoline prices do.

"It's very difficult on the island because number one, legally to do it, you have to be on commercial land outside the wellhead protection district or grandfathered. That's a very limited amount of land on the island," said Rick Kotalac, owner of Brant Point Marine, which stores 75 boats inland from its 32 Washington St. harbor location on Bartlett Road.

The boatyard in the early 1900s.

Roughly 400 boaters store their boats at home, launching them on their own. Some set their own moorings each year. Others must rely on the island's boatyards

Glyn's Marine, which stores nearly 200 boats - launching and hauling them each spring and fall, and providing maintenance and repair for these and 300 more - is at capacity.

Each summer, Glyn's co-owner Patty Stolte starts a very short waiting list. When it reaches about six names, all other storage inquiries hear Stolte's apologies that there is no more room.

"A lot of boats have come into storage because of covenants in different parts of the island where you're not allowed to store a boat on your property," said Stolte citing, Naushop, Nashaquissett and Hedgebury Lane residential developments.

Grey Lady Marine, owned by the Great Harbor Yacht Club, with storage on racks and on the ground for 200 boats, according to its general manager, Bruce Cowan, does have room for more boats and customers at its storage, repair and maintenance site opposite Glyn's Marine on Arrowhead Drive. And like Madaket Marine, they offer a valet service for boat owners.

Those who cannot find a boatyard to handle their vessels grow old on boatyard waiting lists or the town's mooring waiting list. Marine Superintendent Dave Fronzuto issues an average of 40 permits each year, as people get out of boating, move off island or grow weary of paying nearly $5 a gallon for fuel.

"I think that people are downsizing," said Marine Superintendent Dave Fronzuto. "People aren't replacing boats. Fuel is ridiculously expensive and it ties into the mooring issues. The boatyards could handle a couple of more boats each, but they couldn't handle a couple 100 each, so it's kind of sought its own level."

Cowan somewhat agrees, but said that fuel costs are just part of the expense of being out on the water and one borne in stride by boat owners already dealing with the hurdles of limited boatyard and mooring spaces.

"Moorings are, of course, all locked up and availability is through attrition, which is why we offer valet service," said Cowan. "It allows them the freedom to not have to launch it themselves."

Though fuel costs are becoming prohibitive - Grey Lady sells its fuel at $4.99 a gallon and Madaket Marine for $4.59 - Cowan feels that they are not yet prohibiting boat use.

"That enjoyment that they get from their boats far outweighs the expense because the season is so short," he said. "There will be people who will be affected by the price, but then there will be others who will pay any price for the enjoyment."

IT'S ESSENTIAL

West end boaters can thank Sterling B. Yerxa's vision and initiative for starting Yerxa's Boatyard in 1944, where former selectman Whitey Willauer worked as a teenager and into early adult life. Upon his return from his stint in the Korean War, Yerxa's wife approached Willauer about buying the boatyard. In 1956, he was able to convince John Wagley and Winston Fowlkes to join him in the purchase. The trio ran it as Harbor Sales and Service for a decade.

"We were always full and everybody paid all their bills, which was always amazing. The local guys paid in trade. If they didn't have the money, they would come out and work for us," Willauer recalled.

When it was time to get out of the business, said Willauer, he and his partners never considered selling their property as anything other than a boatyard, and did so to a group of investors including Arnold Wilcox and John Manning, who ran it as Hither Creek Boatyard.

Freeman, Freeman and Saligman bought Hither Creek in 1996, changing the name to Madaket Marine.

As the only waterfront boatyard at the west end of the island, today this boatyard still serves as fuel station, launcher, hauler, storer and maintainer of smaller to medium-size boats.

"It's essential," said Willauer. "If you want to maintain a boating community, which of course you do, you need an alternative. You need a place to haul a lot of these little boats. A lot of the maintenance is being done inland, but you still have to get them out of the water."

THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN

Nowadays, Yerxa's Boatyard incarnate has 60 slips, 13 of the roughly 80 moorings in Hither Creek, rack space for 84 boats (75 of which are valet), and ground space for more than 100 boats. It can haul boats up to a 33-foot Grady-White using a marine forklift and store them on the property. Madaket Marine, along with Grey Lady Marine, owned by the Great Harbor Yacht Club, are the only such boat-hauling services on the island. And though Grey Lady's Travelift can heft the U.S. Coast Guard's 47-foot patrol boat, Grey Lady is more yacht club than boatyard, servicing their roughly 225 customers' and club members' boats on site, but storing their boats out of town. Only in the event of a major storm, per a condition of Great Harbor Yacht Club's approval of its Major Commercial Development special permit issued by the Planning Board, must they open their haul-out service to all boaters.

Still, Madaket Marine can always share the load during such emergencies.

Should it fail to expand - the most likely scenario seems to be enough new rack space for 81 additional boats - Sparks said the likely scenario would be houses.

At the March 24 Planning Board meeting, Madaket Marine secured approval of its preliminary plan for four lots on the upland portion of its 17 acres that could support eight dwellings and the endorsement for its approval-not-required plan for three lots. The boatyard can now develop at least three lots into residential use, should its daunting boatyard acumen prove correct. For the eight-house scenario, Madaket Marine would need a definitive plan approval from the board, the filing for which Sparks said might occur this summer. Preliminary plans are only good for seven months after approval. Definitive plans are good for seven years.

But even that might not give the west end boatyard freedom enough to recoup its losses at its own pace. Article 49, 50 and 51, adopted by Town Meeting voters on April 8, created a harbor overlay district (HOD) for Nantucket Harbor and the 17-acre portion of Hither Creek that Madaket Marine owns. Pasage of those articles prevents existing ground floor waterdependent uses from being converted to non-water-dependent ones, such as dwellings. Although the HOD champions the working waterfront cause, Madaket Marine's owners, said Sparks, feel constrained because they would only have seven years to decide whether to build houses or keep running their boatyard.

For Madaket Harbormaster Chris Vanderwolk, the choice is obvious.

"Two big things they provide are repairs and fuel. It's the only fuel outside of town. There's no other place," he said. "They're very good about taking care of people. You can come in with a minor crisis and they take care of you right away. They're the only game in town. It would be a shame if

they shut down." I