Dockwa

I’ve grown to depend on Dockwa more and more over the past 4 years. It’s is a seamless way to reserve transient slips and moorings. I sail out of Boston and use this for the Harbor Island moorings and when we take weekend or weeklong trips around New England. Every year more and more marinas and Harbormasters are using this as their reservation system. I’m leaving in two days to head down to Buzzards Bay, Islands, and Rhodes Island and have used the app for everywhere that requires a reservation. My one improvement would be for more marinas to black out dates that are unavailable. Some will black it out as unavailable. Most you can make the request and need to wait to hear back. Love the app. I hear this was developed by volunteers. Let’s just say you’re underpaid! Thanks.

This app has made research for available moorings and transient slips a reasonable task as a cruiser. Gone are the hours of pouring over guides books and internet searches. Only to miss some great options when looking for the latest info on a destination or the places in between should foul weather or some other mishap befall a trip. Keep in mind this is NOT an end all to good research via other means it does however simplify the research that needs to be addressed. One thing I see so far that would make this app really great is including anchorage’s to the app with a rating system on its location, bottom features and anchor holding characteristics.

We were not pleased with this experience. By far the most we have spent for a berth at a marina and felt that it was a push you in and push you out machine. We arrived and were made to hold in the channel for over 45 minutes while staff handled other boats only to learn when we arrived that the marina was understaffed. I ended up loosing my bow thruster for the docking procedure due to using it so long in the wind in the channel. Then when we asked to delay our departure by an hour or two were made to feel like this was a major ask. I was told that they had a reservation for our berth. We left to take a mooring right in front of the dock that we had and saw that no one ever used it when we left. We left with a very bad taste in our mouth.