By Louie St. George III
It was that time of year again. Late April in the Twin Ports. Days were getting longer. Winter jackets had been replaced by hoodies and, pretty soon, T-shirts. The region’s lakes, rivers and streams had long since shed their winter ice. Gray was giving way to splashes of green as spring’s rebirth was in full bloom.
And, just as they’d been doing for the past 40-plus years, people were flocking to Barker’s Island Marina. They were there to launch their boats, do some cleaning, drop off new accessories, look for friends they hadn’t seen since the fall. More than anything, they were there to putter. Puttering is a big part of marina life.
Eric Thomas is the CEO and, along with his wife Sarah Harwood, co-owner of Sailboats, Inc., which manages Barker’s Island Marina for the city of Superior. He has watched this annual rite of spring play out since joining the staff as service manager in 1998. It never does get old. Familiar faces reappear, conversations focus on catching up and there’s an excitement in the air as temps begin to rise and boating season approaches.
Thomas likened it to “opening day at the hockey rink,” referencing another favorite (frozen) water pastime.
“All of a sudden, this week, the clients showed up,” he said on a late-April evening. “They come out of the woodwork. They’re all excited. They’re taking their winter covers off or scurrying around doing little projects, but mostly talking with other people who are supposed to be doing little projects.”
“The minute you start driving to the marina, your blood pressure goes down.”
– Eric Thomas, CEO and co-owner – Sailboats, Inc.
At 420 slips, the marina at Barker’s Island is the largest on Lake Superior. And it offers something for just about everyone. There’s a brokerage to facilitate boat sales, as well as sailboat rentals, a complete service center – managed by Thomas’ brother, Allen Thomas – dockage and storage, slips for guests and a boaters’ clubhouse. The marina is a community teeming with camaraderie.
Eric Thomas acknowledges the intrigue of the million-dollar vessels that dock at the marina. They are stunning, fun to gawk at and excellent conversation-starters. But he gets just as giddy talking about the no-frills boats floating here and there. Regardless of boat size, people are generally after the same thing. They want to be on the water, taking full advantage of everything the greatest lake has to offer. For some, that means fishing. Others want to water-ski or sail or drift toward nowhere in particular. They are teachers, postal workers, cooks, corporate executives and college kids.
“People come to see the big shiny things, but what really warms our hearts are the basically free boats that get used almost every day,” Thomas says. “You can be boating on a really modest budget. It’s for everyone. We have folks who just keep kayaks and canoes at the marina.
“I love to see the college kids who pick up a boat for $100 on Craigslist, spend time patching it up and working on it, then tell us they’re going to sail to Florida.”
The variety of customers underscores the marina’s main objectives – introducing people to boating and providing access to the water. Some view boating as the domain of the wealthy. But that’s not the case, Thomas implores. Not even close. There are plenty of wallet-friendly options for boat ownership. Also, it has become easier to self-diagnose and fix mechanical problems vs. paying someone to make repairs, which improves access.
Thomas credits YouTube, which can turn anyone into a do-it-yourselfer. He says a lot of marina regulars binge-watch how-to videos while troubleshooting their rigs. The most industrious among them can solve any hiccup simply by Googling a video, watching it and tinkering. Thomas suspects that’s half the joy of owning a boat. The tinkering, much like the puttering.
“That’s the drug that’s drawing them all to their boats,” Thomas says. “The putter, they want to putter.”
There’s lots of that at Barker’s Island Marina.
The marina, Thomas says, is serious about supporting boat clubs, holding educational events, attending seminars and engaging in outreach. It’s part of a commitment to bring boating to more people, a philosophy that has sustained the marina since it opened in 1980 and will be critical to its continued success.
“That’s what we try to do, get people access to the water,” Thomas says. “To be the front door to the water, to the lake. We always felt that we were the most approachable marina in the region.”
Superior Mayor Jim Paine agrees.
“They really are our best ambassadors for the lake,” Paine says of the marina staff.
A Way of Life
There have always been ebbs and flows – or, perhaps more appropriately, little waves – in the popularity of boating. Like many outdoor pursuits, interest went full throttle during the COVID-19 pandemic when stimulus checks put extra cash in the pockets of people looking to socially distance outside.
As is the case with so many hobbies, if people are exposed at a young age, they’re likely to be hooked. The trick is getting them around the water early and showing them the possibilities.
The Thomas brothers know all about that. After all, they grew up on an island in the mouth of Lake Erie. Raised on Grosse Ile, Michigan, the largest island in the Detroit River, boating was as much a part of their childhood as naps and daydreaming.
“We had water in the backyard,” Allen says.
Eric says his family has raced sailboats for more than 50 years. It’s something his parents, now in their 80s, still do today.
“We’ve been a part of Wednesday night recreational sailboat racing in Detroit, here and all over the country,” Eric notes.
He’s occasionally asked if operating a marina, and thereby tying his livelihood to the sport, impacts his passion for boating. Not a chance, he’s quick to respond. This is what he does. It’s what he knows and loves.
“People will often ask me, ‘Does it ruin your hobby for you?’ Well, my hobby is sailing, being on the water, finding harbors, finding beaches,” Eric explains. “My daughter will smirk at me because the washing machine is full of boat parts.
“My job today is dealing with running a business. When I go to sail, I’m happy because I don’t get to sail as often. I have to go to work and play business owner.”
Despite his upbringing, Allen eventually got off the water. He was working in the construction business in South Carolina, designing high-end kitchen cabinets, when the Great Recession struck in the late 2000s. Suddenly, people weren’t as interested in dropping huge amounts of money on expensive kitchen cabinets, and Allen was out of a job.
Allen had lived in South Carolina for 20 years when the global economy cratered. Amid the uncertainty, he was wondering what he was going to do next. Jobs were increasingly difficult to come by. Following a conversation with his brother, Allen headed north, to the marina, “and the two of us have been wrangling this place ever since,” Eric jokes.
“I’d always been involved with boating, and my brother was up here at the marina and said, ‘We have some broken boats that need fixing’,” Allen recalls. “I told him, ‘Well, I’m on my way’.”
Allen is 65 now, though he doesn’t expect to stop working anytime soon. Explaining his reasoning, he mentioned that two of his coworkers on the service staff are “well into their 70s” and another is about his age. Allen enjoys what he does too much to call it a career.
“If the marina is doing well, the city is doing well. We both rise together, so it’s worth working together.”
– Jim Paine, Mayor – City of Superior
Besides, what would he do in retirement? Work on boats, probably.
“I should retire, but I won’t because I have too much fun at work,” he says.
The service team at Barker’s Island Marina is busiest during the winter months. At first, that might seem counterintuitive, until Allen explains that people are reluctant to have their boats in the shop when they could be on the water instead.
“We have four days of summer here,” Allen deadpans. “You don’t want to miss one of them.”
Eric called boating a “generational activity.”
“My parents introduced me to boating,” he explains. “I’m still boating, they’re still boating, my teenage daughter boats and is very familiar with it.”
For Eric and so many others like him, it’s a way of life. There’s no place else they’d rather be. Mayor Paine hammers that point home by recalling the wildly popular Lake Superior Dragon Boat Festival held each August in the Superior Bay off Barker’s Island. The mayor says Eric and many of his staff members, despite no formal connection to the races, are running all over the place helping out where they can.
Some marina regulars rarely move their boat from the dock in the summer. In fact, there are a few who never do, Allen says. He called those vessels “floating cabins.” And yet, those folks are around frequently, soaking up the good vibes and a slower, simpler lifestyle. Being on a boat is better than not being on a boat. Call it water therapy.
“They’re just content to sit on the boat and enjoy the marina life,” Allen says.
Why is that?
“The minute you start driving to the marina, your blood pressure goes down,” Eric posits.
Win-win Relationship
The marina continues to thrive nearly a half-century after city leaders floated an idea in which boating would be the catalyst for the redevelopment of Barker’s Island. They envisioned turning the long-neglected real estate into a recreational hub and a hotspot for tourism. It would be an economic-development project that, if done right, would send money flowing to the city via multiple sources – sales tax receipts and lease payments from whoever managed the marina, for example.
Early on, it was Jack Culley, the founder of Sailboats, Inc., who had been selling boats right out of his garage in the Twin Cities before moving to Superior to lease and manage the marina. From the very beginning, the marina – which resulted from a collaboration between the city, state of Wisconsin and the federal government – has been well-supported. Superior’s willingness to proactively invest in maintenance and repairs has kept the marina’s infrastructure in remarkably good shape.
There’s a big, city-funded capital-improvement project every few years, Eric says. They have included road improvements, HVAC upgrades, docks and piers and the electrical grid.
In return, the marina has made millions of dollars in lease payments to the city. Each year, 54 percent of revenue from docks and storage goes to Superior’s general fund. Paine says the revenue exceeds projections almost every year. Compared to other municipal marinas around the region, the one at Barker’s Island generates the highest per-slip revenue for its municipality, according to Eric.
“I would say that many other municipalities, their marinas, as they age, become a liability, because the revenues aren’t there to support refurbishment,” he says. “We’re pleased to generate enough for the city to support refurbishing. We’re still in business, still making money and still happy, so it’s working well for both parties.
“We’re proud to be an economic engine for the city. That’s what the facility was originally built and touted as, an economic generator. And I’d say that it’s been a roaring success.”
Which is precisely why, Paine says, the city is happy to fund projects that keep the marina humming along. The more people it attracts, the more money Superior collects.
“The marina is one of our most direct contributors to tourism in Superior,” the mayor says. “It really is a destination for folks all over the Great Lakes. Keeping it a destination and keeping those slips full generates more revenue for the city of Superior.”
One project that has proven especially beneficial to the marina’s bottom line was the addition in 2005 of a 24,000-square-foot heated storage building. It transformed the marina into a year-round operation. In addition to dramatically increasing storage revenue, the building allowed the service staff to work on boats 12 months a year.
“That is what carries the marina today,” Eric says of the repair and service work, which, philosophically, aims to ensure a boat does three things (float, move and avoid starting on fire). “A boat that doesn’t go anywhere is just a raft, so we have to make sure the motors run or the sails push them. Then we have to make sure they all float, and that they don’t destroy themselves by sinking or catching on fire.”
Remaining financially viable is, at least partially, the byproduct of diversifying the marina’s revenue streams. When one of them is lagging – say, boat sales, for instance – there’s a strong chance one of the other sources of income is performing better than average. When dockage is down, storage might be up, and so on.
“Having all of those activities under the corporate umbrella of Sailboats, Inc. allows us to be as much of a marina as we are,” Eric says.
He and Sarah purchased Sailboats, Inc., which also operates the Knife River Marina, in 2014. Their full-time staff includes more than 30 people working year-round.
“We like to brag that we employ more people full-time than all the other regional marinas employ part-time,” Eric says proudly.
It truly has been, and continues to be, a win-win relationship. Paine doesn’t see that changing anytime soon.
“When something is successful, it’s in everyone’s best interest to keep it successful,” he says. “If the marina is doing well, the city is doing well. We both rise together, so it’s worth working together.” P.S.