Marinas Editing and Proofreading Services

A transient dockage rate is quoted at $2.50 per foot per night. A forty-foot boat's owner budgets $100 and arrives to find that power is metered separately at a rate nobody mentioned, that pump-out costs an additional flat fee, and that the rate quoted was actually the off-season figure, since it is now the first weekend of the summer rate schedule. Nothing in the original quote was false. It also left out most of what the total was actually going to be, and the owner is now having the conversation that a complete quote would have made unnecessary.

We edit what marinas produce to disclose the actual cost and terms of dockage — transient and seasonal dockage rate disclosures, utility and amenity fee schedules, slip and liveaboard agreement terms, cancellation and weather policy documentation, and the correspondence explaining a charge that differs from what a boater expected. Our editors work on the quote that has to state a total, not just a headline figure that happens to be technically accurate.

The complete, itemised rate disclosure is what prevents a boater from being surprised by a bill that is larger than the number they budgeted around, and its failure is a per-foot rate presented as though it were the total cost of a night's stay. $2.50 per foot per night is accurate and incomplete, and a boater who reasonably read it as the full cost has not been lied to, only left to discover the rest of the total on arrival. We work through these so the base rate is shown alongside every additional charge that commonly applies — power, water, pump-out, wifi — stated as included or separately metered, since a boater budgeting for a stay needs the actual likely total, not a headline rate that omits everything else; so seasonal rate changes are dated specifically, given that a rate quoted without its effective dates leaves a boater unable to tell whether the figure they were given still applies to the dates they are actually arriving; so power metering, where it applies, states the actual rate and how it is measured, because "power metered separately" with no rate attached tells a boater nothing about what to expect on the bill; so cancellation and weather policies state the specific conditions and refund terms rather than a general reference to marina policy, given that a boater deciding whether to book around an uncertain forecast needs to know the actual terms before committing; so liveaboard and long-term slip agreements state specific requirements — insurance minimums, holding tank rules, guest policies — rather than a general reference to marina rules, because a boater signing a long-term agreement needs to know what they are actually committing to; and so a billing dispute is resolved by reference to the specific rate schedule that applied on the actual dates of the stay, rather than a general assurance that rates are calculated correctly. Disclosures written this way mean a boater's budget and their actual bill are the same number.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including rate schedules, boater correspondence and marina records. We are editors rather than marina operators, dockmasters or marine business specialists, and we offer no view on rates, policies or billing determinations. What we can do is make sure the quote states the total, not just the headline.