CCB MEDIA PHOTO
Barnstable Director of Community Services Lynne Poyant draws names out of a bowl at the marina slips wait list lottery, while Debbie Lavoie, an assistant in the Marine and Environmental Affairs Department, and Barnstable Marina Manager and Assistant Harbormaster Eric Shufelt look on.
HYANNIS – Some lucky boat owners waiting for marina slips in the town of Barnstable may get them before the summer is over.
The town of Barnstable held a lottery Friday to add names to its marina slip wait lists for Gateway Marina in Hyannis and the Marina at Prince Cove in Marstons Mills.
The current wait lists for those two of the town’s four marinas were small enough that the town decided to add 50 names to each list.
“It gives us the opportunity to give folks who are interested in a slip the ability to anticipate that they’re going to get chosen for a slip,” Eric Shufelt, Barnstable Marina Manager and Assistant Harbormaster, said.
On Friday in a brief session at Barnstable Town Hall, names were put into a bowl and randomly chosen by Barnstable Director of Community Services Lynne Poyant with Shufelt sitting next to her. Also assisting in the effort were two of the marine and environmental affairs department’s staff, Pam Swider-Cohen, who assisted with the Gateway lottery, and Debbie Lavoie, who assisted with the Prince Cove lottery.
Swider-Cohen had applied for a slip at Prince Cove, so she left the room during that lottery. Her name was not chosen.
No applicants attended the drawing.
There were 84 people applying to get on the Gateway Marina list and 152 people applying for the Prince Cove list.
Shufelt explained that there are names on the current lists that stay in place, specifically 12 names on the Gateway list and 27 names on the Prince Cove list. So the 50 new names chosen for each list will go in place behind the people already on the list, he said.
He said there are two available slips at Gateway and four or five available slips at Prince Cove this summer.
“We’re hoping after all the paperwork gets in and done that we can start offering slips right away,” Shufelt said.
There may be even more slips available at Gateway after a dredging project takes place that is planned for this coming winter, Shufelt said.
“That will open up some of the skinny water slips that we have, and then we’ll be able to issue more slips. Some of those slips, the water’s getting really thin underneath, so we haven’t issued those slips,” he said.
Among the names chosen for Gateway Marina wait list Friday was Sail Cape Cod, the nonprofit community sailing program that offers low cost or free sailing lessons and trips for people with disabilities and others in the community.
Sail Cape Cod was chosen eighth on the Gateway list. Sail Cape Cod President Mike Trovato, who works at town hall, came into the room after the lottery to inquire if that meant that Sail Cape Cod might get a slip. But Shufelt said there is no way of knowing until they go through all the names on the list in front of Sail Cape Cod to see if people are still interested in having a slip.
Opening up the wait list and choosing names at random, Shufelt said, is the best way to allot places on the wait list.
The town gives notice that applications can be submitted to the wait list over a one-month window of time. All names from completed applications are put into the lottery.
Names are then picked at random and will appear on the list in the order they are chosen.
“We find this is a fair way to do it. It lets everybody have a good opportunity to get their names in,” Shufelt said.
The town has a total of 188 slips in four marinas. Besides Gateway and Prince Cove, there are town marinas at Bismore Park/Ocean Street Docks and Barnstable Harbor.
The town also has 2,500 permitted moorings, but those were not part of Friday’s lottery.
While in past years, waits for town slips could extend to 20 years, Shufelt said that with the recession of a several years ago, long waits are no longer the norm.
“The economy changed that,” he said. He also cited the factor of people “aging out” of needing a slip.
“We seem to have a lot of vacancies,” he said.
But he said the size of the vessel and which marina the person wants are the major factors in determining the length of the wait.
“It could be one year. It could be five. It could be 15. It depends on the vessel. It depends on the vacancy at the slip at each marina and it depends if that person is ready to go when we offer it to them. Some folks think they are ready to go. They think they have the boat and all of a sudden, something happens in their world that, no, they can’t afford it this year or the boat’s not here or something. It could be any of the above. It depends on if the stars line up correctly for someone,” he said.
In order to be on the wait list, town of Barnstable residents must pay a fee of $15 and non-residents must pay a fee of $25 by July 31. Those on the Prince Cove waiting list must also submit proof of residence in the town of Barnstable because that marina is restricted to residents only.
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