Living Lake Adjacent - Bay Marine - Episode 3

Thanks to ‪@baymarinesc1979‬ for taking the time to talk to us about living off water and still enjoying the Lake Life.  Taylor and Rusty were a wealth of information.   Also be sure to go by their Demo Day on March 21st and get in your next boat. https://outlook.office.com/mail/inbox...

Or check them out online at  https://www.baymarine-sc.com/

#LifeIsShortBuyTheLakeHome
#TheTexasLakeSyndicate
#BayMarine&SportsCenter

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:02

Okay, we're here, Texas Lake Syndicate, Marley and Pam, and here with our good friends at Bay Marine, and we're going to talk about all different ways you can access the lake without actually living on the lake. So glad you guys could join us today.

SPEAKER_05 0:18

Yeah, thank you for taking the time and letting us use your boat. Yes. It's a beautiful boat. Gorgeous.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Yeah, if you want to see pretty boats, you come down here.

SPEAKER_05 0:29

Next time we'll do this on the water.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 0:32

So anytime we can get on the water, it's better.

SPEAKER_05 0:35

Well, um, why don't you all introduce yourselves, tell us a little about who you are, and then tell us a little history about Bay Marine.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Okay. So I'm Taylor Didway, I'm the general manager here at Bay Marine. I've been in and around this business for uh about 17 years now. Um done anything from operating the equipment to general manager.

SPEAKER_05 0:56

So at top to bottom.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Uh yeah, that's that's me here. And this is Rusty. He's our I'll let you introduce yourself. Yeah, so I'm Rusty Weed.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

I'm the marketing manager over here, internet sales, things like that. Some people call me the utility guy. So we just kind of hop around. But um, yeah, as far as our history here, we've been here for 46 years. That's awesome. Our founder Bob Weed.

SPEAKER_05 1:17

Uh so tell about what this was and and how it came to be Bay Marine.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

So the property here was a resort a long time ago. I don't even know what the yeah. It dates back to the 50s.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

We've we've still got a couple of the cabins. That's so crazy.

SPEAKER_05 1:31

That is crazy, uh huh.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

So, kind of the history of the business. Bob um he was in the car business down in the valley back in 1979. He uh moved up here and uh he found an ad in the newspaper the day before he was gonna buy a car dealership in in Marble Falls. Comes over here to Horseshoe Bay, looks at this marina that's for sale, uh-huh, and he bought what was Horseshoe Bay Marina. Uh it was uh a very small marina and uh had some boats for sale. He built that marina over where the resort is now.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

He built all of those slips. And uh in about '87 he bought this property, uh, moved his service center here, and then in about 94-ish, I don't know exactly all the dates, uh, he moved everything here after he sold the marina over there uh back to who owns it now. Okay. Um and then uh we've been building it ever since.

SPEAKER_05 2:35

So and then tell us a little bit about what all you do here because what they do here is not just slips that you pull your boat into and park it. They have full service from the time you buy it to the time you sell it. So tell us the tell us what you do.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

So we uh you know, sales, service, storage, anything to do with boats. Um, we pride ourselves in our in our service ability. We uh have three service boats on the water all the time. Uh we service well over a thousand vessels every year.

SPEAKER_05 3:11

Wow, that's a big number.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

And and uh I think a big part of what we're talking about here today is our uh storage, because they're talking about um lake adjacent living. That's right. That's right. We have a lot of customers who live off the water but use our our storage service, which is um a concierge style sort style storage service. That's a mouthful, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Say that three times fast.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

So uh you can call us about 30 minutes before you want your boat in the water. We will uh hook it up, take it to the water, uncover it, fill it with fuel for you if you want.

SPEAKER_05 3:50

Uh put ice in the chest? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Uh we've been known to do that.

SPEAKER_04 3:55

Well, let's face it. I mean, some people might say 30 minutes. Well, think about it. If you have to hook up the trailer to the truck, drive to the marina, launch your boat, park the car, you know, park the truck. I mean, that's an hour. Nothing ever goes smoothly, and heaven forbid it's a holiday or a pretty weekend, and then you're stacked at the boat launch waiting to get it.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

That's a big one.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

And is anyone ever stacked their on just sat at the marina just for pure entertainment value, wanting people trying to launch their boats? These folks take care of it for you. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

That's right. But to your point, uh, when you use our service, you use your boat a whole lot more because it's it's just a phone call instead of all of the other rigamaro of of getting your boat in the water. Uh when we pull it out, if if you give the the operator a little tip, he might wipe it down for you.

SPEAKER_05 4:47

A big tip. Wink wink.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

No, no, that's not required, but uh it it is something that we that we will do. Um it makes it a whole lot easier to own a boat, and you will use your boat more often.

SPEAKER_04 5:03

Um how affordable is it? I mean, everybody's probably going, well, that probably costs a gazillion dollars a year, not realizing what it costs to buy a lake house and put in a boat dock yourself.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Right, yeah. And keep it up.

SPEAKER_04 5:14

Yeah, so putting it into just you know bare bones numbers, what is someone looking at for a service like this?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

So it's certainly cheaper than buying a lake house and putting it in a boat. Yeah, for sure. Um we are$440 per month uh right now. That's reasonable. Which is for the service.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

At least stores you can find on Lake OBJ.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Yeah, yeah. Um you just to kind of tell on ourselves a little bit, you don't have full 24-hour access to your boat, which is just part of our business plan.

SPEAKER_04 5:46

Well, that's that's the trade-off though. Right. You you have the luxury of the concierge service, but you lose a little bit of your ability to just you know go for a midnight run, which take it for me shouldn't do anyway.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

But yeah. We can accommodate that. We just launch your boat before the day ends and then put it back up the next morning. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_05 6:05

So see, it is possible.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Yeah, we have a key drop box down there so people just come up with it. Wow, you have super convenient things.

SPEAKER_05 6:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

Yeah, super convenient. And that's good because I know there are a lot of lakes that don't offer anything like this. So I think it's a great idea, and it kind of gives them an overall model of how it's done. Because there's so much opportunity out there, especially during COVID. Everybody had free money. Let's go buy a boat. And then, but they had the headache of trailering the boat to the lake, launching it, parking it, all the things that go with that. And this takes all the guesswork out of it.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

And our stack storage is really unique too.

SPEAKER_04 6:43

That's how cool that.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

It's it's it's the coolest thing.

SPEAKER_04 6:46

Well, and I love Laura Lee's saying it looks like matchbox cars, you know, the old matchbox cases you had, you put all the little cars in there.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

It is kind of the same thing. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Yeah, yeah. So the stack storage is that same concierge style service. We have uh 96 boats stacked up in there, and um, like like I said, 30-minute phone call.

SPEAKER_05 7:05

And you have this this little tractor thing with the forklifts on it that go through, pick them out, put them in the water.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

It's that's a it's a 20,000-pound forklift that uh will go, I think it goes up 44 feet. Wow.

SPEAKER_05 7:21

How many stacks high are you for?

SPEAKER_01 7:23

We're three three high in there, yeah. So uh additionally, I wanted to mention our our uh wave runner storage. Oh, that's really good. Yeah, very inexpensive way to enjoy the lake. Um very you can get into a wave runner plus our storage monthly for 250 to 300 dollars?

SPEAKER_04 7:43

Wow, gosh, that's nothing. I mean, don't go out to dinner a couple times a month and you've paid for your wave runner storage, right? Right.

SPEAKER_05 7:51

Right. And um I think if you'll tell them too about don't you like customize the jet ski type thing, wave runner, whatever you want to call it, um, will you kind of build them and put them together custom here, or did I misunderstand that?

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Uh we don't do a lot of customizing of wave runners. Yamaha, they they build a very fine product that doesn't really need a lot of customizing. Okay. If a customer wants uh, you know, some some different parts or pieces or something like that, we certainly will do it. Uh-huh. We do mostly repair though. Uh-huh. It's a lot more in the repair realm than customization.

SPEAKER_04 8:31

If you have a lot of folks on these lake, the surrounding highland lakes or um that want them rigged out for fishing, the wave runners are you've seen those that are rigged out for fishing. I see them. I saw two the other day. Yeah, I see them down at the bay. I don't see them as much on the lake. So I was just curious if that's something that y'all have done or seen here.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Yamaha has a new product out now called the Crossways, and it is a fishing. Okay, so it's all it comes to you already outfitted. It's ready to go. And it has the cooler on the back and the trolling motors and trolling motors on the back, everything. I think 84 gallons of storage, the live wheel.

SPEAKER_04 9:06

That's a lot of storage on a I mean, wave runners aren't as tiny as what you think they are, but that's still a lot of storage, more than you would expect.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

And this is the hole's a little larger than your regular wave runner, and it's it's wide enough too to where you can walk around it and you know have the stability. Gotcha. It actually has platforms you can walk around the console.

SPEAKER_04 9:23

Yeah, I don't like getting in the water with what I'm fishing for.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

That's fair.

SPEAKER_05 9:31

Yeah, no, I don't want to be in that water.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Absolutely. So to answer your question, we haven't seen a ton of interest in that on Wave Runners. However, the fishing market around here has picked up a lot in recent years. Oh, nice. A couple uh new bass tournaments move in. Um, more dealerships are picking up fishing type vessels, bass boats, center consoles. Um, we've seen that pick up in the area, so we hope, expect to see the the Yamaha crosswave take off. We hope to sell several of them a year.

SPEAKER_05 10:08

Yeah, I saw a kid bow hunt a six-pound bass off of somebody's dock. Don't say who's no, I am not saying that.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

No names. No names. I'm not completely incognito. But I did I did see it. We see all kinds of things on the lake.

SPEAKER_05 10:27

I was a little shocked, but I mean, it was a monster bass and at somebody's dock.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

I know they're both. But there are rules, Joey. There are rules. You're supposed to hit a bass.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

I was a kid. We'll give you a pass. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 10:44

He's pretty proud of it, though. But yeah, there you all have such a fine service here. And then we you have the ship store.

SPEAKER_04 10:53

Yes. Tell us about that. Tons of cute stuff in there. It's a good thing I left my wallet in the car. Lots of late girl stuff. Yes, there was. Yeah. Yeah. Something for everyone.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Spoozers is our ship store down there. And uh yeah, we've got a new merchandiser in there this year that's really catered towards a female audience to a lot of.

SPEAKER_05 11:12

Really fun stuff in addition to surfboards that you have in there for wave runners and surfboards, ropes, life jackets.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Tubes are a big seller.

SPEAKER_04 11:21

Whoa, and how cool that they can they're out on the water, they break a rope, right? Swing swing right over and get one, off they go again.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

We have great life jackets in there, too. Even dog life jackets.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

Oh you must have the dog. I have two, and they love to be in the water. If we're in the water, they're in the water, but then they get tired. You know, and they don't float that well.

SPEAKER_03 11:41

So life jackets are handy. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

You don't have to worry about them as much, you know. And then of course you got the gas stocks there as well. So we're right next to a public ramp.

SPEAKER_05 11:50

So if anybody needs that, you know, yeah, so you can also service um people who bring their boats down the ramp, right? Yeah, sure. So it doesn't just have to be where you store your boat here, but if you have and you want to bring yours on a trailer, put it in the water, they can service and do all of that here.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

People trailer their boat over here to the ramp and then they discover they have a dead battery or it's overheating, they swing it over to our service department and get it fixed up. And we we cater to those people because we like to save save your weekend, you know.

SPEAKER_04 12:23

Well, you said you have three service boats on the water pretty much all the time. Or on in busy, busy anyway. So are you servicing boats in lifts in addition to offering service if someone breaks down when they're out on the water? Is it that kind of service boat?

SPEAKER_01 12:40

We we go to boats houses and we'll do depending on the vessel, um, we'll do your oil change, impeller, batteries, uh, more of the simple services in your lift. Right. If anything like maintenance, general maintenance. General maintenance, yeah. If anything gets uh overly complicated or or the guys need special tools, they'll bring it here. We will tow it here. Um, unfortunately, our insurance doesn't allow us to tow in an occupied vessel. Okay. So if you break down on the water, we are not the people to call.

SPEAKER_05 13:11

Call your jet ski friends.

SPEAKER_04 13:13

Yeah, you call your other friends and then they you call they call you and say we're coming in.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Yeah, gotcha. That's exactly what it is. Okay, good, good. Yeah, we'll be there in 10 minutes. Have a ready. And we will accommodate that all day long. Uh-huh. Uh unfortunately, our insurance just they don't allow us to tow an occupied vessel. Yeah. There is a tow service, uh, is it seatsow or flagship? Flagship. Flagship towing. Okay. They're actually based out of uh boat town at the other end of the lake. He travels up and down the lake all day long to help people out. Gotcha. So he's available.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Yeah. So Bobby just hangs out here a little bit too. So sure. Well, you have slow day, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:52

Still not a bad day at the office being on the lake, but hey.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

If he sits around here long enough, the phone will ring with somebody for him to go see. So yeah, always, always, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:02

Yeah. So wow, what awesome services you offer. Talk about your boat sales a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 14:07

Yeah. What kind of boats do you keep in stock?

SPEAKER_01 14:10

What's your best seller? We just picked up Premier Fontoon boats uh this year, which we're loving them. They've sold in our book.

SPEAKER_04 14:18

And this is a gorgeous boat that we're sitting on right now.

SPEAKER_05 14:21

I mean, it's even got a TV on it. We didn't have a good shot of that, but it does.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Yeah. Put a cutaway in there or something.

SPEAKER_04 14:28

Yeah. Hey, watching the World Series from your boat anchored out somewhere. That's bad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

I don't we're gonna have this on the water this weekend here, by the way, in case anybody I don't know what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Oh, tell about tell about your your weekends.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Uh on the 21st on Saturday from 10 to 4. We will have uh premiere on the water. We're gonna have Centurion, Supreme, uh, four wins. Uh we probably won't put any Yamaha jet skis on the water, but uh if if you want to see them, they will be here. Absolutely. All right.

SPEAKER_05 14:59

Um and you do this kind of on a semi-regular basis, correct?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

We are starting to. So our goal is to do this type of event once a quarter where people can come in. Of course, we we demo every day. If somebody walks in here on a Tuesday and wants us to put a boat on the water, we can have a boat. I can have this boat in the water in about 10 minutes. No problem.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Wow. That's what's really great about our location because I mean, right here in the shore, you can see the bay doors right there. Yeah, we put a tractor on this, we run it straight down.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

No kidding.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

We'll put you on a golf cart, take you down there, give you something to drink, and you'll see the boat coming around the corner, and then you're ready to go. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 15:33

Man, this is the life, I'm telling you. This is where you want to be. You don't have to worry about your lift motor.

SPEAKER_04 15:42

That's right. Don't have to worry about your wife backing down the you know, boat launch.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

All you have to worry about running the truck in the water. So you you show up here, you walk on your boat, go have fun. When you get done, you can bring it back and hand over the keys.

SPEAKER_05 15:58

That is the way to do boat life right here at Bay Marine.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

The ship store, of course, too, does have drinks and all that good stuff. Drinks, snacks, yeah. Everything that you need.

SPEAKER_04 16:08

I feel like there's a myth, kind of changing the subject a little bit, that boating season is only summer months. But we're in Texas.

SPEAKER_05 16:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:16

We are so lucky to be here in Texas because we can enjoy lakes year-round. I mean, obviously, there's times you can't, but I would say 11 months out of the year, you can be on the water. Maybe, maybe you're not getting in the water, but you're out fishing or enjoying a sunset cruise.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

So we we winterize a ton of boats every year, obviously. And uh most of the boats out here are winterized before Christmas. And we leave from uh December 23rd to uh the first business day after the new year. Okay. Had a customer call me uh the day before Christ Christmas Eve, I guess, uh asking me to send someone out to dewinterize his boat because he had family coming in and they wanted to.

SPEAKER_03 16:56

Because I think yes, we did. Yes, we did.

unknown 17:00

Perfect.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

Yeah, we were on the dock all day Christmas Day.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

It was nice. Boating season, in fact, uh a little hidden gem, uh, it is after Labor Day. Kind of travelers leave town. Yep, the part-timers, yeah. Your vacationers and we call it the secret season.

SPEAKER_05 17:19

Yes, I love that. The secret season on Texas Lakes. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

We have a demo event. We had it last year at least. A secret season we did it in September. We'll probably do it again this year. And so, yeah, that's the whole premise around it.

SPEAKER_05 17:32

Yeah, we're still wearing shorts and tank tops.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Why wouldn't you be on your boat?

SPEAKER_05 17:35

Yeah, why not? The fish still bite, it's still fun to go take a sunset cruise.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Right.

SPEAKER_05 17:42

Not today, but tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

Definitely not today. You can usually boat straight into the new year, sure. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, it froze here last night, so but it's okay.

SPEAKER_03 17:53

Well, we were out on the boat last night. We did, it was perfect. Yeah, we just we were bundled up, but I mean, still our team weren't chattering, you know.

SPEAKER_05 18:01

Yeah, we weren't out there a long time, but we had a good time, saw the sunset, and that's right.

SPEAKER_04 18:06

We sure did. Yeah, nothing like the lake life.

SPEAKER_05 18:08

That's right. Yeah. Well, Rusty, thank you so much for taking this time with us because we think you all are a very, very important part of lake life. Oh, 100% in the hill country area, and um, we want to make sure people know about it and know that you don't just have to live on the lake, you can live lake adjacent, have service like these two fellas offer, and you can have be living living the dream.

SPEAKER_04 18:37

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 18:37

Absolutely because why life is short by the lake home.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Nice, love it.