Marine-services firm eyes expansion

CHUGGING ALONG: From yacht repairs done from the family basement, Conanicut Marine Services Inc. co-founders Bill and Marilyn Munger have grown the Jamestown business over four decades. Pictured above, they see hope for expansion, including possibly adding a third boat to his ferry fleet. / PBN FILE PHOTO/KATE WHITNEY LUCEY
CHUGGING ALONG: From yacht repairs done from the family basement, Conanicut Marine Services Inc. co-founders Bill and Marilyn Munger have grown the Jamestown business over four decades. Pictured above, they see hope for expansion, including possibly adding a third boat to his ferry fleet. / PBN FILE PHOTO/KATE WHITNEY LUCEY

Founder and President Bill Munger started Conanicut Marine Services Inc. by doing yacht repairs from the back of his truck and in the family basement.
Begun in 1974 with his wife, Marilyn, who often goes by “May,” when Munger was 26 years old, the company overlooking the mouth of Narragansett Bay in Jamestown now offers not only yacht repair but a marina, boatyard, ship’s store and ferry service. With the exception of the latter, the different segments of the business are inescapably interdependent, said Munger, whose father was a boat builder.
“The yacht repair, boatyard, waterfront, chandlery – it’s all intertwined,” he said. “Not one of them can stand on its own two feet. They all need one another to survive.”
In order to be in the yacht-repair business, Munger needed to host boats – thus, the marina at 1 East Ferry Wharf, where the ferry departs from. But the marina and yacht service needed storage, something the boatyard at 260 Conanicus Ave. provides. The main office, the ship’s store, motor sales and boat sales are at 20 Narragansett Ave., he said.
While the family-run company evolved in various locations through the 1970s and 1980s, the ferry business did not debut until 1995. But the recession first felt as early as 2007 slowed the firm’s overall growth dramatically, and has continued to have a residual effect, Munger said.
“We had to react to it,” he said. “We had to shrink in 2007-08, [and] over several years lost as many as 10 employees. For several years, we went to a four-day week, then, as we could bring different departments back up, we brought each department back one at a time. Payroll shrank by 20 percent.”
The boating industry as a whole suffered during the downturn, he added.
“We had a lot of one-way trips where boats were going home and not coming back,” Munger recalled. “If they’re not here, there are no repairs going on, so technical skills suffer – everything, top to bottom, stores not chasing any parts, and the simple maintenance was not happening. When the boat is not here, the whole world stops.”
But recovery has been steady, he said, so expansion is on the horizon.
A climate-controlled storage shed is coming next spring. Munger also is exploring expansion of the marina to better protect some of the slips and considering adding a third boat to his ferry fleet, where demand is growing, he said. The climate-controlled shed, which would be the first of five to be heated, would hold about 12 boats once built. Construction is scheduled for spring 2015.
“Customers calling for this, those with high standards, are looking in the wintertime for a place to leave their boat where it won’t be full of mildew between then and spring,” Munger said. “And this is the customer base that’s keeping us alive today, so we have to be responsive to what they’re looking for.”
The same goes for the marina expansion, for which permitting could begin within the coming year. Plans add space and wave protection to the east and southeast, he said.
The ferry business evolved from an informal practice of motoring marina customers to Newport to dine and explore the city, Munger said.
“In the early days, we’d put people in a launch [a small motor boat], drop them down in Newport then pick them up,” he said. “That would cause consternation with our mooring guests [who depended on the availability of the motor boats]. So, that was the push to say, ‘OK: Let’s do this right and do a loop between Jamestown and Fort Adams and Newport.’”
Today, Munger has two boats that ferry customers back and forth: The Katherine, which holds 50 people, and The Jamestown, which can hold 34. The Katherine has been converted to be handicapped accessible but the other boat cannot be altered, so Munger said he is considering adding a third vessel.
“The ferry service continues to grow,” he said. “Part of our customer base that wants to get on the water is our seniors.”
Besides the economic obstacles, permitting continues to be Conanicut’s biggest challenge, Munger said. Regulations promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational and Safety Health Administration can be difficult to keep up with and “suck up a lot of man-hours,” he said.
Since the vast majority of his customers are repeat customers, their loyalty continues to keep the business afloat, Munger said. “We’re grateful for that,” he said, “because the boat business is difficult, even when everything’s running nice.” •

COMPANY PROFILE
Conanicut Marine Services Inc.
OWNERS: Founders Bill and Marilyn “May” Munger, daughter Marilyn Munger and son Steven Munger
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Marine services
LOCATION: 20 Narragansett Ave., Jamestown
EMPLOYEES: 24 full time and 35 part time
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1974
ANNUAL SALES: $4.4 million

No posts to display