Case study · Houseboat Rental & Marina
Mara Narrows Houseboats
The August long weekend — 34 boats to turn around in four hours, and one phone that won't stop. Here's the exact stack we'd build — and the sample artifact it produces.
Sicamous · Summer long weekend · Illustrative composite — the numbers are typical-pattern estimates, not measured results.
Illustrative scenario. Mara Narrows Houseboats is a fictional composite of typical houseboat rental and marina operations in the Sicamous area — not a client account. The numbers are estimates from typical patterns; your audit produces real ones. Founding-client case studies will replace these as they complete.
The day this happens
Four hours, thirty-four boats
It's the Saturday of the August long weekend and Sicamous has doubled in size overnight. At Mara Narrows Houseboats, thirty-four boats have to come in, get pumped out, cleaned, refuelled, damage-checked, and go back out to a new family — all inside a four-hour changeover window between the 9am returns and the 1pm launches. Miss the window and the next renter's long weekend starts late, and that's the part they remember.
The dock is a controlled scramble: two staff hosing decks, a fuel line running, a clipboard per boat. And the one office phone will not stop. "Where do we park the truck?" "Is our boat ready yet?" "We're stuck at the narrows, who do we call?" "Can we get the big one instead?" Every call drags the one person wearing a headset off the dock, and every minute off the dock is a minute the four-hour window doesn't give back.
This is the town's whole summer, compressed into a dozen Saturdays. The marina earns its year in these turnovers, and the thing standing between a smooth one and a chaotic one isn't the cleaning or the fuelling — it's that the same two people can't be on the dock and on the phone at the same time.
What we built
The second brain for this business.
A turnover-day second brain that answers the repetitive calls, runs the changeover checklist, and only interrupts a human for the things that actually need one.
- AI Receptionist — answers the "where / when / is it ready" calls all day so the dock crew never has to stop, and surfaces the real emergencies (a boat that won't start, a medical question) straight to a person.
- Workflow Automation — runs the changeover: a return gets logged, the clean/fuel/inspect tasks fire in order, and the next renter gets a "your boat's ready" text the moment it passes inspection.
- AI Financial Insights — reconciles damage deposits and fuel-and-package invoicing, so the money side of a turnover isn't a Sunday-night shoebox.
- Custom API & Systems Integration — keeps the booking system, the dock schedule, and the accounting in step with one another.
The artifact
The artifact: a changeover Saturday
The star of the study — the same standard as the AI Receptionist sample call, written out line by line.
| Boat | Slip | Back | Clean | Fuel | Inspect | Next renter | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kingfisher | D2 | 9:05 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Alvarez ×6 | 🟢 Ready — launch text sent 9:48 |
| Osprey | D4 | 9:20 | ✓ | ✓ | — | Nguyen ×8 | 🟡 In inspection |
| Sockeye | D5 | 9:40 | — | — | — | Boychuk ×5 | 🟠 Cleaning queued |
| Loon | D7 | — | — | — | — | Fitzgerald ×10 | ⏳ Not back (due 9:30) |
The outcome
What changes — in typical-pattern estimates.
Illustrative outcomes — typical-pattern estimates, not guarantees or a promise about your marina.
| Before | After (typical-pattern estimate) |
|---|---|
| Turnover-day calls that pull a staffer off the dock | nearly every one → the emergencies only |
| Changeover window eaten by phone interruptions | ~45 minutes → close to none |
| "Is my boat ready?" calls | answered whenever someone's free → answered instantly, or pre-empted by a text |
| Boats launched late on a peak Saturday | the usual couple → aiming for zero |
Now a changeover Saturday runs off the board instead of off the phone — the crew stays on the dock, the next family gets a text the minute their boat's ready, and the only call that reaches a human is the one that genuinely needs Jesse.
Transparent pricing
What it costs to start.
The Mara Narrows stack starts at $3,500 for the AI Receptionist, $2,500 for Workflow Automation, $3,500 for AI Financial Insights, and $5,000 for Custom Integration — starting floors, fixed-quoted as one build after a free call. Most marinas start with the phone and the turnover automation, then add the rest. Every build requires a Care Plan, from $299/mo (a summer-peak voice line usually sits on Growth so it holds up on long weekends).
Is it worth it for your business? Let's find out — free.
We'll tell you honestly whether it's worth it before next season's first long weekend.
Prefer to talk now? Call (236) 837-3550 — a real BC-based human picks up. We reply within one business day, usually faster.