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The marina is tight for maneuvering, but their storage facilities are world class. If all you need is to dock your boat or haul it out of the water for winter storage, this is your place.
But my experience with servicing the boat at NEB is disastrous.
I start the story in 2016 when I had the boat docked there. I noticed that my diesel engine was fuming a bit of white smoke. The opinion of knowledgeable friends (I am not a good mechanic) was that some adjustment needed to be done to the fuel injectors. They all agreed that shouldn’t be a major work.
I asked NEB to fix it. Next thing I know is they send me an invoice for around $4,000. I thought that this was completely outrageous as they never gave me a warning or an indication of the possible extent of their work. But most incredibly, the engine was NO LONGER WORKING. So they wanted me to pay $4,000 for the privilege of breaking it and making things worse. I repeat: Please note that the engine was working just fine before they started fiddling (besides the slight white smoke). They finally returned it basically to the same situation as it was before and tried to charge me another $3,000.- I of course refused to pay making them note that a new engine is around $15,000 and it would have been absurd for me to be interested in a $7,000 repair job. They finally relented and waived the second invoice (but I had to pay the initial $4,000).
Time went by and I relented on my commitment to never use them again. This time around I had an issue with the barrier coat and the paint was not adhering too well to it. So I asked for a quote to have the bottom thoroughly sanded and re painted. They quoted $3,680 or 32 hours of work at $115. I thought that it was very expensive, but at least I thought that I was going to get a quality job. They completed the job and I paid what they asked which ended up being 31 hours of labor. I was coming and going from the boat frequently these days so I could see how many hours they actually worked and I can certify that was less than half of what they claimed. But, to avoid conflict, I paid under the impression that at least they had done what we had agreed upon: address the issue with the paint not adhering to the barrier coat.
This story happened in late August ‘22. At the end of the season (late October) I hauled the boat out of the water and after a few weeks, the paint started to peel exactly in the same way that it had before. I asked them to address the issue and they refused (at least by the time being) claiming that this was an issue with the barrier coat!!! (exactly the issue that I had asked them to fix)
As an additional illustration of their practices: While they were doing the paint job, we needed to change the prop shaft seal. I asked a quote from them and was told that they would require 12 hours of work to do that job. I ended up doing it with a different person that took a total of 45’. Would I have gone along, they would have charged me 11 hours and 15’ in excess…
I was lucky that time but if you are like me, not knowledgeable enough about mechanics and technical issues, and you assume that you are going to receive good and honest advice from people that claim to be a serious company, be aware: Safe Harbor NEB is not.