Your Marina Has a Story to Tell. Boaters Want to Hear It. We Want to Share It.

The Running Fix Newsletter reaches 120,000+ active boaters planning their next trip. Get featured — for free. 

About The Running Fix Newsletter 

Launched in 2024, The Running Fix newsletter is Dockwa's monthly boater newsletter designed to share exclusive editorial content for people who celebrate life on the water. Each edition, sent the first Monday of each month, features stories about cruising destinations, boat culture, and the moments that make the cruising community worth writing about. Not ads. Just good stories, told well.

Why should you contribute? 

Storytelling builds relationships that traditional advertising can't. When a boater reads about the history of your marina or the person who built it, they don't just learn about you, they remember you. They come back, and they tell other boaters.

• Free to active Dockwa partners — no cost to you or your team.
• Reaches 120,000+ active boaters planning their next trip and looking for destinations worth a detour.
• Evergreen — published on the Dockwa blog, searchable and shareable long after the newsletter sends. You're welcome to promote the piece across your own marketing channels too.
• Builds genuine recognition in the boating community in a way that sticks.

What we're looking for

We're not looking for a list of your marina's amenities. Any boater can see that information on your Dockwa profile! We're looking for the story behind what makes your marina special. The kind of thing a first-time visitor would never know, but a regular who's been coming for twenty years identifies as the reason they keep coming back.

Great Running Fix features are built around things like:

• The history. Where did this place come from? Who built it, and why? What did it take to keep it alive through the decades?

• The person who changed everything. A marina operator, a longtime boater, a local legend. Someone whose presence fundamentally shaped what this place is today.
  

• Lessons learned. What does running a marina teach you? What do you know now that you didn't when you started? What surprised you? What are you biggest takeaways about the boating community?

• Community impact. How has this marina shaped the people and town around it? How have the people and town shaped the marina in return?

• A pivotal moment. A storm, a sale, a renovation, a chance encounter. Something that changed the trajectory of your operation and how you think about this place.

• Advice for boaters. From your perspective, what do you wish every boater knew before pulling into your dock? The line handling, when to trust the dock hand and when to stop white-knuckling the wheel. Practical, universal wisdom from the people who see it all.
  
• A time that made you laugh. It might not have been funny then. It definitely is now. Every marina has at least one infamous story: the docking disaster, a miscommunication that somehow worked out, team dynamics, the guests (let's keep this anonymous!) that you'll never forget. Drop the punchline. Relatability is its own kind of marketing.

• What makes it feel like home. The regulars. The rituals. The reason people come back year after year. The traditions like delivering homemade muffins to guests in the morning, or being self-proclaimed mudslide experts. 
  

Looking for some examples? Here are a few stories that resonated particularly well with our boaters: 

100+ Years on Falmouth Harbor

 For more than a century, this icon of the Cape's working waterfront has weathered hurricanes, wartime conversions, and condo developers, holding onto its identity through every chapter.

Read the post

Advice to Boaters: Transiting the Kent Island Narrows

The Kent Island Narrows is one of the Chesapeake's most beautiful stretches, and one of its trickier ones to transit. Tides, currents, back eddies, and bridge pilings can turn a routine approach into a white-knuckle moment. 

Read the post

How it works

1. Fill out the form below with your idea — or upload a story you've already written.
2. Our editorial team reviews your submission.
3. If it's a strong fit and the theme you proposed aligns with our content guidelines, we'll reach out with more details around timing, drafting, etc. 

We look forward to reviewing your inquiry

We prioritize features rooted in genuine storytelling that will resonate with our boater audience. 

For selected features, your team will be responsible for drafting the story and providing accompanying imagery. The final piece will include an introduction and outro written by Team Dockwa, along with a link to your marina’s Dockwa profile to help drive boater interest and visits.

Marina features are available to all paid Dockwa partners. Not a partner yet? We’d love to share more about our expansive boater network and marketing opportunities.