Coming in the new year: connect your AI tools to the full marine operating system through Model Context Protocol (MCP).
● Dockwa MCP · Early access
We're opening early access to the Dockwa MCP in the coming months. Tell us what you run and the first question you'd want it to answer. Something like:
“Which customer spent the most with us in May last year, and have they booked again this year?”
Last week, I wrote about one boater and the businesses that make up his life on the water. This week, picture a Friday in July at a New England marina.
A seasonal has told you he’s out cruising until Sunday. A transient is on the radio an hour before check-in, which he seems to consider a suggestion. Another boat wants to stay an extra night.
You know which berth you can use while the seasonal is away and when you need it clear. You can hold an early arrival at the fuel dock or raft a couple deep where the dock and conditions allow. You work with the space you have.
Among those arrivals is a family booked through Sunday. On Tuesday, they asked whether the shop could look at their bilge pump before they head out Saturday. They expected to arrive at four. Now they’re coming at one.
Finding them a berth is familiar work. Finding out what the shop agreed to do can mean calling the office, checking a message thread and catching someone between jobs.
The dockmaster knows how to run the dock. The information needs to keep up.
Now picture the afternoon dockhand seeing where you put the family, what the shop agreed to do and when they’re leaving. The next shift can carry on without asking you to reconstruct the afternoon. Your team spends less time chasing information and more time helping customers.
That is the direction we’re building toward at Dockwa: one operating system connecting the whole boating experience, from the first search to the reservation, the fuel, the service and the next visit.
As the customer moves through your business, their history should move with them. Your newest dockhand should know what’s been agreed and who can help. Your experienced people should have more time for the work that needs their judgment. The customer should feel remembered.
For more than a decade, our purpose has been to help people get out on the water and help operators do what they do best. We will never catch docklines. Your team does the physical work, exercises judgment and builds relationships. Our job is to give you better information and more time to use what you know.
A storage locker isn’t a slip. Two boats with the same length overall don’t necessarily fit the same berth. Beam, draft and shore power matter. So does knowing whether that seasonal is coming back early because the forecast changed.
People who build software for other industries may be excellent at their work. Understanding this industry takes time spent listening to the people who live it.
Think about a new dockhand’s first busy weekend. You can hand them the reservation list and a map. An experienced dockmaster adds the context: which seasonal is away, who needs help getting in and which berth has to be clear tomorrow.
Connecting AI to operational records makes that information easier to use. I think of that as the first ten percent of the opportunity.
The larger opportunity is helping the whole team understand the customer better. Some of that knowledge lives with your staff. Some is in messages, requests and service history. More comes from understanding how boaters discover places, choose where to go and describe their experience afterward.
Dockwa and Marinas.com are part of that broader journey. Over more than a decade, those relationships have built a long memory of boats, people, places and seasons.
Another software company can connect an AI tool to a marina’s database. That connection does not give it Dockwa’s and Marinas.com’s boater relationships, marketplace signals and operating history.
Imagine that family is visiting your marina for the first time. They may already have a boat profile on Dockwa, but they’re new to your harbor. The boat details and requests they’ve shared give your crew a starting point. Public reviews from other visiting boaters can help you spot where the arrival experience needs more explanation.
We want those perspectives to help your team give a better welcome: clear directions before the family reaches the harbor, the right person ready to discuss the service request, and an afternoon dockhand who knows what has been agreed. The family should feel expected, even on their first visit.
Each marina’s private records remain its own. Public reviews and marketplace patterns add a broader perspective.
We serve everyone, from a small yacht club with a part-time dockmaster to the largest marina enterprise. That is one of the best things technology can do: put better information and tools within reach of more people.
An independent operator brings local knowledge, relationships and judgment. Powerful intelligence should be accessible without an enterprise budget or a team of analysts. A large operator needs that same understanding across many locations.
We want both to have more ways to compete and serve their customers well.
Dockwa Service is in early access, bringing work orders, job progress, billing and payment into Dockwa. For the family arriving Friday, it gives the marina a place to manage the service work alongside the customer relationship it already has.
Dockwa has already helped untether you from the computer in the office. You can look up a reservation, message a boater or record your dock walk while you’re out with customers. You can meet them where they are and keep the work moving.
We want to go further. The information behind the whole operating system should be available wherever you’re working, connected well enough to help you answer the customer standing in front of you.
That is what we’re building through MCP. Model Context Protocol is a standard that lets AI tools work with authorized information and systems. We’re building a way to draw on your operations, your team’s recorded knowledge and the broader boater intelligence from Dockwa and Marinas.com through the AI tools you choose to use.
We’ll judge this by whether your team spends less time chasing information and more time helping customers. It has to work on a busy Friday, when you don’t have time to figure out the software.
We plan to release it to the full market in the new year.
The afternoon dockhand knows where you put the family. The shop has the agreed timing. The seasonal’s return is accounted for. The customer can get an answer without waiting for someone to track you down.
You still make the calls. Your crew still catches the lines. The operating system helps that understanding travel through the work, so your team can serve more customers well.
If you looked at Dockwa a few years ago, we’d like to show you what has changed and hear what you need next.
● Dockwa MCP · Early access
If you’re interested in early access in the coming months, let us know. Tell us what you run and the first question you’d want it to help answer. Maybe you’d ask:
Your input will help shape what we build first.
Mike