The Revenue in Your Launch Notes

The launch is the unit a dry stack yard runs on

Every boat in a dry stack gets moved at least twice per visit. That movement is the marina’s core transaction, and it runs on a schedule. Whether a boater wants fuel, ice, a wash-down, or a pump-out alongside their launch, those requests don’t have to be an afterthought.

For most dry stack marinas right now, they are. The free-text note on the launch form is where add-on requests go, and it was never built to handle them.

Boaters are already asking — in the notes

In a recent 180-day window across Dockwa dry stack marinas, 43% of all launches carried a free-text note. Of those, 37% asked for fuel, ice, or a wash-down — about 6,100 requests that staff had to catch and fill by hand.

Acting on them takes manual work. On a busy morning with multiple launches running, that process breaks down. Requests get missed and charges don’t follow.

What a missed request actually costs

A missed fuel checkout isn’t $8 — it’s hundreds of dollars that never made it onto an invoice. When a boater asks for a fill-up in their launch note and that note gets buried on a busy morning, there’s no record of what was skipped. A wash-down or a bag of ice adds up too, but fuel is where the real cost sits. Add-on revenue that isn’t recorded is invisible.

This is a feature dry stack marinas have asked for directly. The free-text note was a workaround, and operators knew it. Structured add-ons are Dockwa’s answer to that feedback.

What the launch should feel like

Consider a boater booking a Saturday morning launch on Thursday night. They pick their time, and right on the scheduling form they see a short list: fuel, ice, wash-down, pump-out. They choose what they want, see the price, and submit.

When Saturday arrives, the request is on the dockhand’s launch card as line items with quantities and prices, not buried in a note. One button builds the POS cart with the boater already attached. Payment closes in the same system the marina uses for everything else.

How launch add-ons work in Dockwa

For dry stack marinas running Dockwa with Point of Sale, launch add-ons are available starting October 1. In Sales › Items, mark the items your marina offers as launch add-ons. From there, they appear on the scheduling form for boaters booking on mobile and web, and for staff scheduling on their behalf.

Each selection stays with the launch through the confirmation email, the launch card, and the launches table. At checkout, one button builds the POS cart with the boater already attached, and the sale records which launch it came from.

A few things to know about the current release:

• Fuel can be requested by gallons or as a full tank
• Item order is fixed: fuel first (by price), then everything else alphabetically
• Staff can correct quantities at the register if needed. The launch card is read-only, but the cart is editable
• Prices are visible to the boater at request time

Reporting on launch add-on revenue is on the roadmap. Dockwa records the data from day one.

Set up launch add-ons for your marina

If your marina runs dry stack and has Dockwa POS, launch add-ons will be available starting October 1. Log into your Dockwa dashboard, head to Sales › Items, and mark the items you want to offer at launch. They’ll appear on the scheduling form the next time a boater books.

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Questions? Reach out to your MSM or contact Dockwa Support.