Lake Michigan’s Prairie Harbor Yacht Club Upgrades Docks

Prairie Harbor Yacht Club (PHYC) in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Michigan not far from the Illinois state line, opened in 1990 as a private marina with a floating wooden dock system. 

Set amid the tranquility of the Chiwaukee Nature Preserve, PHYC has a private beach, clubhouse with kitchen and laundry, sand volleyball court, heated pool, tennis court, private bathroom suites, high speed wireless internet, weekly dockside pump out, grills, picnic tables, and dockside trash pickup. 

The club is a “dockominium style” association, with boaters owning their slips as an actual deeded piece of property—which has led to a neighborly sense of community. 

However, when the floating wooden docks began to show their age, the club’s board of directors decided to replace them. Planning and preparation began in 2016, and the club’s project committee attended marine trade shows and traveled the country in search of the dockage option that would work best at the club. After three years of study, the project went out to bid in 2019 and was originally scheduled for completion by the 2021 season.  

The pandemic caused delays, compounded by supply-chain shortages and rising costs—but phase one of the project is now complete, with 50 new docks ready for occupancy. The club offers a total of 151 slips. 

An open house for prospective members is planned for September 18.

“Before Dockwa, we were Lake Michigan’s ‘best kept secret.’ Dockwa has been key in showcasing our marina to a new audience and generating new interest,” said PHYC Harbormaster Matt Specht.

“We’ve also found many advantages with the tools offered in the Dockwa dashboard. For us, the key tools are the banking and transient slip assignment functions. The banking function has saved our staff many, many hours by keeping track of credit-card information for us and making monthly deposits directly to our bank. You can’t get much easier than that! And the transient slip assignment function has eliminated the possibility of double-booking a slip or assigning a boater the wrong-size slip. Not only has Dockwa made life easier for us, but also make a much more pleasant experience for our boaters,” Matt continued.

See the Prairie Harbor Yacht Club profile at Marinas.com.

For more marina resources powered by Dockwa, click here.

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