Kevin Walma always wanted to own a marina. Now he is making 43 North Marina ‘a premier marine destination in all of Central New York’
By Stefan Yablonski
“I’m very passionate about all things boating and strive to make it the premier marine destination in Central New York,” said Kevin Walma, owner of 43 North Marina. “I have had a love of boating my entire life. My family, my father, was all in the Navy. I grew up on boats, grew up around the water. I’ve done a lot of boating and sailing all up and down the East Coast, the Caribbean. I’ve just always enjoyed it.”
It was like a lifelong mission of his to get into having a marina, getting to do boating more often, he added.
“I live on the south shore of Oneida Lake. I was in the corporate IT world for a very long time and then I decided I wanted something different. Boating on the lake with my family, I saw a property come available across the lake, for sale. I inquired about it, negotiated for a while. And I ended up being able to pick up the marina,” he said. “The marina itself used to be two marinas — Trade-a-Yacht and Tri-bridge. There were some abandoned camps on properties in between them.
“As I was talking with the prior owner, he’d always had the vision of combining them. I saw that vision and that was what I did — combine all the tax parcels into one large marina.”
Walma was able to work with the town to get the permits to tear down the abandoned camps, clean up the property — “and build a great big 36,000 square foot facility with a showroom and storage.”
That allowed him to transform the operation into a year-round operation to where they have room to work on boats in the winter and a showroom that really allowed them to focus on being able to sell boats in the winter as well.
“We have a nice heated space where people can come in and learn about boating and buy boats from us,” he said. “We like to think that through this transformation we created really a premier marine destination in all of Central New York. We’re one of the only spots that has slips, valet storage, winter heated storage, winter outside storage and full-service technicians. There’s water and electricity at each slip. We have a pump out, both gas and diesel and laundry. You name it, we got it. When we built the new showroom and storage facility, we also put in five beautiful tiled bathrooms with showers. So you can come in after a long day on the water and be able to clean up and change and head out to one of the restaurants nearby.”
It’s a seasonal business, so they do cut back in the winter.
“We go down to about 10 full-time employees. We go up to about 18 in the summer,” he said.
Also on site they have South Bay Sails with an extensive array of sailboats, paddleboards, kayaks and service and rentals. There is a nearby shop that does marine fiberglass repairs. Across the street is a business that does canvas repair.
“So really on our property you can get anything done that you need from a boating perspective,” Walma said.
The pandemic years
Walma bought the marina in 2019; this is his sixth season, he said.
“COVID was a bit of a rollercoaster ride actually. Initially when the mandates came out and everything shut down, we were barely one year into the business and scratching our heads and going all right,, what now?’ But thankfully by June they had identified in New York state that golfing and boating were safe social distancing as long as you did it with just your family,” he said. “It was interesting that as we got into 2021, my second year, boating became just a hotbed of activity because everyone saw it as safe and they were re-evaluating their life priorities.
“And 2021–22 just about every boat in the market we have got bought — best boat sales ever in the industry. Here I am thinking I am a genius, business is taking off. And then, of course, as you know all good things come to an end. As we went from 2022 into 2023, things started to slow down. Then 2023 to 2024 it just came to a grinding halt. A banner year 2021 and 2024 was a very tough year.”
Things are picking up now, he said.
“We have got a full marina — sold out on all the slips, our service department is busy and we are selling boats. So things are good,” he said.
43 North Marina has 178 deep water slips.
“We are absolutely full. Things are good. Our customers are happy and what makes me happy is that they are happy,” he continued. “I also think we have created an asset for the community. I think that when we completed the showroom we got some recognition from the New York State Office of Tourism and we got some recognition from the Better Business Bureau.
“There was a lot of good feedback from the community. And when I talked to the folks in Oswego County, it was important for them to recognize that from an eco-tourism standpoint I am really the first thing people see when they coming into Oswego County. If you are driving north on 81, we are the big marina off to your right. As you are driving over Oneida Lake we are the first thing that you see in Oswego County.”
Walma said he’d like to continue to improve. Last year they did some rehabilitation of their east basin — improved the docks, improved the water and electric service.
“This year we hope to do some dredging to give our slips deeper water access. We hope in the future to add things like a restaurant and maybe a tiki bar,” he said.
They have a Carefree Boat Club which is actually a nationwide chain organization.
“You join the club and get instant access to use any one of the boats in our club. You don’t have to worry about fueling it. You don’t have to pay insurance. You don’t have to pay to store it,” he explained. “It’s clean, fueled up and ready to go — you go and jump onboard and enjoy a day on the lake, come back and just hand the keys over. When you join the club we do offer free training.
“We get a mix of people. We get people who have never boated before and they want to give it a try. We also get people at a later stage in life and are done with all the maintenance and obligations of boating and they just want to enjoy it. We have some snowbirds that love to come out and use our boats and then they go to Florida in the winter and they get to use the same club down there, Naples, Vero Beach or wherever.”
They send out surveys to their customers and get their feedback.
“It’s tough to keep everybody happy all the time. There are our share of issues that come up, but we are committed to resolving them. We are committed to making things right. It’s a good feedback loop,” he said.
