The honest weekend policy
One technician, one fully stocked truck, owner-operated. The person who answers the text is the person who works on the engine. That is why the policy is specific rather than a promise of round-the-clock availability one truck could not keep.
| When | What you get |
|---|---|
| Monday–Saturday, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM | Scheduled and emergency service |
| Saturday | A normal working day — not overtime, not a favor |
| Sunday and after hours | Emergency coverage by text, triaged in order |
| Sunday and after hours, Premium members | Weekend and after-hours response, written into the tier |
Text rather than call outside business hours. A text carries the location, the engine, the symptom and a photo in one message and is triaged faster than a voicemail. Include the marina and slip number, the engine make and horsepower, and what the engine is doing.
The structural gap: dealers close when boating happens
Palm Beach County has 37,905 registered vessels, 28,904 of them 12–40 feet — the outboard band. Almost none get used on a Tuesday morning. Boating here happens Friday through Sunday, and dealer service departments close Saturday afternoon at best, most shut Sunday. The failure window and the service window barely overlap, which is why owners lose a weekend to a problem that takes ninety minutes to fix.
Seasonality sharpens it. January and February are the peak — three sailfish tournaments in January (the Silver Sailfish Derby, Operation Sailfish, the Buccaneer Cup) plus the Jupiter Billfish Classic in late February — and a Saturday in season fills early, which is why a pre-trip inspection the week before beats a text at 6:00 AM on the day. September and October are the recommissioning wave, when snowbird boats that sat four or five months wake at once. July and August are the hottest water and the peak of overheat calls. Of roughly 28 marine service businesses examined in this county, essentially none commits to a response time in writing.
What counts as an emergency
A fault that stops the boat being used safely, right now, that a technician can resolve at the dock:
- The engine will not start before a trip, or will not restart after one
- An overheat alarm, no tell-tale stream, or steam at the cowling
- The engine dies under load or will not exceed a limited RPM
- Dead batteries or no charging, with a trip planned
- Won't shift, jumps out of gear, or trim stuck up or down
- Water in the fuel after a fill-up or a rain event
- A boat back at the dock after a tow, needing the actual cause found
A noise you have been ignoring since April is not an emergency. It gets scheduled as normal work at the written estimate, which is part of keeping the 24-hour window meaningful for people who need it.
What can be fixed dockside, and what cannot
BoatUS on-water data says 54% of calls are mechanical breakdown, 9% a dead battery and 4% an overheated engine — roughly 63% of incidents are breakdown or battery, which a mobile truck resolves in the slip with no haul-out and no shop queue.
| Fixed at the boat | Not a dockside job |
|---|---|
| Batteries, cables, terminals, starters, solenoids | Internal powerhead damage — scored cylinder, failed valve, head gasket |
| Fuel filters, water in fuel, primer bulbs, fuel hose | A hydrolocked or submerged engine — that is a teardown |
The truck is stocked for the failures that actually happen — batteries and cables, filters and separators, plugs, coils, sensors, common fuel pumps, impellers and housings, thermostats, gear lube and marine wire, plus factory diagnostic hardware for all four brands. Where a part is not on it, you get the real timeline the same day, not a return visit that quietly becomes next week.
When the honest answer is a tow
If you are on the water and disabled, a mechanic is the wrong call. AquaRepair is not a towing company and dispatches no boats.
- Life safety — taking on water, fire, injury, someone overboard: VHF Channel 16 or 911. Immediately.
- Adrift, aground, or disabled in a channel or inlet: call Sea Tow or TowBoatU.S. Anchor if you safely can and get clear of traffic. Jupiter, Boynton and Lake Worth inlets are the wrong place to troubleshoot anything.
- Safely tied up, at anchor, or back at the dock: that is where a mobile technician is the right call. Text 561-312-7308.
Buy the towing membership: a plan costs less annually than one unassisted tow. The services are complements — a tow gets the boat home, a technician finds out why it stopped. Sea Tow attributes its number-one call reason, engine and equipment breakdown, primarily to inadequate maintenance, which is what a documented service schedule addresses.
No emergency surcharge. The written estimate is the price.
Call or text 561-312-7308 · contact@aquarepairmarine.com · how a visit works · membership tiers, including Premium weekend and after-hours response.
Questions people actually ask
Do you really work weekends, or is that just marketing?
My boat died in the Intracoastal. Can you come to me? No — nobody should call a mechanic for that. AquaRepair does not dispatch boats and is not a towing service. If you are disabled on the water, call Sea Tow or TowBoatU.S., or VHF 16 for anything involving safety. Once the boat is tied up, text 561-312-7308 and the cause gets diagnosed at the dock.
Can you get a boat running well enough to finish the weekend? Sometimes, and you are told plainly which it is. A fuel filter, a battery, a coil or a shift cable is a real repair that finishes the weekend. An engine that overheated hard, took on water, or is making metal is not something to nurse — running it costs more than the repair would have, and the written findings say so.