Rates posted on the wall. No trick.

§ 01 · Hourly rates

Three rates. No tier system. No "consultancy fee" hidden in the line item.

All hours are billed in 30-minute increments. The clock starts when we arrive at the boat or the yard you've asked us to come to; it stops when we put the tools back in the truck. Lunch is on the shop — not on you.

§ 02 · Parts & markup

Parts are billed at our cost plus 12 percent. The 12 percent is to cover the time we spend talking to suppliers and the cost of returns. We share the supplier invoice with you on request — that is the deal.

We have running accounts at West Marine Pro, Fisheries Supply, Defender Industries, Ancor Marine, and the Granger industrial supply on Theodore Rice Boulevard. Special-order parts are at our cost plus 12 percent regardless of how exotic they are. There is no mystery markup on switchgear, AVRs, or anything else.

Wire is billed by the foot, in marine-grade tinned only. The current price-per-foot table is on the wall in the yard and we update it when our supplier does. We do not stockpile wire and bill it at last winter's price.

§ 03 · Travel

Travel time inside the working-harbor line is not billed.

Inside the line means: New Bedford north of Route 6, Fairhaven west of Route 240, Mattapoisett north of Route 6, and Westport east of Horseneck Road. If your boat is hauled at any yard inside this footprint, the truck visit is free time.

Outside this line, we bill travel from the yard at the journeyman rate, plus the IRS standard mileage rate (currently $0.67 per mile^[1]). We will tell you on the estimate what we expect the travel to be. We do not pad it.

For boats hauled at Bristol Marine in Somerset or at the Newport Shipyard, we have a half-day flat travel charge of $260 in addition to the work. This is so the captain knows what to expect.

§ 04 · After-hours, weekends, holidays

The after-hours line is +1 508 555 0185, and it rolls to whichever of the four of us is on duty that week. We carry it Friday at 16:30 through Monday at 06:30, and on federal holidays.

If the call is a boat in genuine distress — smoke, sparks, water in the engine room, a frozen-up freezer with the catch in it — we move first and bill later. We do not negotiate over the phone in the middle of a fire.

§ 05 · Estimates & change orders

Every job over $400 in parts or three hours of labor gets a single-page written estimate. The estimate has line items. The line items have hours and parts and a subtotal. There is no mystery line. There is no "shop supplies" charge, ever.

If the work goes long — and sometimes it does, because the bilge does not always present what the bilge says it will — we tell you the moment we know, write you a one-page change order, and you sign it. We do not surprise you on the invoice.

Estimates are valid for 30 days. After that, parts may have moved on us, in which case we'll re-quote.

§ 06 · Payment terms

Net 30. Invoices go out the day the job closes. We accept ACH (preferred), check, or credit card. There is a 2.6 percent surcharge for credit-card payment, which is what the processor charges us — not a markup.

For boats with a regular relationship with the shop, we run a quarterly statement. For one-off boats, the invoice and the work close together.

We do not run a "diagnostic fee" model. If you ask us to come look and we find nothing wrong, the line item on the invoice is the same hourly rate at the same minute increment, and that is the whole bill.

Other rates pages on the site: how to bring a job, survey-prep walks, switchboard upgrades (multi-day projects).