One of the most brutal Hamptons winters in recent memory isn’t quite done with us. And the arctic temperature and ice-over waterways it left in its wake have created serious headaches for East End boat owners.
Locals will tell you that the Hamptons haven’t seen anything approaching this kind of ice in at least a decade. And many homeowners have been caught completely unprepared.
Hundreds of docks have been displaced and damaged by the unforgiving ice, and many of them have been rendered all but unusable without significant repairs. Even worse, some seasonal residents may not even realize their docks have been damaged if they haven’t checked in on their properties in a few weeks.
Enter East End Dockwatch, the brainchild of John Healey, a year-round North Sea resident, waterfront property owner and veteran real estate broker with Saunders & Associates in Bridgehampton.
A family-owned-and-operated startup, East End Dockwatch is a waterfront service that was created to support dock owners with professional oversight, coordination, and long-term care of their docks and pilings.
“My family and I have been living on the water since 1999 in North Sea Harbor,” Healey says. “This year, I was watching the ice come in, and I could see from my own house that other docks were starting to lift and become unusable.”
Healey recognized the need for his nascent company’s offerings after spending the last month or so documenting the extent of the winter waterfront carnage.
Healy’s son, Jack, who like his father, is a salesperson with Saunders, also happens to be a licensed drone pilot.
The father and son team has produced comprehensive drone footage that in essence amounts to a travelogue of compromised docks. Focusing initially on properties from east of the Shinnecock Canal to Sag Harbor, the footage is strikingly beautiful in its way – a testament to the unbridled power of nature. But it will be a tough watch for countless waterfront property owners whose docks now look less like a safe haven for their boats and more like a ski jump ramp at the Cortina Olympics.
“It’s just amazing how much damage we’ve seen,” Healey says. “Sometimes there are seven properties in a row where the docks are all completely devastated. And it’s only going to get worse as the ice melts.”
Healey came up with a clever marketing move to help kickstart his business. He cross-referenced the drone footage of hundreds of private docks with address and contact information for the property owners he was able to access from publicly available sources. This allowed him to send footage of an owner’s specific property – which vividly illustrated the damages to the owner’s dock – as part of his pitch letter.
As Healey envisions it, East End Dockwatch will serve as a liaison between the property owner, dock and piling contractors and applicable permitting agencies.
Through his relationships with local builders and contractors who perform dock and piling repairs, Healey aims to help his clients get their repair jobs on the books before the summer season begins in earnest.
“Our role is not to perform construction,” Healey says in a solicitation to potential clients. Instead, East End Dockwatch will “provide inspections, coordinate repairs, manage bids, oversee projects when needed and help plan preventative maintenance so issues are addressed early – before they become costly emergencies.”
Given the extent of the damage he and his son have documented coupled with the finite number of contractors available to do the work, Healey acknowledges that it’s extremely unlikely that every damaged dock on the East End will get the attention it needs before Memorial Day.
But his company is focused on making the process as painless as possible for as many of his clients as he can.
“By serving as a single, knowledgeable point of contact, we’ll reduce delays, minimize confusion and help ensure work progresses efficiently and in accordance with approved scopes and permits,” the company’s promotional materials note.
While most of his time will be spent from now until early-summer helping his clients get their boats back in the water, Healey expects that East End Dockwatch will ultimately transition into a preventative maintenance company.
Annual preventative services East End Dockwatch plans to provide will focus primarily on the installation and maintenance of “dock bubblers.”
Healey points out that most of the waterfront property owners who will survive The Great Iceover of 2026 without needing significant repair work are probably those who employed a dock bubbler system to keep the water around their dock pilings from freezing up.
Dock bubblers, also known as dock de-icers or ice eaters, are relatively simple devices that are strategically placed a few feet below the surface of the water before winter begins in earnest. They work by circulating warmer water from below the surface to the top, preventing ice formation around docks and boats. They use a motorized air pump or diffuser to create bubbles, which disrupts the ice-making process, keeping the water moving and maintaining a clear area around the dock.
Via an annual service contract with “flexible à la carte options for specific services or projects as needed,” East End Dockwatch plans to provide installation, seasonal removal and maintenance of dock bubbler and ice eater systems. In essence, the company will assist with the purchase of one or more dock bubblers as needed, install it properly in the winter and remove it and store it properly on the client’s premises for the season.
The company will also offer a drone footage service as part of its maintenance contract, which will provide its clients with a clear view of their dock’s condition during the winter.
Healey likens his company’s dock bubbler installation and maintenance program to the many service agreements East End residents have become accustomed to as part of the rhythms of upscale homeownership. Hamptonites are certainly used to having a pool guy and a tennis court guy – not to mention a team of landscapers and all kinds of other service providers on a seasonal basis.
As Healey sees it, a dock bubbler guy is just another natural extension of the Hamptons lifestyle – particularly after a winter as damaging as this one.
Email tvecsey@danspapers.com with comments, questions, or tips. Follow Behind The Hedges on Facebook, X and Instagram.
