The pleasure boater's insurance policy

Tom Kehlenbach's been around water all his life.

He got his boating license when he was 12, he's an avid fisherman and boating enthusiast and he still enjoys water-skiing.

So it only seems natural that he'd turn his love of the sea into a success story on the seas - as the owner of one of the state's oldest privately held marine-assistance companies.

Kehlenbach, an Old Saybrook resident, runs Sea Tow Central Connecticut, which provides a variety of marine services - from boat towing to boat salvage - along a wide swath of Long Island Sound and the Connecticut River.

It began 20 years ago, says Kehlenbach, when he joined a small company called Sea Tow International providing marine assistance on the waters. Sea Tow had been operating for just a few years when Kehlenbach joined the then-small network of marine-assistance providers.

"It was one boat, and me. That was it," he recalls of his early days in the marine-assistance industry.

Today, Kehlenbach can boast of a successful Sea Tow franchise that owns five marine-assistance boats, employs 10 full- and part-time workers and provides boating services from locations in Essex, Old Saybrook, Chester, Westbrook and Branford.

"I've always enjoyed the water," say Kehlenbach, "and being around boats and boaters." The Madison native recalls always enjoying the benefits of the nearby Long Island Sound and says his parents were avid boaters and water enthusiasts.

He concedes that not all of his marine-assistance calls are done under ideal conditions. "It's a 24/7 operation," he says of the calls that come to his Sea Tow business via marine radio, telephone and cell phone.

"We go in good weather, bad weather, fog, rain - I've even been out in the snow," he says of the thousands of calls he and his associates have provided to boaters.

The majority of his calls are from Sea Tow members, who pay $149 annually for Sea Tow services ranging from towing a disabled craft to jump-starting a dead battery. He estimates a roster of clients exceeding 3,000 and says his firm also provides marine-related services to non-members, but those services are based on an hourly rate.

"Our membership floats the ship," he says of his growing numbers of Sea Tow year-round members.

Kehlenbach's business is part of Sea Tow Services International Inc., which says it's the nation's leading marine-assistance provider. The firm (www.seatow.com) was founded in 1983 by Capt. Joe Frohnhoefer. It now serves more than 160,000 members in the United States, Europe, Australia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

Kehlenbach is one of the company's larger franchises and he's an active member in the overall Sea Tow organization, attending its annual conferences and working on various marketing initiatives. He says marketing is essential to his shoreline business, and he and his associates attend boat shows and other marine events marketing their marine-assistance services.

All of the Sea Tow boats are painted in a distinctive, and bright, yellow paint with the Sea Tow reflective logo adorning their sides. Even Kehlenbach's Jeep and large pickup truck are painted in the eye-catching yellow colors of Sea Tow.

Kehlenbach estimates that he will service his 10,000th customer sometime next month - a far cry from when he began his operation in December 1990 with a small boat and a big dream.

He estimates that he and his team of Sea Tow captains have been the first on the scene for 75 percent of the "mayday" calls in his area of coverage over the past four years. Last season, he says, nearly all of his membership requesting service received assistance in less than one hour - regardless of the time of day of the call.

As part of that membership, says Kehlenbach, they receive priority free towing, jump starts, fuel drops and towing back to a home port from areas that may be served by adjacent Sea Tow franchises.

Kehlenbach says he's proud of his employees, many of whom are emergency responders. Two of his employees are police officers, two are retired police officers, two are firefighters and one is a paramedic. "They all do a great job," he says of his team, which also includes dispatchers who take the calls for marine assistance and send the Sea Tow boats on their way.

Specialty services

Kehlenbach says the past 20 years of marine-assistance calls has provided plenty of fodder for stories. He even says he's going to author a book about his marine exploits.

As part of his 20th anniversary this year, Kehlenbach has assembled a full-color photo book from the many calls he's been on over the years - boats that have sunk, boats that have smashed into rocks, boats that have caught on fire.

Many of his calls involve using special divers who can retrieve capsized boats, for instance, or sunken boats. His firm often needs to use special marine air bags to help retrieve boats from under the water or stuck on shore.

Despite a severe recession and a sluggish-at-best economic recovery, Kehlenbach says business has been good, which he attributes to his focus on customer service, marketing and a professional crew. "In a down economy, we're really busy," he says, noting that sales are up 5 percent this year.

"That's a pretty good indicator of the service we provide."