Dan Bacot

Sales Professional

Dan Bacot learned to run a powerboat on a Chesapeake Bay deadrise and is where his feel for boats was forged — not in a showroom, but on the working waterfront. He grew up sailing as well — his parents put him on a sailboat at age four — but powerboats are his primary world: Downeast cruisers, sportfish, express cruisers, trawlers, and motoryachts from the Chesapeake to the open Atlantic.

Dan’s connection to boats runs deeper than most. His father was the original U.S. importer of Nautor’s Swan in the 1960s — the family sailboat at age four wasn’t a weekend runabout. Between that introduction and today there have been many boats — family and personal, power and sail — across every size and type the Chesapeake has to offer. Fifty years after starting in the marine industry, Dan still owns two: a 35-foot Evans Somerset — a custom pleasure version of that same Chesapeake Bay deadrise — and a 36-foot Cape Dory sailboat.

Over 49 years in the marine industry, Dan has owned and operated everything from sailing dinghies to a 73-foot motoryacht. For 33 of those years he and his family built and ran a 325-slip full-service marina on the York River — running each department separately before managing all five as a whole: boatyard, ship’s store, parts, yacht sales, and an oyster farm.