Dave Delezenne is turning his vision into reality at D&D Marine.
By Gregg Mansfield
Sometimes the calling for a career comes early in life.
Steven Spielberg knew he wanted to direct movies by age 10, while an 8-year-old Taylor Swift declared she would one day be a country music star.
For D&D Marine’s Dave Delezenne, that moment came in second grade when he went for a ride on a 31’ Panther with twin 600-hp engines.
“I absolutely loved it,” Delezenne said. “It was loud and obnoxious, and I was hooked that day,”
Delezenne’s path into the marine industry wasn’t linear, but that wide-eyed 8-year-old would be proud of where he ended up. Founder of A1A Boat Transport and D&D Marine (formerly Unique Custom Marine) in Pompano Beach, Fla., Delezenne is a lesson in perseverance for anyone knocked down in life.
A Childhood on the Water
Growing up in Port Huron, Mich., Delezenne’s parents bought a 24’ Formula when he was 5. They would spend their summers living and overnighting on the Formula at Black River Marina even with their home nearby.
“There was a good group of 10 boats that would do our own poker runs and our own trips,” Delezenne said. “We went all over Michigan and Canada. We traveled a lot on the water.”
By the time Delezenne turned 10, he was running his parents’ boat exclusively, allowing mom and pop to have a few cocktails while out on the water. Delezenne loved everything about the process, from prepping the boat to driving.
When the offshore races came to town every summer, Delezenne knew everything about the race boats including power packages, drives, gear ratios and propellers.
“I don’t see any (kids) with the kind of passion I had or even to be excited to be part of this lifestyle,” Delezenne said. “I ate, slept and drank boats. When you’re so in tune and dedicated to something, it’s easy to learn.”
In high school, Delezenne worked at a local marine shop rigging high-performance boats such as Cigarettes and Outerlimits.
Rise and Fall
After college, Delezenne spent eight years as a corrections officer at Macomb County Prison, a maximum-security facility in Michigan. After leaving law enforcement in the early 2000s, he went to work for Hewlett Packard as a network engineer. The job had him inside Ford Motor Co. handling the computer network for 22 buildings.
Life was good. The job afforded Delezenne a new house and the dream of owning a Cigarette 1991 Café Racer. He traveled to poker runs and enjoyed the outdoors.
By 2005, the Michigan automotive industry was closing factories and would shed nearly 65,000 jobs. Delezenne’s job was one of those.
“I lost everything,” he said. “I had to start over.”
Starting Over
To rebuild his life, Delezenne wrote down a list of five places he wanted to live that weren’t in Michigan, where he was born and raised. The list varied from California to Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks with Delezenne landing in South Florida where he started installing hurricane shutters and windows.
“The only thing I had left was my pickup and a 27-foot camper trailer,” he said.
The work paid the bills as he looked for a job in the marine industry. Delezenne started with a diesel marine services company as a parts and service manager. He then went into the high-performance industry, doing everything from brokerage (he’s fully licensed) to selling batteries.
Delezenne bought a truck to start transporting boats, drawing on his old NorthStar battery clients. Through referrals, he built up the transport business, traveling throughout the United States. He loved it, logging more than 500,000 miles transporting boats.
Delezenne would pull boats to poker runs around the country. Among his favorites are the Desert Storm Poker Run in Arizona, the Tickfaw 200 in Louisiana and the Florida Powerboat Club’s Key West Poker Run.
Performance Boat Center hired A1A Boat Transport to move boats back and forth between Missouri and Florida. While he was staying busy, Delezenne always had a dream to open his own building and marina. It also taught him how to work with high-end clientele.
“These opportunities came to me in order to prepare me for every aspect in the marine industry,” he said.
Building a Business
While working in the South Florida marine industry, he maintained several boats at the Bahia Mar Yachting Center in Fort Lauderdale for clients. After work and on weekends, he would stop at the marina and would pass Jim Lapointe, who was staying on a 59’ Sea Ray. Over the years they became friendly. When Lapointe bought a new 45’ Ocean Alexander, he hired Delezenne to take care of it. That led to another four boats as the concierge service grew.
One day, Lapointe called him to talk about a business. “In short, he wanted to know what I wanted to do and what my long-term goal was,” Delezenne said. “I said, ‘I want to own my own marina.’”
The next morning, they went out and started looking for a warehouse big enough to meet Delezenne’s vision. Six months later they found the warehouse at 2044 N.W. 25th Avenue in Pompano Beach. The 25,000-square-foot building offers flexibility.
D&D Marine Rises
For the business to be successful, Delezenne knew D&D Marine had to be a full-service marine facility. One of the building’s biggest advantages is the inside storage to protect the boats from the elements. The boats stay on a trailer, rather than in rack storage. The hurricane-proof building houses Skaters, MTI catamarans and center consoles and a Midnight Express. D&D Marine provides a trailer for storage if needed.
“Our customers don’t want to put the boat in a high and dry because (the boat) don’t get taken care of,” Delezenne said. “Unless you’re on the top rack, your boat gets everything that’s dripping from above.”
Though the facility is inland, D&D Marine provides the same conveniences as a dry stack marina, with Delezenne’s son, Josh, delivering the boat to the water or their house. Josh, 29, is a partner and vice president in D&D Marine.
“The boat will be completely clean, full of fuel, ice in the cooler and sitting at the dock waiting for them to go,” he said. Once the client is done, D&D Marine will flush the boat, wash it and store it.
Mark Halloran has been a longtime client of D&D Marine even before the company moved into the Pompano Beach location in 2021. Halloran said the team takes pride in their service.
“Sometimes you need two or three things done on a boat and you don’t want to run all over the place,” Halloran said. “He has the resources to get it taken care of and the trust it’s going to be done right.”
That’s the philosophy behind D&D Marine as a full-service shop. Whether a performance boat needs a dock rash repair, or the sterndrives and outboards need servicing, D&D Marine can do the work.
Boating Line
While busy growing D&D Marine’s operations, Delezenne always has an eye on the future. He will soon offer a 41- and 47-foot offshore V-bottom boat on the hulls designed by the legendary Bobby Saccenti.
Both molds are now in Australia and when the first completed hull and deck arrive, D&D Marine will do the painting and rigging. The 47’ model can be equipped with triple engines. The 41’ will be from Saccenti Powerboats, while the larger sibling is the Saber 47.
It’s a full circle moment for Delezenne, who remembers watching Warpath dominate in offshore racing when he was younger. Now he’s part of building the next-generation offshore boats based on it.
“I still think there are people that appreciate the old-school style, but modernized for today’s world.” Delezenne said. “The boat has proven it can handle the rough water. Its legacy is there, it’s just bringing that legacy to life and trying to introduce it to V-bottom people.”
Moving Ahead
Life in Florida has been good for Delezenne. He got married three years ago after meeting his wife, Ketevan, at a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. She owns flower business but appreciates the boating lifestyle.
“If she went on a boat, it was usually a big yacht,” he said laughing.
Delezenne is glad he moved to South Florida to rebuild his life. Few people could find success after being knocked down. The 55-year-old doesn’t hold his past against himself.
“I feel that I haven’t accomplished everything in my life, and I have so much in front of me that I’m excited about,” he said. “Regardless of what happened to me, I learned from it. I think that’s the best thing anybody can do.”
