Moorings on the Thames

BarryH

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I keep my boat on a mid river mooring in Dorset. The moorings are administered by the EA and the cost for 12 months for my 25'ish ft boat is 325 plus vodka and tonic. The current boat(motor) will be replaced by sail next season(hopefully and wife permitting!).
We've (me) come to the conclusion that it would be a nice idea to keep a small trailerable size cruiser on the Thames seeing as the surrey stretch is 10 mins, on a good day and a fast motorcycle, from where we live. We've sourced a Shetland cruiser at a giveaway price so being the bargin it was we snapped it up.

This was mistake number one. Its on a trailer and we've nowhere to keep it. Hardstanding withing half a mile of the thames is non existant. If you can find anywhere its stupidly over priced. I sruck lucky with a farmer not far from the house. Temp storage until a mooring can be sorted for a bit of pest control in way of payment.

Second mistake was thinking that I'd be paying around the same sort of cost on the thames as i am for my current mooring. To say that prices are a tad on the heavy side is an understatement. Wandering the towpaths and bumbling up and down a few stretches in the dinghy a thought struck me. Looking at some of the boats moored on the thames the cost of the mooring actually outweighs the value of some of the boats tied to them!

Coupled to the fact that the EA wants to impliment a price hike for the licences over the next few years I've come to the conclusion that it'd be cheaper to take a second mortgage and buy a small property.

Is the Thames outpricing itself as far as the average boat owning "family man" goes. I can't see things getting any better and the thames becoming the exclusive playground of a few well heeled boat owners....oh and rowers too.

Looks like we'll be sticking the with "expensive" south coast........
 

byron

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Environment Agency seems to have a death wish when it comes to the subject of boating. Not content with the stupidity of the BSS driving people away they now wish to implement price hikes to drive even more away.
As regards somewhere to store the boat near the Thames. I can speak to my neighbour to see how much he would want.
He wouldn't want much unlike me who'd charge a fortune.
 

Andrew_Fanner

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Weirstream mooring, buoy at bow and stern, was costing me a bit over £70 per month for 27 feet. You need some form of tender to get there of course. Shetland would be cheaper as shorter, but tender would need to stay behind or deflate I guess.

Yes, EA may well be pricing themsleves out of the market, however I smell environmentalists influence, and they are not that keen on boating as opposed to creating habitats for small mammals. The idea of co-existence is a bit complex for them.
 

BarryH

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Thankyou for the offer byron but the idea was to have it fairly close to home and on a mooring so that the odd day/w/e wouldn't need a full scale operation and planned assalt as normally happens with the other half.

Its all come about as the kids have a better social life than me and we missed so many w/e's of late because they've had a party or somesuch to do for a couple of hours which really throws a spanner in the works if we're 100 odd miles away.

I'll keep looking around and see what turns up. I hear that MDL are doing "reduced rates" for smaller boats to fill the holes in their marinas. A route I really didn't want to go down.
If nothing turns up this side of christmas I think I'll abandon the idea.
 

Forbsie

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I know a nice Buckingham 25 away to come on the market. It's mooring in Twickenham only costs £10/week. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
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