Boats in your marina

[Seastoke]

I look around a lot of marinas and say that most boats are valued at less than £250k and sub 45ft. Now having visited boat life where there was a great selection of small sports cruisers with cabins and 3 boats over £600k , I would say they got the show boats right . there was not enough raggie boats or compared to last year no chandlers with a decent choice.

 

[Fire99]

I guess it depends on where the target market is. I've not wandered around the Solent marinas for a while but the last time I was there and looking at lots of other UK marinas, they are still limited on boat size. If you have a whopper of a boat it's gonna be a bit of a squeeze in a fair number of UK locations. My boat isn't huge but at about 51ft LOA even my boat has limitations where I can go. One of my faves for example, Birdham Pool have said my boat is too big to get through the sea lock and some places in Scotland my boat did look a bit like a cruise ship in the bath. (Kinda). Here in NI I'd say bigger boats are staring to appear and in Bangor, boats under 30ft seem to be dying out judging by the number of vacant berths in the smaller boat area A,B, C pontoons, but boats in the 30-35ft seem to be popular, especially in raggie land. But as you get larger there are probably 6 private 50+ft boats here. One Trader 62, Two Trader 54's, Two Fairline Squadrons and a Hanse 50ft sailer. Then mine on the borderline..

But go into mainland Europe and beyond and the world seems to change. Even in boat reviews on MBY, when anything is reviewed in the mid 50's ft, the language is usually "great space despite being ONLY 55ft".. Only!!! I think even the Princess X80 was commented on having surprising space despite its relatively compact size!!

I've gone off on one a bit here but it certainly seems a tale of two halves. The UK, still mostly (but growing) smaller and compact and large parts of the rest of the world, huuuuge and getting huuuger.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Having recently been to the Costa del Sol, the boats there were almost exclusively motor boats, and almost exclusively under 30ft. Or at least in the marinas we passed that was the case. In the Solent, I would guess that 30ft is average, for both power and sail, with sail boats slightly outnumbering power in the western solent, can’t really speak for the east. We have a 30 footer, it's the hardest size to get a mooring for, it being the most popular.