Booking a berth

How often do you book a berth?

  • N/a - I just day sail

    Votes: 1 1.4%

  • Never,

    Votes: 22 31.9%

  • Very rarely

    Votes: 32 46.4%

  • About 1/2 the time

    Votes: 3 4.3%

  • Most of the time

    Votes: 7 10.1%

  • Always.

    Votes: 4 5.8%
  • Total voters
    69
jac

jac

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Whilst loitering in the MoBo forum (shhhh), I noticed that booking a berth even a week or so in advance seemed quite unremarkable. Personally, I've never booked and can usually find somewhere. Is it to do with a different approach, sailors traditionally voyaging towards... MOBO owners heading to somewhere .

Obviously going on a rally is a different beast but how often do you do it.
 
Last year we found increasingly that the popular Solent locations were filling up earlier - Lymington, Yarmouth, Hamble, Bucklers Hard - so this year we are more inclined to book. Sometimes we are being told several days ahead that places are already fully booked.
 
As usual none of the options is quite right. My answere should have been sometimes. It varries with the season. Who is with me. Where we are.
I picked half the time as the mid point or median. since I book more than rarely. sometimes I don't go near a berth at all.
 
I've tried to book before in the Solent and all Marinas have told me they don't take bookings on the day/day before. In a yacht, especially a small one, there is more of a chance that plans will change with the wind or tide whereas in a mobo the tide makes no difference and conditions will either be suitable or rough enough that the marina will understand people not turning up. Oddly rough weather is less likely to deter a yacht as they are more stable and comfortable than a mobo when it blows up as long as the blow is in the right direction.
 
I have when there was an imperative reason for having a berth i.e leaving a yacht for a few days or crew changes but it was very rarely that this needed to be done and then only when it clashed with a race and demand for berths would be high.
 
All but once when I booked in advance, I didn't make it for one reason or another.

Lost about £120 last season booking and paying online for Yarmouth. Won't do that again. Will take my chances and see what happens.

I have never been turned away from anywhere yet, but somtimes been offered trot or mid river where I would have liked walk ashore and shore power. That said, not so often as to worry me.

One booking I did make and get too was as Sheperds Wharf when we had an appointment with the 80+ year old designeer of our boat. Have to say just how helpful Dave and Barry were.
 
There are one or two places where we know that booking is worthwhile, but usually we just turn up. Occasionally we turn up mob-handed and book in order to get a club discount.

I quite like the usual system in the UK of radioing in, rather than the Continental one of piling in and hoping to find a berth.
 
I think I've only ever booked once.

Was moving my boat from south coast to east coast a few years ago. Realising, as I crossed the Thames estuary, that the all the staff at my intended destination marina were likely to have gone home by the time I arrived, I rang ahead and checked I could get a berth and leave the boat there two weeks (it was winter). I gave my boat's name and details, and was told to turn to port as I entered (they were dredging to starboard) and take any vacant berth.

A couple of weeks after leaving the boat I found I couldn't get down there as planned, so rang to organise an extra week (i was a bit worried as i was presumably in someone else's berth). There was a bit of confusion on the phone, but they eventually said an extra week would be OK. The following week I went down to the marina, and went into the office to pay. Again quite a bit of confusion among the staff, and it gradually emerged that they'd got no knowledge of my boat or its stay at all - were unaware of my booking, had never noticed the non-resident boat, and had no record of my interim phone call! I wonder how long I could have stayed there free if I hadn't said anything! (Subsequent occasional dealings with the same marina suggest this is about par for their organisational skills!)
 
booking in, sounds more like a caravan club, baggsing best spot. Must be a south coast thing

I have never booked in for a berth, radio in as I get within eyeball of the marina, only time was ardglass, when told no berths available, thought they were having a laugh, told to raft up when I got in, had to raft up to 5 boats on end of pontoon, a north/south Ireland club was having annual get together, it was a grand night we were invited to, grub beer and good irish music, all supplied by the club. more of a 'this clubs got talent'...
 
colvic987 said:
booking in, sounds more like a caravan club, baggsing best spot. Must be a south coast thing
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You have not sat between 3 ports in the Solent trying to negotiate a berth?

I always try and book in advance, normally an hour or 2. If some where claims they are full I will ask where they think will not be until I find a berth, some times you phone round the second time to get let in...

Although mine and SWMBO work we avoid weekends if it has to be a weekend in summer we tend to day sail just because we cannot be bothered with weekend masses.

Tip for you LustyD if you phone up a marina in the morning and make the point (your boat size etc) you are making special passage to come to them and will not have many options due to tides etc most places I have visited in the Solent have bent there rules a little.
 
onesea said:
You have not sat between 3 ports in the Solent trying to negotiate a berth?

I always try and book in advance, normally an hour or 2. If some where claims they are full I will ask where they think will not be until I find a berth, some times you phone round the second time to get let in...

Although mine and SWMBO work we avoid weekends if it has to be a weekend in summer we tend to day sail just because we cannot be bothered with weekend masses.

Tip for you LustyD if you phone up a marina in the morning and make the point (your boat size etc) you are making special passage to come to them and will not have many options due to tides etc most places I have visited in the Solent have bent there rules a little.
Click to expand...

Is it that busy down south, i'll have to miss it when I do my sail around uk, and divert over to Belgium and france, get fined and sail back over to Falmouth....:rolleyes:
 
Smaller boat...easier to get in.

Yarmouth is the only place I've ever been turned away from, although I do prefer not to book as sometimes I've just sailed straight past my intended destination, in no hurry to get the kite down and end a perfect day's sailing.
 
Never really occurred to me that booking in advance was a thing. But then I think I only took KS into marinas 3 times in 3 years in the Solent - I had a printed-out copy of the Tightwad Sailor next to the almanac, and used it. Much more interesting.

Pete
 
You never seem to be able to get into poole quay boat haven in summer without booking days (weeks?) in advance. Of course at those prices I wouldn't *plan* to go there but there's been a couple of times when conditions (actually crew) have demanded warm showers and a pub you don't have to row to and we've been turned away. Ironically on those occasions I bet they had loads of no-shows.
 
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