Brightlingsea Morgan Marine or Neptune, Ipswich

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Auntie Helen

Auntie Helen

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Howdy all,

We've narrowed down our shortlist of possible new berth places to two. Basically the two that had a decent space for a catamaran.

Brightlingsea Morgan Marine have new moorings. With our shallow draught we should be afloat 10 hours out of 12. Everyone tells me it's lovely round there. Unfortunately they don't have a boat hoist wide enough to take our boat so who knows what will happen when the time comes for a bottom scrub.

Neptune Marina will cost £1k more for us for the year but is a full-tide access (with lock) pontoon. They have a big enough hoist for our cat.

Brightlingsea will be about 10 mins nearer our new house than Neptune.

Does anyone have any recommendations as to which we should choose? We're probably going to visit Brightlingsea tomorrow to have a look. Is there anything in particular we should ask about?
 
You have a long flog down the river from Neptune, which is an OK place to visit. From Brightlingsea you are on the open sea in 5/10 minutes and have the Blackwater on your doorstep. There is no comparison in my opinion. Neptune would have to be £1000 cheaper for me to even consider it. You will be able to go to lots of places to get lifted for a scrub. If you cannot get it done at Brightlingsea the first place I would try is Tivhmarsh.


I am sure you will enjoy the East Coast.
 
Just stick her on a falling tide off Mersea Island and scrub your bum, well the boat anyway. Titchmarsh would be good or Bradwell may be able to hoist it if and when. Agree with Mr Cramp about time to the sea. I sailed down towards Neptune last year and it was a long way from the Stour/Orwell interchange (Felxstowe/Shotley/Harwich). You also wouldn't get the same level of commercial traffic on the Blackwater as you do at Harwich and Felixstowe. Trust me one Stenna ferry looks very much like the next !!
 
Brightlingsea is my preference. Was at Woolverstone for 3 years in my first boat - it always seemed like ages to get out of the river if going anywhere. Brightlingsea is straight out and turn left!

Neptune would presumably have walk aboard access. Brightlingsea is by water taxi (Jon) who is excellent and usually operates every Fri to Sun from Easter to end Oct and 7 days a week in school summer holidays.

Not sure which moorings Morgans are offering you. Check carefully as when I first moved to Bsea with 4ft 6 fin the mooring they gave me with "soft mud I would sink into" wasnt and the boat fell over at LWS and didnt float off very well leaving water up to the bunks and no one called to tell me! First I knew was when I went to boat and previous boatman told me I was on a HM mooring and rather wet.

Since then I have been on HM moorings with no trouble at all. Talk to Bernie (HM) when you visit just in case he has a mooring - or at least go on his waiting list.

The only issue with Bsea from my perspective is parking is a nightmare!

Good luck
 
I have followed Flippers excellent advice this year and phoned the HM at Brightlingsea. He (Flipper) is correct about the waiting list, I was told it could be up to 3 years. If you have a mooring sorted with Morgan Marine, I'd grab it and sort out your bottom scrubbing elsewhere if neccessary - always assuming the mooring is up to par of course /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Brightlingsea, and then beetle across to Bradwell for a lift and scrub, straight back in. Save the grand....
 
Neptune - Ipswich is a better town to be stuck in; better / more choice of restaurants; cinema; pool; shops etc.

Good marina - really friendly helpful staff; if you have a problem they'll get it fixed while you're at work for the week; Ipswich on main train line from London for crew or you.

Neptune Cons - have to lock in/out pontoon not always in the lock; long haul to the sea; have to mix it with coasters coming up the Orwell

Brightlingsea - nicer place; scrub off on the beach at Mersea; Blackwater a much better river to sail on; closer to sea. Good curry house / chippy but limited choice. Poor shopping

I spend the summer on a mooring in the Blackwater and the winter in Neptune. If I had to make your choice I'd go for Brightlingsea.

Simon
 
Thanks for all these comments, folks, it's really helpful!

We're going to Brightlingsea today to have a look. I suspect if it looks OK we'll go for it as HWMBO rather likes the area for sailing. We'll just have to be sure that we can park OK in the spot - catamarans like ours are happy going in a straight line but less keen to deviate from that and if it's going to be a tight berthing spot...
 
I've seen a couple of multihulls use the "beach" in front of (well just to the left as you look at it) the Bradwell Quay Yacht Club & slipway to have a scrub off.

IanC
 
Probably a tad late in this post now, but FWIW - Morgans have two sets of moorings.

They have their North Channel 'marina' type development with (I think!) a couple of swinging moorings inside. This is going to give you fairly easy straightforward access other than the fact that the area where I think the moorings are will dry out from about half tide.

If it is the South Channel moorings then you have a whole new set of problems! Morgans South Channel moorings are at the far end of the creek beyond the HM White Pontoons. At LW Springs, we cannot get on or off our berth on the White Pontoons! We draw 3'6" and have a beam of about 9'6", and it can be fairly tight for us manouvreing up to our berth from LW +/- 2 hours. I would imagine that you would find it shall we say "interesting" at any time other than HW +/- 3 hours when the channel does start to get somewhat confined! Most of the moorings in the South Channel are fore and aft, although there are a few swinging moorings managed by the HM before you reach the White Pontoons but are size restricted to 26'. I don't believe that Morgans restrict on size. Morgans do have a run of Pile moorings just behind the White Pontoons which you may find more user friendly?

Having said all that, Brightlingsea is a great place to sail from, with good cruising grounds on your doorstep. Car parking can be a challenge, BUT if you join the Yacht Club, there is usually no problem to parking in the Club yard while you are afloat.
 
I may have got entirely the wrong end of the stick, but was talking to someone at the club this week, who said (I think) that Morgan Marine has a "close season" and that for some months of the year you are not allowed to go out?

If correct this is obviously significant if you want to use your boat during that time - presumably winter?

Pardon me if totally wrong.
 
Well we've signed up!

We're on the Eastyard Walk-on Pontoons and had a look today. It was high tide but there seemed to be plenty of depth of water and we only draw 83cm. Apparently we should be able to float between 8 and 10 hours out of 12 on average.

Brightlingsea is very different from Sovereign Harbour in Kent but I think we'll enjoy it, especially as it'll just be a 15 minute journey to the boat, rather than the current 1 hour journey from our house here.

Manoeuvring may be a bit challenging at first but I think we should be OK in the long run. We'll just invest in a few more fenders to attach to the pontoon for safety, methinks.

Thanks for all your advice and comment, it's been helpful. We expect to dry out on a slipway somewhere now and again to scrub Chellers' bottom.
 
Congrats..

Now you've got to experience the Kovalam.... a top quality B'sea curry house!

And you've a wealth of lovely sailing destinations to explore very close to home.... all of the Blackwater, the Mersea creeks, a short hop up the Wallet to the Orwell and Stour, with the Backwaters of Arthur Ransome fame on the way.... and much much more

Looking forward to meeting you!
 
Thank you! We currently have the delight of paying for our new mooring from April 1 when our current mooring doesn't run out until June 10th. So we have a good two months to move Chellers from her old home to her new. I suspect 'sooner rather than later' will end up the plan as it'll be a 2.5-3 hour drive to Chellers at Sovereign Harbour when we're up at Colchester in a few weeks' time. Beware of giant white Cats arriving on the East Coast. Perhaps we'll be able to make the Bradwell BBQ by boat after all!

We rather liked the chandlery at Morgan Marine too - very helpful chappie. We also had our cheapest ever chandlery visit, just £4.99 for a bung for our dinghy. I suspect that's a one-off cheap visit, though, and the rest will be the traditional 'couple of hundred' types...
 
Here is a giant white cat......
C288W-L.jpg
 
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