Cat Cost Question

John_Silver

John_Silver

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Joined
19 Mar 2004
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St Mary's Island
allatseawithstargazer.blogspot.com
Discovered, to my pleasant surprise, that my home marina charges berth fees, for catamarans, on LOA only. With no beam surcharge. Although they pointed out that others in the (MDL) group do levy a supplement - presumably in the South Coast marinas. Cat owners, what is the norm when cruising? Surcharge or same as the monos? Particularly interested in experience relating to the Channel / Atlantic coast of France & N Spain. Or Ireland. I'm thinking in the 11-12m x 7m size bracket (if that makes a difference).
 
There are no rules. We pay no extra on our home mooring, but on the basis we have 1 side folded in the summer 6 months, we are fully unfolded 1st Oct to 1st April. We paid no extra for a multihull berth at the Folly regardless. Some marinas use tape measures on your boat. La Trinite, and quite a few other French atlantic ports are properly pro multi, they’re disappointed if you haven’t turned up in an Ultim.
 
My cat is 9m by 4.2m and when visiting marinas I normally get into a standard berth. Normally the marinas only ask for length and that is the information I give them. Only once a marina tried to charge me extra so we had a discussion that went my way ....

For @John_Silver I suspect that you will get a surcharge because of the beam being more than 50% of the length, but some marinas may well put you on a spare hammerhead and only charge the same as a mono.
Some French marinas charge by the square metre so a cat then gets maximum value ....
 
Boathook said:
My cat is 9m by 4.2m and when visiting marinas I normally get into a standard berth. Normally the marinas only ask for length and that is the information I give them. Only once a marina tried to charge me extra so we had a discussion that went my way ....

…
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Big difference between a beam of 4.2m and the OP’s proposed 7m.

4.2m is probably still too wide to fit alongside another boat in many 9m finger berths - but in general visitor berths will probably be fine, as lots of 12m monohulls 4m wide. But 7m won’t fit between most finger berths without occupying both spaces - so fair to charge for both.
 
Yes, thinking about it, @Boathook is right on the French approach. Even with my mono the capitainerie asks beam as well as length, when it comes to paying up. The topic, of beam, arises quite often because our Passeport Escales data, in their systems, has us as 2.1m v 3.1m beam. Many attempts have been made to correct this, but ‘the computer says no.’ Which, for once, is OK by me!

Sounds like the UK approach is largely similar - except in occasional ports.

Still, with Passeport Escales ‘free nights’ and MDL berth swaps baked in, at the non-surcharged rates of my home marina, I only pay for my visitor berthing 25-30% of the time.

Suppose the big cat beam challenge, whatever the berth fees, would be the physical shortage of hammerheads / double catways in crowded passage ports.
 
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Not that the OP will be coming to the Northern Adriatic, but all berths here are priced based on "box size" ... that is a combination of max. LOA and max. beam. Lots of modern monohulls get bumped up into the next LOA bracket because they are too beamy.

This is probably due to absence of finger pontoons and the standard being stern-to berthing.
 
Chiara’s slave said:
I’m sure Al would be happy to see you back, with a suitcase of notes. Problem sorted.
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For the reasons you give, on the ‘Liveaboard’ What Cat? Thread, a DF is probably less suited to my needs. Although they do dodge the beam bullet…
That brokerage Dazcat 1195 (on the ‘best cruiser racer’ thread) makes me drool a bit though…. But she’s almost as old as the boat I’m looking to replace. No spec details available currently. But suspect that I’d be back on the constant upgrades and replacements treadmill, which I’ve been on since my boat turned 10 years old.
 
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I had no problems with my previous cat - a Catalac 9m but she could easily fit into most berths without a problem. With my Privilege 37 that has a 22 ft beam, they all want to charge me more - even the Folly, where I normally berthed on the inside of the pontoons in the shallower water, where they don't normally double up boats. That was 3 or 4 years ago. I haven't been back.
 
Sounds as if Chatham is a bit of an oasis for 'full beam' cats - from a no berth surcharge perspective. Although, because life's seldom perfect, there's the 8.5m lock gate plus Medway cross tide to contend with. Which makes 7m about the max beam and probably limits entry to around slack water (with my skillset anyway). May explain why a litter (is that the correct collective noun?) of Nautitech Open 40's were in during covid.
 
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