aquaholic
Well-Known Member
Tell them your compiling a list for a multihull magazine.......it may change their minds!
Very rarely pay a surcharge for having a Cat. If they only ask the length on the radio thats all they get. Seem to get into most berths when using marinas .............
Edited for spelling !!
"So its pot luck with the personality behind the till "
Depends whether the marina has a policy on it as well!
FWIW we don't apply a multihull surcharge at the moment, because 99% of the time we have space available. The problem comes when a cat has to be put on a berth which is suitable for a longer vessel, in order to accommodate the beam. The marina is then losing money in comparison. Multihull pontoon arrangements usually mean one less finger ie 2 fewer berths overall.
This cat has an LOA a tad under 8m, and an 8m boat would rarely have a beam more than 2.5m. A 4m beam would usually belong to a boat on an 11 or 12m finger.
This argument really only applies to finger pontoons IMO, since if you are on a hammerhead or a wall it makes little difference.
It would seem reasonable for the provider of a facility to generate an income from it, and if there is a cost involved in catering for some kinds of craft then it should be recouped, but I agree that an compulsory application of a surcharge could be petty.
In all the marina-bashing posts that I have seen (I usually avoid them, being in the business /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif ) I haven't seen any consensus about charging criteria - there will always be someone who will "lose out". LOA seems as fair a system as any, and if a vessel has "special needs" then the extra cost is either borne by them, or everyone shares the cost.
(And BTW, for everyone's info, "Registered Length" has little to do with ACTUAL length - it could be from one of several kinds of measuring systems. )