AngusMcDoon
Well-Known Member
It's a pity there are many fewer free moorings in Scotland than there used to be. Most of the council ones have gone or been taken over and now charged for. Anchoring is always free though.
cherish your harbour master - a rant!
- Thread starter Birdseye
- Start date
It's a pity there are many fewer free moorings in Scotland than there used to be. Most of the council ones have gone or been taken over and now charged for. Anchoring is always free though.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
My local council (Dumfries and Galloway) has a long established policy of not charging for parking anywhere in order to encourage people into towns. In Dumfries, for example, the town centre is in trouble as it is an charging for parking would simply drive even more people to the retail developments along the bypass. In that respect harbours and town centres are exactly alike: you get the punters in with cheap or free parking and then encourage them to spend in the town.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
A SLEEPING couple cast adrift in their yacht by vandals at Newport Quay, awoke to discover their badly damaged boat had run aground downstream on the other side of the river.
The damage to the 24ft Swallow last Friday was the latest incident of vandalism at the quay, which boat owners say is denting its reputation among visitors.
Harbourmaster Wayne Pritchett this week admitted the reputation of the harbour had been affected and visitor numbers were down.
http://www.iwcp.co.uk/news/harbourand39s-takings-hit-by-vandals-982.aspx
The damage to the 24ft Swallow last Friday was the latest incident of vandalism at the quay, which boat owners say is denting its reputation among visitors.
Harbourmaster Wayne Pritchett this week admitted the reputation of the harbour had been affected and visitor numbers were down.
http://www.iwcp.co.uk/news/harbourand39s-takings-hit-by-vandals-982.aspx
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
True, but generally the charges are fairly low ... for now. D&G charges a tenner a night in its marinas (Kirkcudbright and Stranraer) which seems fair to me and generally moorings seem to be a fiver or a tenner if charged.
l'escargot
Well-Known Member
You haven't "reported" anything, you've come out with a load of nonsense and been caught out again and not just on this thread. You don't learn do you.
Doesn't make any difference to me whether I live here or not and I don't visit it either. I just don't like people giving wrong information on a forum where people come looking for accurate advice.
l'escargot
Well-Known Member
As I said in an earlier post, there will always be isolated incidents - the fact that you had to go back to 2003 to find that makes it look pretty isolated...
Triassic
Well-Known Member
Jumbleduck mate, much as I am rapidly finding myself in the camp that would like to find such powerful evidence I suspect someone is going to point out that it happened 11 years ago.....
Edit: Damm, I hate being right! I need to type faster.
l'escargot
Well-Known Member
Someone working for the wages they pay in the pound shop would be entitled to benefits - many seaside towns on the south coast have a problem with significant numbers of benefit claimants moving in because they think there will be seasonal work or it is just a nicer place to live on benefits. Ryde, Sandown, Shanklin and Ventnor are well known for having a high proportion of DSS claimants.
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l'escargot
Well-Known Member
That was the point I was making, as you pointed out earlier many people don't have an unbounded budget and people boating on a shoestring who want a cheap mooring are probably not the ones that have the money to spend ashore. And even if they do, spending it in Wetherspoons, Morrisons or the pound shop probably contributes very little to the local economy - all three of those on the IW would have closed down long ago if they relied on the rich yachties for business, let alone the poor ones...
l'escargot
Well-Known Member
So is your experience different to mine, do you find parking places in the "high street" easy to find - lots of empty ones since they put the prices up? a snapshot on Google Earth at an unknown time on an unknown day doesn't really say much - I know on the IW, Newport was filmed at about a 8am on a Sunday morning in August.
I don't think your comparison with car parks and the harbour works at all, in a harbour all you are doing is paying to park your boat (at varying rates dependent on which place you choose) and then you are free to use or not use whatever facilities you like. What you haven't got is free parking near those facilities, very much like a town in fact. There is next to no free parking in the centre of town round here - and our council are selling off the car parks to private operators wherever they can.
Triassic
Well-Known Member
Now I am genuinely confused. You do realise that you have contradicted yourself and supported my argument entirely?
When I first read this thread I was quite surprised by the posts indicating you could be charged up to £15 just to anchor in Falmouth, and I think my initial posts reflected this.
I have just completed my first full season sailing my boat and during that time I have enjoyed cruising the East Coast between Ramsgate and the Walton Backwaters. At no time in over 1,300 miles of sailing have I ever been asked for payment when anchoring, only when I have picked up a mooring or gone into a marina. Even when I went down to the Solent area we were only charged when we went into a marina in Poole or moored on the pontoon at Bembridge.
Everyone I have met has told me how wonderful the sailing is in the Plymouth/Falmouth area and given there are at least two events I will be entering down that way next year I have been planning to include some cruising as well, so I am grateful for the knowledge I have picked up as a result of this thread, but nevertheless I am still disappointed by some of what I have heard.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
No. The point is that if I have a notional budget of £30 per day and £15 of it goes on a mooring, I am much less likely to eat out with the rest. Your division of yachties into nice ones who have an infinite amount of money for everything and cheapskates who should have the dogs set on them is a false dichotomy.
Woodlouse
Well-Known Member
Are you lot still on about chucking bins in harbours?
wotayottie
Well-Known Member
Almost every area you will have anchored in will legally be part of a harbour ( yes I know it sounds funny but look on your charts - harbours arent just the bits enclosed by harbour walls) and the harbour authority will have powers under its bye laws ( these are pretty standard documents) to charge anchoring dues. What differs is how effective they are at doing this. In Falmouth the main anchoring area is very close to the base from which the harbour masters launches operate and they do patrol regularly. Whats more they sometimes have to move anchored boats to allow cruise ships to come in. In contrast, many other ports just dont bother collecting dues - Penzance for instance do not but Salcombe and Dartmouth do collect.
In some ports, you can anchor just outside the harbour limits and pay nothing. You can do that in Salcombe for example. And lastly some ports are slow at collecting and you can escape ahead of the harbour launch. So all in all its a mix and you need to study your charts, be a bit crafty, and pick up local knowledge.
As for the Isle of Wight, which seems to have figured large in this thread, there is free parking for zimmer frames. Very popular
Triassic
Well-Known Member
Thanks Wotayottie,
I do appreciate the powers and rights of the harbour authorities, and also understand them. I'm not trying to get something for nothing, what seems to have got my goat is the impression that some of these authorities are seeking to exploit us on the basis that we are a captive audience because they have removed all alternative. I know there are yacht owners out there to whom £15 a night is small change, but I'm not one of them and it would be a shame if I, and others like me, were excluded from such a place completely on that basis. Don't get me wrong, if I want or need Marina facilities I am quite prepared to pay for them.
I do appreciate the powers and rights of the harbour authorities, and also understand them. I'm not trying to get something for nothing, what seems to have got my goat is the impression that some of these authorities are seeking to exploit us on the basis that we are a captive audience because they have removed all alternative. I know there are yacht owners out there to whom £15 a night is small change, but I'm not one of them and it would be a shame if I, and others like me, were excluded from such a place completely on that basis. Don't get me wrong, if I want or need Marina facilities I am quite prepared to pay for them.
dom
Well-Known Member
Nobody is trying to exclude anybody. Harbours be they natural or man made typically cost money to maintain and it is entirely proper that each Harbour Authoritiy collects payments from its various users sufficient to defray these running costs.
Capt Popeye
Well-Known Member
Err, well, seems to me that tis thread has been quite illuminating with its information, suggestions, kind words, not so kind words, different attitudes to charging etc lots to learn here.
I (and others) have been having grief from Teignmouth HA for some years now, being told to variations of -'take your boat home and put it in your garden', remove it ASAP (was well and truly high and dry at the time) with no appreciation of the tide conditions; tis Ok to leave it there on a Friday, but on Monday morn, remove it at once, I must of had a mental aberration to say that it was OK; person A in office says, after considering completed boat change application, yes that's OK, but person B says on Monday morning, remove it at once we never said that, or rather I did not say that.
Tis the apparent practice of said HA to charge a daily visitor rate to applicants for a permanent mooring until they the HA have goten off butts and made ready said permanent mooring, even though the permanent mooring covers the waiting period on a visitor berth, so in effect one can pay double charges for waiting period, URG.
Could go on about HA experiences, but none appears to be good news.
There seems to be 2 main schools of thought running through this tread, one school is based upon the historic right of navigation, where anchoring and lying alongside is the norm of old, and tother school who appear to understand /believe that tis the norm and way ahead to restrict and charge wherever poss, and that its good to do so, sod the historic rights and practices.
All I find is a great pity, as boating was or has been largely a way of freedom from petty autocracy, council rules and parking charges. There have been places where they were designated free public access for boats to moor and beach, but the encroachment of HA and other autocratic practices appear to have largely eroded them, at least if they can.
A good bit of information publicised on here (for which I am very thankful) is the difference between a HA, fairway committee, river bed owner and council run facilities.
As a result of which I am moving most of my boating interests out of the River Teign to the River EXE and the Devon Coastal coves where I understand that boating still offers the freedom of the seas, sort of thing.
On a matter of better managed facilities, my experience is that Council (Teignbridge, Torquay and Exeter) are better and more friendly to boaters than the local HA are.
To answer the post, yes the old style Harbour Master is /was something to cherish, long may they reign, where they can.
I (and others) have been having grief from Teignmouth HA for some years now, being told to variations of -'take your boat home and put it in your garden', remove it ASAP (was well and truly high and dry at the time) with no appreciation of the tide conditions; tis Ok to leave it there on a Friday, but on Monday morn, remove it at once, I must of had a mental aberration to say that it was OK; person A in office says, after considering completed boat change application, yes that's OK, but person B says on Monday morning, remove it at once we never said that, or rather I did not say that.
Tis the apparent practice of said HA to charge a daily visitor rate to applicants for a permanent mooring until they the HA have goten off butts and made ready said permanent mooring, even though the permanent mooring covers the waiting period on a visitor berth, so in effect one can pay double charges for waiting period, URG.
Could go on about HA experiences, but none appears to be good news.
There seems to be 2 main schools of thought running through this tread, one school is based upon the historic right of navigation, where anchoring and lying alongside is the norm of old, and tother school who appear to understand /believe that tis the norm and way ahead to restrict and charge wherever poss, and that its good to do so, sod the historic rights and practices.
All I find is a great pity, as boating was or has been largely a way of freedom from petty autocracy, council rules and parking charges. There have been places where they were designated free public access for boats to moor and beach, but the encroachment of HA and other autocratic practices appear to have largely eroded them, at least if they can.
A good bit of information publicised on here (for which I am very thankful) is the difference between a HA, fairway committee, river bed owner and council run facilities.
As a result of which I am moving most of my boating interests out of the River Teign to the River EXE and the Devon Coastal coves where I understand that boating still offers the freedom of the seas, sort of thing.
On a matter of better managed facilities, my experience is that Council (Teignbridge, Torquay and Exeter) are better and more friendly to boaters than the local HA are.
To answer the post, yes the old style Harbour Master is /was something to cherish, long may they reign, where they can.
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Achillesheel
Well-Known Member
Correct me if I'm wrong, but nobody in 22 pages of this thread has said that the £15 anchoring charge is, I'm fairly certain, only applied within the area adjacent to the Falmouth Yacht Haven, and includes use off the showers, loos, and laundry facilities provided by the Harbour Authority.
And very decent facilities they are too, clean, warm, and with piped Radio 2 at all times.
And very decent facilities they are too, clean, warm, and with piped Radio 2 at all times.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Or alternatively the local community might choose to meet some or all of the costs to encourage visitors and trade.
AngusMcDoon
Well-Known Member
That's what councils should do, but they, like harbours, are desperately short of money. It's only going to get worse as well. With the huge government deficit and run-away pension liabilities hanging over us there are going to be similar effects in many aspects of our lives.