How much does your hobby cost?

Swinging mooring £97 a year for up to 25 ft. Boat park £11 per month. Haul out on trailer a bottle of whisky. Yacht club £15 a year. But don't tell anyone!
 
Comparisons, particularly between UK and France are always difficult. The "expensive" marinas in the UK are like that because they are usually in an area where there is intense competition for the shoreside land. This is why so many are now connected to housing developments. Waterside, many are built in the intertidal zone so dredging is the single major operating cost. You can see prices fall the further away you are from both attractive cruising grounds and centres of population - particularly if the marina uses redundant commercial shipping facilities.

Compare with France - particularly the Atlantic coast. Remote area with low density population, extensive waterside locations, strong tidal systems to scour moorings or tidal sills to create minimum water levels. Tourist area where economic well being relies on visitors. Touch of the subsidies so municipalities do not always have to recover all costs of the facilities. Bingo costs 50-70% less than UK.

However, go to the Mediterranean coast, either France of to an extent Spain where none of these favourable conditions exist and costs are comparable to South Coast UK or higher.

Straight economics really!
The most expensive marina in France (St Jean Cap Ferrat) is only marginally more expensive (4%) than the amount I quoted. But are you going to compare the Côte d'Azur with the Solent? In the Med you have at least 6 months of pleasant weather for sailing in the year.

You need rather to compare the North of France to the UK and we still have a few more months of better weather in S. Brittany...
 
Sybarite - you're making the usual error of comparing somwehere like Britanny with the Solent when the more direct comparison (weather apart) would be somewhere like Nice against the Solent. In other words somewhere that had high demand for the country concerned.

Against your mooring in Britanny, mine in the Bristol channel is £1450 pa for a 36 footer again on a pontoon with leccy and free showers in a very pleasant club house. I'm sure there are lots of other places in the UK, away from the Solent, that are sensibly priced too.

In confirmation of this ( if the demise of the "its cheaper here on the continent" posts doesnt suggest it already), we have three members of our club whop have returned from the med during the last year complaining about the costs of running a boat there.

As for my costs, well thanks to a helpful forumite I recently transferred all my financial records on to a new system. A sad byproduct of this was the ability to find out my total boat costs over the 12 years records that I have. The answer ( I hope SWMBO doesnt read this) was £32, 450 excluding the costs of the boats and any depreciation on them.
I think Brittany is a better comparison than Nice because of the geographical proximity. As far as boat populations are concerned I don't believe there is a marked difference in density between the Med and the Atlantic coasts. And don't forget that the sailing season is twice as long in the Med.

I will admit my comments were aimed at the S. Coast marinas. However on recent trips back home I found (for me) astronomical prices n Ireland too.
 
I think Brittany is a better comparison than Nice because of the geographical proximity. As far as boat populations are concerned I don't believe there is a marked difference in density between the Med and the Atlantic coasts. And don't forget that the sailing season is twice as long in the Med.

I will admit my comments were aimed at the S. Coast marinas. However on recent trips back home I found (for me) astronomical prices n Ireland too.

Geographic proximity has little to do with it. As I explained it is all to do with supply and demand for the key scarce resources. Brittany (and Normandy to an extent) are sparsely populated areas with little alternate demand fo water and adjacent land space. South Coast of UK and France is exactly the opposite. It is also little to do with boat density, it is only demand against supply, somewhat modified by the type of boating - little power on the Atlantic coast compared with the Med coast.

You get similar variation in the UK. Just look at prices in places such as Aberystwith compared to the Solent.

Same in Ireland - limited resources, high demand and a high earning population equals higher prices.

There is relatively little leakage from one area to another. How many UK owners such as me, living 10 minutes drive from a ferry terminal would contemplate moving my boat permanently to France to take advantage of the lower berthing costs. I know some do, but when you do all the sums against the restrictions in usage it does not make sense for most.
 
Not sure Aberystwyth is a good example - I got ripped off there for £30 overnight. It's the only marina between Pwllheli and Milford so I guess its got a local monopoly.

It is all donw to supply and demand. More people want to moor in the Solent than do in Britanny but if you look at prices in Med France you can see what will happen to prices further north if ever Britanny becomes as popular as the Med.

So the answer to mooring costs is to go where there are fewer people.
 
Quite reasonable where we are considering...

Deep water mooring £700
Lift out / in & hardstanding for winter £700
Insurance £170

This is for a Moody 33

Last year was £3000 for marina berth, £300 for lift in and out, £170 insurance
 
I own my mooring and pay £80 per year to the owner of the rights to the peaceful creek where it is laid. I also pay around £50 per year to the man who laid the mooring to inspect it for me. The gear was replaced about 4 years ago and that cost me, I suppose, around, £600.

If I haul out, the cost will depend on where. There are plenty of places with very reasonable charges. I have never paid to anchor anywhere and know several places where I can pick up a mooring or lie alongside free of charge. I rarely visit marinas.

The area is lovely and the sailing excellent. I spent many years sailing from the west country and know the Breton coast very well indeed. Glorious though these places are, I would not swap them for the waters I sail in now.
 
You are right about opportunity costs and marine property. Apart from ice-bound northern Europe (winter) it is almost universal that time ashore costs more than in the water. Not yet in the UK. Over time I would expect this regime to impose itself in the UK too, but will the high cost of in water rebalance or will UK marina owners walk off with a double divvi? Answers on a postcard....

PWG
 
But are you going to compare the Côte d'Azur with the Solent? In the Med you have at least 6 months of pleasant weather for sailing in the year.

You need rather to compare the North of France to the UK and we still have a few more months of better weather in S. Brittany...
I assume working for a living is a distant memory in your case?
 
This is why so many (UK marinas) are now connected to housing developments.
The French came at this from a very different angle. They were, I believe, ahead of the UK in building a marina, with a housing development attached, through the active cooperation of planning, operator and local council. The difference with the UK was that the French municipality looked at the whole development; the yacht moorings brought new wealth, the housing brought revenue and wealth. They found they could balance whatever subsidy was required with the total increase in revenue to the municipality.
 
moring in hythe marina is about £3000 a year, i cant remember the rest but last year the costs were about £6000. boating is a passion, not just a hobby :D
 
I think Aberystwyth an error

Geographic proximity has little to do with it. As I explained it is all to do with supply and demand for the key scarce resources. Brittany (and Normandy to an extent) are sparsely populated areas with little alternate demand fo water and adjacent land space. South Coast of UK and France is exactly the opposite. It is also little to do with boat density, it is only demand against supply, somewhat modified by the type of boating - little power on the Atlantic coast compared with the Med coast.

You get similar variation in the UK. Just look at prices in places such as Aberystwith compared to the Solent.

Same in Ireland - limited resources, high demand and a high earning population equals higher prices.

There is relatively little leakage from one area to another. How many UK owners such as me, living 10 minutes drive from a ferry terminal would contemplate moving my boat permanently to France to take advantage of the lower berthing costs. I know some do, but when you do all the sums against the restrictions in usage it does not make sense for most.

10 years ago, before I left UK waters for more exotic climes, it cost £3000 for a 10m boat, with electricity chargeable on top of that.
However I agree with the supply-demand thesis. Rationing by price.
 
You are right about opportunity costs and marine property. Apart from ice-bound northern Europe (winter) it is almost universal that time ashore costs more than in the water. Not yet in the UK. Over time I would expect this regime to impose itself in the UK too, but will the high cost of in water rebalance or will UK marina owners walk off with a double divvi? Answers on a postcard....

PWG

You're wrong there.

In the Med it pays to be contrarian - out of water during the hot, overcrowded, windless summer months is seriously cheaper than out-of-water during the winter - I can usually get winter in-the-water for less than €250/month, even in Cote d'Azur East.
 
Different aspect here.Mooring at bottom of garden:free.All harbours free:insurance E65.p/a
miss the tides but penty of wet and windy sailing.Down the Shannon to France if you feel like it.
 
£1341 annual mooring including electricity, water and showers. Also includes free passes to about 12 other partner ports for 2 nights free moorings at each.
£ 576 insurance
Free - 48 hour haul-out for antifouling. Otherwise a lift-out would cost £184 (Mast £58)
£ 119 antifouling : labour £ 48 : product
£ 71 20m 8 cal anchor chain.

On the other hand, electronic equipment is generally cheaper in the UK.

How does this compare?
£400 fully serviced all-tide marina berth
£80 third party insurance
Free use of scrubbing grid to clean bottom
£40 for antifouling every few years
 
Don't ask questions like that :mad: The other half's started to take an interest in this forum. :eek:

Now I'm getting: 'Maybe we should add up what last year cost us'

Oh dear. My sympathies.

Never add up anything regarding boat ownership, just deal with each bill as it comes along.

You know it makes sense. (and keeps you sane)
 
The most expensive marina in France (St Jean Cap Ferrat) is only marginally more expensive (4%) than the amount I quoted. But are you going to compare the Côte d'Azur with the Solent? In the Med you have at least 6 months of pleasant weather for sailing in the year.

You need rather to compare the North of France to the UK and we still have a few more months of better weather in S. Brittany...

Sybarite, if St Jean is only 4% more than the one quoted then it is definately not the most expensive in France. Where I am in Port Medoc (Le Verdon) I paid €3400 this year for a 34 footer. This year they raised their prices by 40% - shades of MDL in the bad old days. Next year it will go up again because there is a waiting list at every port south of Bourgenay and I wouldn't mind betting there are a few ports further north than that with a waiting list. 5 years for La Rochelle and I have heard of 15 at Arcachon (unless you start greasing palms that is.....) Royan gave me an estimated time of 3 years. Even the mudberths on the Gironde are full and have waiting lists.


Most Marinas are run by the municipality and are reasonable, but Port Medoc is a commercial venture so they want to make money. So they will, and in fairness, although I dislike the way they take advantage of us, if they didn't invest millions of euros in building the marina I would knackered for a place.

However to put the prices in perspective, La Rochelle is €2400 per year for 34'
Rochefort €1400

How do you compare though, with the pound dropping through the floor for the last 2 years?
 

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