Keeping a boat on the South Coast: Affordable options please

Portsmouth is probably going to be your best bet. You can get swining morrings from gosport boatyard (with free ferry to/from the boat) for about £1500/yr. If you join a sailing club, some have club moorings which are cheap (Hardway for example), but there's usually a waiting list.

There are places like Marchwood and Eling in Southampton water with cheap half-tide moorings.

There are also swinging moorings in Langstone and Chichester harbour.
 
One thing to add, is the ability to outsail or motor the tide. When we were on the Hamble we were very tide bound. From ocean village we can leave or arrive at any state of tide. Sure going against tide is slower, but unlike the Hamble it is doable with my small boat.

I am currently time limited, when I do have time I want to sail, not wait for the tide before I can leave, or cut my day short because if I don't I cannot get home at the time I need to.
 
PhillM said:
Another option could be to get a trailer sailer. There are summer deals around for under 8M for about £700 for two months walkashore in a marina. If you don't want to tow / store at home, there are storage places close to the Hamble (one is called Roddington Forge) for about £30 per month. OK so with this option you need to get her in and out, which is a faff but you always have the option to take her home for the winter, to fettle.
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Now there's an interesting suggestion PhillM. I neglected to say that I currently have an E-Boat in Argyll. She has a trailer but it is not road legal being un-braked and has only been used for launching her at Toward Sailing Club on the Clyde. I had been considering upgrading to the larger boat but have had many many blissful hours on the E-Boat which is set up for solo sailing.

Being a mechanical engineer, I have played with the idea of building her a new road trailer / launching trolley system with self raising mast............

Thank you everyone for your much appreciated suggestions. Please keep them coming. You are giving me a lot to think about
 
This really turns on what sort of Keel you have and your need to have all states tide sailing. We started out at Wicor in a fin keel Bav and were always afloat but sometimes unable to reach shore due to intervening mud bank . Clearly not so convenient to get to boat as need for dingy and outboard and a long drag back up harbour can become tiresome on a Sunday night. The advantage is slightly less traffic and the lower fees. We decided after a year to move to Haslar and while it's more fees the ability to access at all times plus local facilities works for us. While there is the tedious Gosport drivers to cope with these tend only to be a problem in rush hour so if you are happy to arrive around 11pm most have gone to bed or are across the water in Gunwharf at Tiger Tiger so roads are quite. As they say other Gosport marinas are available but you have to consider not only price but wash from ferries and location of shower blocks plus access .
Traffic to Hamble always seems a problem and berths much more in costs.
I
 
I forgot to say if you want to stay afloat and don't mind locks do look at Emsworth Or Chichester or Birdham pool which look lovely but suffer from tidal access and limited facilities plus the longer motor home from the bar.
 
cameronke said:
Now there's an interesting suggestion PhillM. I neglected to say that I currently have an E-Boat in Argyll. She has a trailer but it is not road legal being un-braked and has only been used for launching her at Toward Sailing Club on the Clyde. I had been considering upgrading to the larger boat but have had many many blissful hours on the E-Boat which is set up for solo sailing.

Being a mechanical engineer, I have played with the idea of building her a new road trailer / launching trolley system with self raising mast............

Thank you everyone for your much appreciated suggestions. Please keep them coming. You are giving me a lot to think about
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How about getting her brought down on a truck and dry sailing from one of the marinas? I don't know how much that costs but I'm sure sombody will be along soon with comparisons.
 
I think our club have relaxed the 30 mile limit rule for members, we are based in Weymouth.
I have a 33 footer, on a swing mooring in Portland Harbour, with club membership fees, harbour dues and crown fees, including lift out/in, and winter storage ashore it comes to about £1500.00 a year.
There are some moorings that come up for sale at around £500, the cost for us to lay a new one, depending on boat size is around £650 to £750, this is an initial cost, after purchase you should expect to pay around £150 annually for inspection, and maintenance
We also provide a ferry service to the moorings on weekends, race nights and bank holidays. However when I want to go away I sometimes pop over to Portland marina for night before departure, and for one night on return.
 
Buy a comfortable power boat and keep it on the River Hamble. Works out about 2/3 the cost of an equivalent sized yacht, and no tacking - switch on and go, direct, to your preferred destination in half the time, or at least twice the distance in the same time. Decent yards just 5 minutes from the M27.

Yes I really do mean cheaper, and better residuals for the right motor boat than a yacht.

I went to the dark side 9 years ago and surprisingly haven't missed the 'sailing' bit.
 
I don't know what the run from from Oxford to Bristol is like but the Oxford - Hamble commute can be a nightmare on a Friday night sometimes, especially in Summer. Chichester can bring a whole new world of pain after the A34/M3 as well. A very easy run when the traffic is behaving though.
 
PhillM said:
Buy a smaller boat and keep it closer to home. Yes Southampton can be expensive. But there are ways to do it. A 25 footer in a MDL or Premier marina is about £3-4K depending on which one. You might get it below £2.5 at say Kemps, Ocean Quay or Atlantic wharf.
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PhillM makes many good suggestions here. But our experience of the above idea went like this...we used to own a Trident 24 which we kept at Brighton marina.... but after a year and a half, the psychological pain of paying the entire equivalent value of our boat on a years berthing fee became too much to bear. We moved her to a drying swinging mooring in Chichester Harbour. The drive from Brighton (where we lived at the time) was a pain and yes we were more restricted on coming and going and the whole thing had a much higher PITA factor... but we never regretted that move, far from it, we had the extra cash to upgrade our boat to something we could actually enjoy being aboard for more than a weekend.
 
KREW2 said:
I think our club have relaxed the 30 mile limit rule for members, we are based in Weymouth.
I have a 33 footer, on a swing mooring in Portland Harbour, with club membership fees, harbour dues and crown fees, including lift out/in, and winter storage ashore it comes to about £1500.00 a year.
There are some moorings that come up for sale at around £500, the cost for us to lay a new one, depending on boat size is around £650 to £750, this is an initial cost, after purchase you should expect to pay around £150 annually for inspection, and maintenance
We also provide a ferry service to the moorings on weekends, race nights and bank holidays. However when I want to go away I sometimes pop over to Portland marina for night before departure, and for one night on return.
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Is that Castle Cove Sailing Club?
I have sailed the Clyde area for years... It's a great area to sail, but Largs and Kip marinas are about the same price as the south coast...But less crowded...Had my dinghy and outboard stolen at Brodick on the isle of Arren and had to book into a local hotel (couldn't get back to the boat)..The local police said it was my fault because I didn't allow for the tide and thought my dinghy floated off...I live on a coast with a 10 meter tide!!!!
 
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