keeping your boat in the med

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dilly

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hi guys i've been thinking about keeping a boat in the med and i was wondering what your thoughts were about doing this. I am nowhere near ready to retire i was wondering if you would really get use out of your boat with and a few weeks here and few weeks there I think it's a fab idea if your retired and spending the summer out there but not sure if you're still working full time what's your thoughts on it.
 
I think you will have to be a bit more precise. 'The Med' is a big place. If you were going to locate your boat somewhere in the Mediterranean and continue working in UK your chief priority would be to site the boat very conveniently for airport links. There are ports in France and Spain that would be OK for this but they mostly tend to be the more expensive ones. Space in French marinas is notoriously hard to come by except possibly right down in the south and maybe Corsica. Spain may be a good bet but others will have more up-to-date information. Italian marinas are horrendously expensive for the most part.

It takes me two full days to get to my boat in the Med but I only do it once per year.
 
Thanks and how long do you stay with your boat and are you retired i was thinking about doing this instead of buying a holiday home i'm moving the boat from marina to marina but don't know if it would work in full time employment
 
I have a friend who keeps his boat in Majorca. he works but works 4 weeks on 4 weeks off so it works quite well for him. He still doesn't get as much time out there as he would like. He finds when he gets there he wants to go sailing so doesn't get a lot of time doing jobs he would like to do. A lot of the jobs that you might do if you have your boat near to you he has to pay people to do. Antifouling is one example. It starts to work out expensive on a 44ft boat. Even litle things that go wrong when he is out there he finds he has to get someone to fix when he's away so that the boat is ready to go next time he is there. More expense. I think if you have a lot of time and not in too much of a hurry to get to places or cram things in to a 2 week break here and there then it can work out well. That thing called work always gets in the way.
The up side is there is nothing better than sailing every day May to Oct with just shorts and tee shirts, lunch and dinner on deck, cold beer in the fridge and being able to swim from the boat every day if you fancy it.
 
I know it sounds fantastic I will do it but am wondering about timing , but if you wait for everything to be perfect we would end up doing nothing .
 
I have a boat in Greece, it doesn't cost too much to keep there as I have a mooring that came with the boat. Costs are insurance, yearly permit for the bay that between them come to about £200. Boatyard fees are E150/month if I put her ashore for winter, during which time I can live on board & do my own maintenance, etc. I work for the NHS but similar to working for an agency, so can take more time off than you'd get if you had a FT permanent contract with limited annual leave. Round trip is about £200 & includes an overnight in Athens as the flights arrive too late for me to get public transport down to the boat. Maybe somewhere like Corfu would suit if you wanted to leave the boat in the marina, or if budget is less there are lots of places it's possible to leave the boat & arrange some sort of guardiennage (sp?). Or Spain, maybe somewhere like Torrevieja? Anywhere with cheap flights & the right facilities for you & your boat. I'm sure others will be along with more suggestions...
 
Dilly
I am one of the many (mostly) retired guys on the forum and last year I moved my yacht to the Med, with the intention of spending 3 periods of 3 or 4 weeks aboard each year. To really enjoy warm weather boating I feel you have to spend at least a week unwinding and basically shifting gears. Last year I spent three months aboard in one long go and it was a tremendous experience. Completely unravelled by the end!!

If you are still working this will not be possible. I would suggest either chartering for two weeks at a time, to build up an idea of "good" places in which to sail, or keeping your boat close to where you live, putting up with the English weather but enjoying the ease of access to do all the maintenance sort of things (which can be quite fun). All the while you can be planning the great leap down south.
Peter
 
We keep our boat in Corfu at the moment and it works well with 20 mins drive at most from the airport, so can get an early flight from Gatwick and be stocked up and set off by early afternoon. That short trip is crucial to us as we can only grab a week here and there, but perhaps 5 times a year.

Similar but even better times for our base for 4 years in Croatia.

Main downside has been lack of reliable boat yards - in other words we could easily spend 3 of the 5 weeks simply watching people work. Getting a visit and a quote when over there and saying - "great we will be back in 6 weeks" means nothing so far. When you get back finally (after endless calls and emails), they will say - ok we will do it today, maybe longer if we need to order anything - and your week away has gone. So learning as much DIY as possible is crucial (and can be fun), and coping with non-essential repairs never being done would be good too. But it's a balance between the pain of all that, and the sheer wonder at the anchorages/swimming/lifestyle of non-UK sailing/motoring.
 
Totally agree about warm weather sailing, it's such a privilege to be able to do it, I find UK pretty frustrating. I met a couple on Corfu who kept a Westerly Jouster for years in the little harbour at Benitses, just used to leave it there. He'd recently retired, bought an Arpege & offered me the Jouster for £500. I almost bought it. Same with a few people who just leave their boat in Vliho Bay (Lefkas) & do absolute minimal maintenance. They had a bad storm one year with some of the boats in Vliho Bay wrecked...
 
We did this last year and haven't looked back. We are not retired and a fair way from being at the age were we can. However we have 2 x 2 week breaks on board as well as 6 days at Easter and one 4 day weekend per month. We live on board the whole time and find it perfect. We certainly use our boat more now than we did and before we were 10 miles from our boat.

You need to look at:

1. travel links. It's just over an hour flight from LHR to NCE for me and just under 2 from EDI for my wife. From NCE airport it's 30 mins to being on board. Lots of flights and available all year round. My wife is going down in 2 weeks when I head off for a 2 week long work trip.
2. Mooring costs. Buying a berth might be the quickest way or you can try to find a marina that has annual berths and join a wait list. We did and we pay €5.5k for a 10 berth.
3. Work out your running budget. Remember all those jobs you use to do. You will now pay for someone to do them so when you arrive you can just relax. I do anyway. This year antifouling and a hill polish will be around €1.5k. I use to do this myself and my old marina included a lift for free.
4. Pick somewhere where there is more than just boating.
5. Figure out a budget and then get the detail. Our move cost us around £6k with some surprises on top.
6. Do it. You won't regret it.
 
You don't say for how long you get off at a stretch or how often. If it's 5 to 7 weeks and 3 weeks max in one go, then I would say that it isn't feasible. I would say, as suggested above, chartering would be the best option.
Chartering from different bases would give you an idea as to where you would like to base yourself when the time comes.
 
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