LOA for berthing: include bowsprit or not?

sniffyjenkins

sniffyjenkins

Well-Known Member
Joined
24 Aug 2015
Messages
320
Location
Brighton
www.instagram.com
Hi all

When we're staying at marinas and we pay we always include the 4' bowsprit in the stated LOA. I thought that was a thing that folks did. We recently stayed a night on a visitor's buoy in Salcombe Harbour. Lovely it was too. The harbour master boat came round in the afternoon to collect payment, very friendly. He asked the LOA of our boat and I immediately said 35 feet. He then added "without the bowsprit?". Oh. 31 feet then. He charged us for 31 feet.

Lovely!

I was under the impression, however, that the LOA of a boat included all its protuberances and appendages, no?

Anyway, they asked for 31' of my money after correcting me down 4', so I was pretty delighted with this.

Happy days.
 
LOA to be charged is usually defined in the very small print of their Ts and Cs and does include all appendages. As you were on a swinging mooring, the HM obviously took a pragmatic and friendly approach and realised the bow sprit made SFA difference to the load on their buoy.
 
TallBuoy said:
LOA to be charged is usually defined in the very small print of their Ts and Cs and does include all appendages. As you were on a swinging mooring, the HM obviously took a pragmatic and friendly approach and realised the bow sprit made SFA difference to the load on their buoy.
Click to expand...

And unless your mooring strop was attached to the end of your bowsprit, your swinging radius was that of a 31 footer. Nice to see a pragmatic approach!
 
As far as I remember, bowsprits were invented a little before marinas, and so the situation will never resolve itself justly alround. Although I don't possess a bowsprit I favour the honest approach to marinas both in this, and expressing one's boat's length generally, because they are bound to find out anyway and the ill-feeling generated by trying to fool them makes it not worth the hassle. My 10.2m is often round down to <10 anyway.
 
my boat is 32 foot. years ago i was painting the deck and put the anchor over the bow. in the week after i was leaving the deck to dry, the boat was re measured and the marina wanted an extra 400 quid!
 
We went into Heybridge basin behind a smack and gently nudged his skiff out of the way. The smack skipper had a bit of a moan about that.
A lady's loud voice from above called,
"Oi, listen, I'm charging you for 35ft, I'm ignoring the 18ft of bowsprit and 16ft of skiff. Other people want to get in, so be nice!"
No more complaints after that.:)
 
I can never understand why marinas charge by length. Whether a catway is occupied by a 26' or a 35' boat makes no difference to the cost to the marina. Not that I'm complaining - I benefit by having a small boat (small by today's standards anyway).
 
DanTribe said:
We went into Heybridge basin behind a smack and gently nudged his skiff out of the way. The smack skipper had a bit of a moan about that.
A lady's loud voice from above called,
"Oi, listen, I'm charging you for 35ft, I'm ignoring the 18ft of bowsprit and 16ft of skiff. Other people want to get in, so be nice!"
No more complaints after that.:)
Click to expand...
Lovely story. Well said that woman.
 
DanTribe said:
We went into Heybridge basin behind a smack and gently nudged his skiff out of the way. The smack skipper had a bit of a moan about that.
A lady's loud voice from above called,
"Oi, listen, I'm charging you for 35ft, I'm ignoring the 18ft of bowsprit and 16ft of skiff. Other people want to get in, so be nice!"
No more complaints after that.:)
Click to expand...

Good woman :)

Thanks all!

And yes, Colvic Watson, seriously. The brass maker's panel inside my boat states LOA as 35' so that's what I always go with, even though the hull is only 31'. The bowsprit is fixed.

I just looked up LOA actually and it says technically it's hull length without apendages, but as TallBuoy says, for charging purposes I think bowsprits are generally included. Naturally.

So, there seems to be no consensus then. Interesting.
 
In France you are charged by the overall dimemsions and the marinas normally have a littel book that gives then the standard measurements. They wanted to move me up a category but I had changed the pulpit which brought me down a category.
 
Bowsprit.

In the past, when we ware still using marina´s, I had a few quarrels about that bowsprit.
Especially in Italy where ormeggio´s use criminal techniques to steal from tourists.
We almost always moore bows ( bowsprit ) to, even if the “Captain” on the pontoon shouts “NO NO turn around.
We then use the bowsprit as a sort of boarding plank.
Reason for bows to mooring is double. It is a lot easier and the stern of our boat is cluttered with rigid wooden davids, a yawl boom with sheeting arrangement and lots of other useful stuff. ( Ahum )
Getting on or of the boat that way is difficult.
It has happened that a somewhat angry ormeggio ( nasty nasty captain ) wanted me to pay for the length of the 7 feet bowsprit.
I then always argumented that the boats next to me had 7 feet gangways and did not pay for them.
That is the fun of Italy, one can argument for hours.
The ormeggio´s then said that gangways can be tilted up.
So can our bowsprit I said. And so on.
Twice ( In Turkey ) I was forced to retract the bowsprit. Just 10 minutes of work, but no way I would pay for the water under our bowsprit.

Last years we mainly anchor. I even made a extension on the bowsprit. Just an old spinnaker pole lashed to the bowsprit. Was meant to carry the top down furler for the asymmetric spinnaker.
A week later, anchored in a remote bay on Dokos island, a water taxi speeded in to it. The driver said he had not seen the pole. I now use the rest as a sort of crumple zone.
 
Good afternoon. If possible, I hand over my SSR card in the office, and they get the details from it, which don't include the bowsprit naturally...

It does make a big difference, if you're wintering in a marina for example.

I have found that French harbours never charge for the bowsprit, British ones usually do.

Salcombe, Falmouth and Fowey all charged for my bowsprit ..on visitor's buoys!

I always try it on, twist and turn, and argue that my bowsprit can lift up (even though it's a faff, and I've no intention of doing so ;) ) Also flash the SSR and say, look this is the registered length, etc.

If they say they charge for the bowsprit, I react as if horrified and amazed by their greed, as if they are the only harbour doing so in the world, and shockingly out of step with normal practice.

Why voluntarily hand over extra cash to these ferally greedy organisations? Do you go and tip the HM as well for allowing you to hand him your money?

Contrary to opinion expressed above, I always find a bit of haggling puts a smile on peoples' faces even if you're on a hiding to nothing..

Mind you, I can always argue, because my boat is unusual and not in their little black book.

I'm bolting an Aries on the back end shortly, do people get charged for that addition as well?
 
Last edited:
I always give the length on deck and often round that down to 10 metres. The 12 foot bowsprit almost always gets taken in anyway since it makes manuvering less inimidating for both me and other people.
 
A few years ago, Cesme marina, Turkey.
The guy in the office was apparently new, wanted to impress.
Looked for half an hour trough our “Meetbrief”, a 60 year old document ( French and Vlaams ) and found the length of the boat. That was the length without rudder. The rudder sticks out almost two feet from the stern. Under water mostly. I paid and we off into town.
Same evening the guy came to the boat. He had made a ( At least 15 minutes ) photocopy of that page in our Meetbrief and had found the length with rudder. That was a different price range.
Guy started arguing, I said, look, I turn the rudder parallel with the stern.
In the end he even went to get someone from the Coast Guard.
Bad luck for Mr Bureaucrat, the Coast guard officer gave me right.
 
sniffyjenkins said:
Good woman :)

Thanks all!

And yes, Colvic Watson, seriously. The brass maker's panel inside my boat states LOA as 35' so that's what I always go with, even though the hull is only 31'. The bowsprit is fixed.

I just looked up LOA actually and it says technically it's hull length without apendages, but as TallBuoy says, for charging purposes I think bowsprits are generally included. Naturally.

So, there seems to be no consensus then. Interesting.
Click to expand...

The registered length should be 31'6" as that is the design hull length. That is what you should put on your SSR.

You will find that many marinas use the registered lengths for charging visitors, particularly in Europe. As for bowsprits it depends on the marina but the tendency is to charge for them particularly if it is a permanent berth as berths have maximum lengths - for example 10m and 12m are often size break points.

Although length is the most common basis for charges, some use area (L*B) and others, again particularly in Europe, use maximum berth size - so you pay 8m, 10m, 12m etc.

In our club we have break points with minimum boat size because there is a shortage of larger berths. Fortunately my 10m boat just gets in the min 32'6" for one of the larger berths! My next door neighbour who had a short sprit has just converted it to lifting to get under 10m, but still over 32'6". Reckons he will save £200 a year when visiting other marinas.
 
I think for a permanent berth LOL is usually measured but most harbours and marinas are pretty relaxed and just accept the makers hull length. I just tell marinas my boat is an 8m Catalac and even though the overall length including dinghy on davits and bowsprit is more like 9.5m I have never been challenged about this in nearly 14 years with this boat. Perhaps the way that marina staff are approached affects how picky they feel about boat lengths or perhaps having an old well used boat elicites a sympathetic response!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top