Marinas -are they missing a trick?

[Gentlemanracer]

The journals will have you believe that with the money you save by having a fast and fuel efficient boat that costs much less than a motor yacht, you can afford to live it up in good hotels and more. Well, the theory sounds fine but... When the weather is good, there aren't any hotels, good or otherwise, to live up to anything! So I'd take up the option when booking the berth to also book a room at the Marina hotel, and that's my point. For non campers like me, are marinas missing a trick? Or do I just get a boat thats bigger, and slower, and, and..??

 

[MapisM]

a fast and fuel efficient boat that costs much less than a motor yacht

Does such thing exist? "Fast and fuel efficient boat", now that's an oxymoron if I've ever seen one.

PS: re your question, yes, just get a boat that's bigger, slower, and, and.

 

[lisilou]

Yeh...just get a bigger one. Couldn't be faffing about booking hotels rooms tbh.
L

 

[JSYmartini]

Years ago, when I bought my first offshore boat, it came down to either a 22ft rib or a Channel Island 22 cabin boat.
The rib won, probably the boy racer in me, I convinced myself that by getting a B&B wherever I went, I had the best of both worlds.

Since then I've been stung for huge amounts of money for luxury self catering apartments etc in Guernsey peak season, took a hundred mile taxi inland from Le Havre for a one night stay, spent several sleepless nights on deck in the peeing rain and done a huge amount of fuel in on some quite long distance day return trips!

Now I've got a 35ft mobo that could sleep 6 I can go somewhere on a Friday night and happily stay all weekend with all my creature comforts. The extra I spend on marina fees for a bigger boat as well as the higher fuel consumption is more than offset by not bombing around doing 2 return trips somewhere every weekend and being able to cook on board etc. plus I'm more likely to be able to persuade friends to come with me who of course can chip in with the costs!

 

[Andy Bav]

When we have stayed at Premier Innns etc before we got into boating we had to pay the nightly rate up front and could pay a bit extra to cancel up to 12.00 mid day the day before arrival. However the only thing that would cause us to cancel would be illness or a Car breakdown so we tookthat small gamble and didn't pay the extra. However with a smaller boat you are gambling with the weather and state of the sea.

When we set of from swanwick for Torquay we thought we would do it in 5-6 hours. It took us 29 as the weather pushed us into Poole on day 1 where we stayed for the night at no cost as it was an MDL marina. However with a Premier inn staring us in the face, in know that the cheap "book in advance" specials would not be available and if we needed couple of rooms for the night we would have had to pay the full going rate.

So for us as a family of 5 (sometimes - depending on work commitments) a bigger boat works.

 

[blueglass]

get a bigger boat. the extra size isn't just all about sleeping accomodation. in general terms bigger is safer too. Go big and go slow and I think you will pay less overall.

 

[Gentlemanracer]

Yeh...just get a bigger one. Couldn't be faffing about booking hotels rooms tbh.
L

I'd take a room with a berth, same faff budget, and its a trick I'd dearly like a marina or two pull off. But I'm getting the message, folks, it looks like bigger is a thing to add to the imagineering process!