Med berth

Moose

Moose

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I'm thinking about moving the boat to the Med. I don't really know whereabouts is best but the criteria are:

a) Not stupidly expensive
b) Interesting boating
d) In France or Italy

Could someone give me a brief run down on how I actually go about getting a berth, I see that lots of berths are long term leases. I only want to rent a berth UK style.
 
Ooo er, how long have you got? As a very general rule, the closer the marina is to an international airport, the nicer the environs and the better the weather, the less likely you'll find a berth to rent at a reasonable cost. Having said this, there really is no point in basing your boat in an area you dont like thats 3 hrs drive from an airport. I suggest you do some tours of areas you fancy and then concentrate on finding a berth in your favourite. Its fairly pointless ringing around marinas from the UK as most offices wont speak English and they'll say they're full anyway. Its best to turn up, smile, beg and maybe offer to pay for a berth there and then

Here are some possibilities

Mallorca (north/east, possibly Palma)
Mainland Spain + Gibraltar
Menorca
France (west of Marseille)
Italy/Slovenia/Croatia (north Adriatic)

Most marinas, if they have space, will offer you rental on a month by month basis. There is no security of tenure, you may get moved around but once you've built up a payment history and get known by the marina staff, you will become more secure
 
There has been lots on the forum before about this - maybe search?.

All berths are on longterm leases, but the leaseholders (who have security of tenure) often rent out the berths. This is usually done through the marina office monthly or yearly, using published price lists, at prices a bit less than solent even in a posh med place. Some berth owners also ask for a separate under-the-table payment, as the official marina price lists are rather cheap for what you're getting.

If you want to rent off the marina's inventory of rentable berths, you have to go and visit and make the acquaintance of the person who runs the marina office. If you call they just say "full". Or you can find a private owner (from an ad or middleman) and do a deal, with under-the-table payment, and then the berth owner will tell the marina that you will be occupying the berth and you pay the price list payment directly to marina.

I'd recommend getting marina near an airport. Palma airport is 10mins cab to the Palma marinas, but an hour from the NE marinas like Alcudia. Nice has best connections to UK and is much faster to pass through on foot than Palma, then a 50 Euro cab and 20mins gets you to about 8 nice marinas. Both Palma and Nice have great cruising grounds. I don't know italy so well, but the cruising around Genoa is imho not nice enough to last you a couple of seasons (especially if you are a weekender so cannot do Corsica and Elba every time)

Beware taking advice from this month's MBY. Frinstance they said all Fench berth sales are done thru marina office. That is total nonsense and I have no idea how MBY can do such cr@p research, but if that is wrong so could be the rest. Marina spaces (the long leases, I mean) are bought and sold privately in france - you just go into marina to get papers stamped after you have done the deal. The legal structures vary from port to port.

What size boat you have in mind? LOA and beam? The berths come in specific sizes only and are in different supply/demand for each size, and it differs for each marina. Boat size also affects fuel and things.

Either way, the cruising is fantastic. Here's the weather in France (Antibes) on New Years eve...

IMG_1624.sized.jpg


IMG_1616.sized.jpg
 
Anybody know if I could get a mooring, not a marina berth in antibe or nice type area for next summer?? 57' motorsailer. Dinghy access to town also needed.
 
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Palma airport is 10mins cab to the Palma marinas, but an hour from the NE marinas like Alcudia

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A new motorway is being built across the island to Alcudia. The bits that are already opened have reduced the travel time to about 40 minutes and I think it will take about 30 mins when it is fully open. Having said that there are sometimes delays at the moment due to the construction traffic.

Taxi fare from airport about €65 which I think about the same from Nice to the local marina's

Martyn
 
Except for Villefranche harbour, AFAIK threre are no moorings at all on Cote D'Azur. Everything is marina berths.

I dont know who controls the Villefranche swinging moorings but there is a marina nearby (just out of shot, to right, in pic below) so call them and ask? The swing moorers are the boats closest to camera in this pic, which is taken looking towards south west. The lefthand headland is the Cap Ferrat. The Southern tip of Cap D'Antibes is 8 miles to the west, it would come into shot on the horizon if the camera panned right just a bit.

villefranche.jpg


Would be wonderful to get one of those moorings. It is one of the most beautiful anchorages in the entire med, and v close to airport. You can dinghy ashore and there's a town (bottom right of pic) plus train to Cannes or Monaco and Italy - beautiful train ride right right along the coast

You can drop yuor hook anywhere of course, but I cant think of a place you could leave an anchored boat unattended safely. Villefranche is well protected except if westerly weather. People anchore there for several days on the trot through the summer, maybe longer. But you need to move the boat if a westerly comes in....
 
agree with all the others. Also note magnum flew to mallorca and got a mooring. But key point is he actually pitched up. Nother key point is he wasn't asking in the very most pressured marinas, perhaps. Nother key point is praps he was lucky. But bet you could be lucky too.

Yes there are berths to let. But s france and italy are very latin countries. This means that swmbo get lots of lovely manners from locals and not expected to do much except flutter about. This also means that there's a fair bit of back-scratching that goes on and queue-jumping which is stickly not sposed to happen in UK.

So, frinstance, one season our boat was ashorte and they had rented out the space in the marina, and as now, all marinas very full. damn! So, i asked about through the servicing guy and seeing as i had paid their bills nicely and he knew the marina bloke they "found" me a space. Which must sort-of mean that they chucked some git out who didn't pay his bills or who was actually an even nastier git than me. So even if you DO get a so-called long-term berth, you can always be given 30 days notice as any serious git will confirm.

The main reason for this is that as jfm alludes, the med marinas cost oodles to build partly cos in deep water and also cos much nicer than cack marinas in uk whcih are mainly some poxy floating pontoons in a river or even just some sticks in yarmouth and a portaloo. Port solent is amongst the best marinas in uk but in s france would be closed down cos of intense crapness incl wobbly narrow pontoons, rubbish weedy lecky that can't run everything full tilt without pop damn and so on.

In med, they sold long long leases (50years) on the berths to get rick quick. Or at least, so not to prat about collecting 5-10 grand each flipin year as in uk. And anyway see, even if you do buy a berth then the service charge is erm 2-3 grand! ouch. Whereas faux-aristocrtic near monopolies like MDL in uk play a long long game and never sell the berths at all. But the good thing is that the moment jimi nips off the west country, his berth is free - whereas in france if i buy a berth than it's mine like you spare bedroom is yours and even with loads of homeless people nobody can kip in your spare bedroom, you heartless ratbag.

So, cut to chase, find somewhere you would like to be. Then *maybe* with lots of enthusiasm and pleading from swmbo they might suddenly find a space.

OR frexample other people hereabouts will say yep actually i know such ans such bloke/lady in that marina and they own severall berths so mebbe i can "mention it" for you and again a berth magically appears. BUT the important thing is not to have people move heaven and earth to make a space and then say well, ner actually, i have found a space somehwere cheaper so thanks but no thanks which is wot happened nearly a bit with me and jfm and others too a while back.

Note again tho that you can get moved along UNLESS you buy a berth. There's no suc thing as a real queue and there's no such thing as "annual berthholder" as in uk. So overall, mdl are quite nice i suppose cos thry could just chuck out 10 moany people and replacem with ten waiting people, just like they do in the med. So, think on.
 
argh, my boats been nicked.

jfm's pic would seem to show our pontton but erm with the wrong boats, perhaps. hence my boat msut've been pinched! Damn, anotherinsurance claim, but i wanted to get some gear off first, darnit...
 
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agree with all the others. Also note magnum flew to mallorca and got a mooring. But key point is he actually pitched up. Nother key point is he wasn't asking in the very most pressured marinas, perhaps. Nother key point is praps he was lucky. But bet you could be lucky too.

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Not quite. The only marina I didn't ask on the south and east coast was Portals, mainly because I didn't want to be there. All the others including Cala d'Or found me a berth. The main thing is getting out there, and now's the time to do it.
 
Re: argh, my boats been nicked.

No, my marina pic is taken from bow of our boat, looking at the East side of Quai #1, not Quai Sud

Incidentally, Quai Sud has been made all posh in last few weeks with new tarmac, white lines, palm trees, peach-painted dumpster enclosures, kerbs around the palm trees, access barriers to keep non mole-suders out, etc etc. Look here (Magnum, the berth far left of pic with stern of Sunseeker Yacht 75, blue cover on tender, is your old spot):

IMG_1611.sized.jpg
 
Re:

Great pics jfm, Antibes looks a bit dead!. Wasn't it cold out on the flybridge, it was warm in the sun but certainly not out of it. The wind chill was freezin. There was a frost in St Tropez before Christmas!.
 
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