Over night berthing fees, rip off?

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OAF

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Do you think that short stay berthing fees are a rip off? Do you have examples of costs for different places? in Yarmouth this weekend I paid £1.01 per foot for a walk ashore pontoon with leccy, I don't consider that to be good value.
 
OAF said:
Do you think that short stay berthing fees are a rip off? Do you have examples of costs for different places? in Yarmouth this weekend I paid £1.01 per foot for a walk ashore pontoon with leccy, I don't consider that to be good value.
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The problem is that as long as people will pay it, the harbour owners will charge it. From a commercial point of view which, let's face it, is the only point of view that counts nowadays, they would be crazy not to.

What really annoys me about Yarmouth is the fact that they claim to be able to charge for anchoring outside the seawall (it's in their price list). What service do they provide to justify that? Do they lay fresh mud and sand every season? Or send a diver down to make sure your Rocna has dug in? :D
 
parsifal said:
What really annoys me about Yarmouth is the fact that they claim to be able to charge for anchoring outside the seawall (it's in their price list).
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Mm. The legal harbour limits extend well outside the breakwater, from immediately east of the pier to quite a way west of the harbour and well out to sea. Within that area the harbour commissioners can more or less do what they want - they're certainly within their rights to charge harbour dues, which I guess is what the charge for anchoring is framed as (the dues being included in the price for all other mooring facilities).

Interestingly, last year's harbour guide didn't mention anchoring, but a brief entry in PBO suggested that one could anchor free of charge inside the mooring buoys. The harbourmaster wrote in the following month to say that one jolly well could not, and that it was somehow immoral to expect to be able to anchor for free anywhere! I suspect the new entry in the price list may have something to do with this little exchange, and I further suspect that they will enforce it now.

Hence in a recent thread on Scuttlebutt I was asking about the practicalities of anchoring east of the pier, outside his little fiefdom :)

Pete
 
prv said:
The harbourmaster wrote in the following month to say that one jolly well could not, and that it was somehow immoral to expect to be able to anchor for free anywhere! I suspect the new entry in the price list may have something to do with this little exchange, and I further suspect that they will enforce it now.
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Thanks Pete

I shall certainly include him in my prayers tonight. :mad:

Percy
 
Overnight rates paid for a 40 foot catamaran over the last weekend or two (so probably onto summer rates now) on the Solent.....

Lymington Town quay/ walkashore/ £19 per night/ no electric
Yarmouth on the piles/ dinghyashore/ £20 per night/ paddle to toilets and pay for showers
East Cowes Marina/ walkashore/ £37 per night/ inc electric
Gun Wharf/ walkashore/ £48 per night/ inc electric

There seems to be a correlation between facilities and price, and also a correlation between age of facility and price too.

Reminds me of the idiom 'yer pays yer money, and takes yer choice.'

For us, they are all enjoyable overnight destinations, but the lower priced ones have an 'extra' attraction.

Cheers

Garold
 
If you think you're getting ripped off in the UK for visitor mooring charges, then try the Med. I regularly pay €100 a night for a 16m boat, even in Croatia which is cheaper than the W Med. The most expensive I've heard of was €375/night in Ibiza Town in August 2009 for a 15m berth. Supply and demand, I guess
 
Deleted User said:
If you think you're getting ripped off in the UK for visitor mooring charges, then try the Med. I regularly pay €100 a night for a 16m boat, even in Croatia which is cheaper than the W Med. The most expensive I've heard of was €375/night in Ibiza Town in August 2009 for a 15m berth. Supply and demand, I guess
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We should count our selves lucky then by those rates, you are obviously paying for the sun whereas we don't!!
 
neale said:
I have certainly done that and found good holding.
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It wasn't so much a question of holding as of where to land in the dinghy (and where to leave it having done so). I have a big anchor for the size of boat, but I've never seen the foreshore to the east of the pier.

Pete
 
were regular visiters to east bourne marina and pay 55 quid for two nights,
i dont begrudge paying it, showers are hot and very clean, security is superb
they seem to act very quickly when any thing is happening in the marina. but it would be nice if they gave a little discount or a free night occaisionally
for boats that use them regulary. ps the boat is 10mtrs.
 
I'm pretty much through with yarmouth harbour, there attitude along with the alterations somehow it's just not the same, I much prefer lymington, I'll make you all aware a certain forum member and our friends visited lymington this weekend, both playing in dinghies, getting the riot act from the hm for speeding, my friend was shocked by the attitude of the hm, the way they read the act, very unprofessional doing it in front of the town crowd.
 
It is interesting it see what others are paying at marinas outside of the Solent, I do like Yarmouth and gunwharf and maybe for that reason alone a premium charge has to excepted or in the case of Yarmouth use the quieter non walk ashore moorings.

VP the only trouble with Lymington is if you can't get on to the town quay pontoon then the other pontoon further down is right opposite the boat yard, plus chances are if town quay is full so is the other pontoon, I have tried many times to get in there late on only to find the piles available which I am too big for.

What sort of mayhem were you causing for the HM to get involved? Disgraceful that's all I can say!! ( I would put a smiley face but I haven't learnt how yet)
 
volvopaul said:
I'm pretty much through with yarmouth harbour, there attitude along with the alterations somehow it's just not the same, I much prefer lymington, I'll make you all aware a certain forum member and our friends visited lymington this weekend, both playing in dinghies, getting the riot act from the hm for speeding, my friend was shocked by the attitude of the hm, the way they read the act, very unprofessional doing it in front of the town crowd.
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The HMs in Lymington always seem fairly pleasant to me.

I was talking to one of the Lymington HMs at the weekend and apparently they now have a zero tolerance policy to any harbour rule breaking.

We were talking specifically about speeding and he told me that they had recently taken someone to court and they ahd received a big fine for speeding in the harbour (15 knots in the 6 knots channel). They also apparently now run regular patrols to catch offenders.

Whilst we were on the quay this last wkend, the HM also dealt with some teenagers who were jumping off the quay into the water making a bit of noise and gaining quite a crowd of rowdy onlookers.

Unfortunately it looks like the HM can't please everyone.

Cheers

Garold

Ps However hard I try, I cannot maintain steerage when passing the docked ferry in Lymington if I only do 4 knots. His thrusters, even when he is against the quay, push me sideways then spin me round.
 
In answer to the original question, when you can be charged £50 per night for a patch of grass to park a caravan on, I think marina charges for overnight stay suddenly look better value! :o
 
OAF said:
Do you think that short stay berthing fees are a rip off? Do you have examples of costs for different places? in Yarmouth this weekend I paid £1.01 per foot for a walk ashore pontoon with leccy, I don't consider that to be good value.
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I paid £17.50 per night for four nights, plus a one off £3.50 leccy charge, just before Easter. For a 25 footer I reckon that ain't bad. Got a shower on the boat, so don't need to pay the £1.20 extra.
 
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