Places one can anchor for free and places one has to pay to anchor?

Is anchoring here free or paid for?

  • Free

    Votes: 21 95.5%

  • Paid for

    Votes: 1 4.5%
  • Total voters
    22
JumbleDuck said:
So they don't take seriously their own statement that "... TENDERS, KAYAKS, CANOES, SKIFFS, STAND-UP PADDLEBOARDS, WINDSURFERS AND PERSONAL WATERCRAFT ... USING THE HARBOUR HAVE A STATUTORY OBLIGATION TO PAY HARBOUR DUES"? Or do many TENDERS, KAYAKS, CANOES, SKIFFS, STAND-UP PADDLEBOARDS, WINDSURFERS AND PERSONAL WATERCRAFT anchor in Chchester harbour?

If you're there overnight, how many days do you pay for?
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They do charge for dinghies Tec and if you don't pay the dinghy gets tied away then auctioned off. That's usually the cheapest way to get it back as they charge £120 for towing it away plus weekly 'storage' which will cost a lot more than the usual auction price. Don't ask how I know this..... :(
 
mainsail1 said:
Splitting hairs. They charge for anchoring. They do not charge if you are underway.
IMHO nowhere should charge for anchoring. Most places are providing nothing for the money.
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Splitting hairs in a different way. The charge is for using the harbour - not for anchoring. Just convenient to collect it from stationary boats. All regular users who have berths or keep their watercraft in the harbour pay harbour dues whether they anchor or not. They will pay the seasonal rate and will not be charged for anchoring. Visitors pay the daily rate.

Where harbours charge for anchoring it is in addition to harbour dues, which only constitutes part of the charge as Laika reports.
 
Don't all the rules and regulations make you despair? If they got rid of the majority of the jobsworths there would be no need to charge for anchoring. I seem to remember we got on just fine a few years ago when there were no such charges.
 
mainsail1 said:
Don't all the rules and regulations make you despair? If they got rid of the majority of the jobsworths there would be no need to charge for anchoring. I seem to remember we got on just fine a few years ago when there were no such charges.
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Harbour authorities and harbour dues have been there for far more years than most of us have been sailing. Equally charging for anchoring in some places is nothing new. The increase in regulation just reflects the vast increase in leisure activities in our harbours over the last 40 years or so. No point in being nostalgic about the past, it is us (collectively) that has caused the present situation by insisting we all want a bit of the action.
 
I have just been on holiday in Croatia and it really brought home to me the lack of anchorages we have. Sailing out from Split there are more anchorages than there are days remaining in my life.
 
mainsail1 said:
Very philosophical but ever so sad!
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Yes, indeed sad that in the past the vast majority of the population could not enjoy our coastline, particularly as i would have been one of them, perhaps like my father who spent his working life in a foundry with 2 weeks holiday a year.

I love reading my Maurice Griffiths books of the 1930s but that was a world for the favoured few. Strange in a way that he was a leader of the "boats for the people" movement given that he knew it would change our coastline forever.
 
Tranona said:
Harbour authorities and harbour dues have been there for far more years than most of us have been sailing. Equally charging for anchoring in some places is nothing new. The increase in regulation just reflects the vast increase in leisure activities in our harbours over the last 40 years or so.
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And yet there seems to have been a considerable increase in the number of places charging for anchoring over the last ten years or so when it is generally reckoned that leisure sailing in the UK has been dying on its arse. Understandable, of course, that all teh jobs and facilities introduced in the boom years have to be paid for in the lean ones.
 
Seven Spades said:
I have just been on holiday in Croatia and it really brought home to me the lack of anchorages we have. Sailing out from Split there are more anchorages than there are days remaining in my life.
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I'm in Croatia at the moment and it's not the surfeit of anchorages that's killing me ..... it's the heat. Touching 40 degrees all 3 days since we arrived is too much for any of us. :(

Richard
 
There's no charge to anchor at Padstow... I've been advised on best anchorage location by HM and no request for payment was made.
 
JumbleDuck said:
And yet there seems to have been a considerable increase in the number of places charging for anchoring over the last ten years or so when it is generally reckoned that leisure sailing in the UK has been dying on its arse. Understandable, of course, that all teh jobs and facilities introduced in the boom years have to be paid for in the lean ones.
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No. I don't think there is an increase. The number of places is still very small and includes the "must go" places where the middle class (dare I say it!) have swamped the local facilities, both water and land. If I had the energy I would look up the waterborne visitor numbers in places like Dartmouth and Salcombe as pretty sure they would show a steady increase rather than decline.
 
Anchored overnight on the Isle of White for free same years ago on my Day Skipper!
Republic of Ireland never asked to pay anywhere I anchored in 15 years.
Sailing from Guardamar de Seguea Costa Blanca these days. Local anchorage's are free although I understand the Balearics have many officially bouyed anchorage's were payment and advanced booking is required in the high season! I hope to avoid these in September if my planned cruise comes off this time��
 
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Salcombe and Dartmouth charge anchorers harbour dues only, and are careful not to charge for anchoring, thus honouring the common law right to anchor in tidal waters as concomitant part of the international right to navigate in such waters.
I used to find it a pain though.
Incidentally, loads of French and Dutch visitors to the Salcombe/Kingsbridge area at the moment, plus the usual RIBS like flies on a chunk of horse meat, as we approach the two annual regatta weeks which are usually the busiest of the year.
 
To me, harbour dues is just another name for anchoring charges.
Anchoring should be completely free as you are not using any of their resources and any they provide are not wanted by most yachtsmen.
 
BelleSerene said:
Anchoring should be completely free as you are not using any of their resources and any they provide are not wanted by most yachtsmen.
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True in many cases, but in Chichester it does pay for the buoyage, surveying and dredging of the bar, etc. No commercial port there, so if not paid for by leisure users then it wouldn't happen.

Maybe some of us would like a completely wild estuary, accepting that we'd have to avoid the sandbanks by our own devices, but given the surrounding population it wouldn't be wild and deserted, but wild and overrun with speedboats, jetskis, moorings laid willy-nilly everywhere, abandoned wrecks, and so on.

Harbour dues are not a new thing there, the ancient 8-foot dinghy I played in on my grandparents' lawn still had an old dues plaque attached from when they used to use it as a tender.

Pete
 
mainsail1 said:
To me, harbour dues is just another name for anchoring charges.
Anchoring should be completely free as you are not using any of their resources and any they provide are not wanted by most yachtsmen.
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That is simply unrealistic. Harbour dues have been in place for hundreds of years as parliament has established harbour authorities to manage and develop designated harbours. Why should you be exempt from paying to use the harbour?
 
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