Premier - the Ryanair of marinas

Looking at the mast of the boat with the red sail cover and the jaunty angle of the one behind the mobo nearest the camera it's not only the E-W channel that has problems! :eek:
 
My boat is at Chichester, Premier have been generally excellent, staff very friendly and helpful. I've spent time using my 'visitor nights' at Gosport and Port Solent, experience there has been generally excellent too.

Chichester has really grown on me though - great marina
 
Little Grebe said:
Ouch I have known it to be a bit shallow at times but never that bad, and if I recall correctly passages along the coast often mean leaving or arriving around low water.
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Once we planned to leave at LW to catch the tide along the cost.
Boat draws 7' - had to wait till HW-3 before we could get out of our berth.
We had arrived HW+1 the previous night.
 
KevB said:
I thought most marina's charged for pump out in Chi was the exception to the rule as it being classed as an inland marina?
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I don't pay much attention as we don't have a tank, but the impression I get is that they are usually free in seagoing marinas to try to encourage people to adopt the habit. Despite this, in most places they're rarely used (and some I think have been removed or been out of order for long periods).

Pete
 
TeamSpirit said:
Premier customer for over 11 years in Chi and PS, staff always excellent and helpful, security good, services and facilities had appropriate investments and upgrades and competitively priced, under Blackrock and yes, their are cheaper options and alternative you pays your money 'n' takes your choice.

Blackrocks' Sale of Premier should attract more investments and should make further improvements to their marina product and services possible. Their property and land options make this an attractive acquisition so no wonder three bidders in the race.
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You are kidding are you?
 
rodpage said:
Longer than that, I ran aground off the end between the first two visitors pontoons on 1st March 2014, at that time there was 0.3m at LAT there.
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I do a trip to Brighton every year in May to take in some of the Brighton Fringe "culture" (!). Always good fun. Last year's trip had to be curtailed to a sail from Hamble to Gossie, because it was blowing a Force 9 and I didn't fancy venturing out into open water. So, we got the train from Portsmouth to Brighton instead. As a result, didn't get to see how shallow it had become.

This year's trip will be at the end of May, and that happens to be near neaps on arrival (midway to springs on departure). That said, my preferred arrival time would have me entering the marina near low water and that sounds like a no-no, even close to neaps. I rang them up to check and they confirmed. I draw 2.1m, and it sounds like I will bottom out even on their deepest visitor berths (right by the entrance) at low water on my last day there. I assume it is fairly soft mud if only drying out by a foot or less. (Anyone able to confirm this?)

How on earth have they managed to let it get so bad for so long without doing something about it? Have they applied for a dredging licence and are having difficulty getting permission to dump the stuff, or are they just not bothered?
 
Angele said:
I do a trip to Brighton every year in May to take in some of the Brighton Fringe "culture" (!). Always good fun. Last year's trip had to be curtailed to a sail from Hamble to Gossie, because it was blowing a Force 9 and I didn't fancy venturing out into open water. So, we got the train from Portsmouth to Brighton instead. As a result, didn't get to see how shallow it had become.

This year's trip will be at the end of May, and that happens to be near neaps on arrival (midway to springs on departure). That said, my preferred arrival time would have me entering the marina near low water and that sounds like a no-no, even close to neaps. I rang them up to check and they confirmed. I draw 2.1m, and it sounds like I will bottom out even on their deepest visitor berths (right by the entrance) at low water on my last day there. I assume it is fairly soft mud if only drying out by a foot or less. (Anyone able to confirm this?)

How on earth have they managed to let it get so bad for so long without doing something about it? Have they applied for a dredging licence and are having difficulty getting permission to dump the stuff, or are they just not bothered?
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The problems in the main fairway relate to the storms over the winter of 2013/2014. After this the entrance and main fairway were substantially silted up. As I understand it their normal dredging schedule is once a year in May, last year they brought this forward somewhat and managed to sort out the entrance and fairway up as far as the visitor pontoons, but the fairway east of that was still shallow when they ran out of time. From the look of the photos above it seems to have got worse, which is probably why I ran aground at the east end of the fairway late last year in a position which had previously been ok.

I would therefore expect the entrance and area up to the visitors pontoons to be dredged by late May, but you might want to confirm their dredging schedule with them. I've moved out for similar reasons to others described above, so I am out of touch with the exact situation.

Towards the end of my time there I was berthed on the west side under the building work, and with a draught of 1.6m was able to access my berth with 0.6m below CD in it at neeps, worst case unusable 1.5 hours either side of LW at springs (I should point out that there are a lot of berths in that area with better depth). I would expect the accessibility of the visitors pontoons to be much better than this.

In 2 years at Brighton I never had a berth where the boat didn't stick her keel in the mud at LW springs, sometimes the whole hull would be sitting on the mud. This did not cause any problem, but might cause too much stress on a high aspect ratio keel or a wing keel. Running aground is not particularly a drama either.

Provided they dredge the entrance, and it's not a strong south easterly making the entrance too bouncy for the available depth, I would not be too worried about arriving at LW springs. If need be you can enter the entrance and hold in side, indeed sometimes the marina staff will suggest this to allow boats to get into sheltered conditions. If you can't reach a visitors pontoon due to lack of depth you might have to spend a bit of time aground but at least it should be calm. The marina may give advice not to enter, and although this often seems to be overly cautious, it's at your own risk to ignore this. Best water should allow access to the L made by pontoons 10/11, and these should be more commonly available because the area north of 10 has been converted to linear pontoons for th bigger boats to use. Once throught the entrance keep well away from the south wall as that's very shallow. Keep as close to the north-south pontoons as possible. In addition don't try to go down the north south fairway under the building works at low water as this is also shallow at the south end.

I enjoyed my two years at Brighton, and as stated by others there are some good people here, particularly in the yard, I just think they're working with too small a budget to get the place properly sorted out. They really need to dredge the whole marina, both fairways and berthing areas. The place seems to have emptied out some but I would attribute some of this to the location, as there's nowhere really to go and the conditions in the entrance can be a bit boisterous, sometimes even in moderate winds.

Rod
 
Angele said:
How on earth have they managed to let it get so bad for so long without doing something about it? Have they applied for a dredging licence and are having difficulty getting permission to dump the stuff, or are they just not bothered?
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It is very simple how they did it.

1) got money from customers with price hike above 3% every year
2) applied for dredging permit
3) asked estimates for dredging
4) estimates rejected and asked for new estimates with discount
5) discount not granted
6) asked for new estimates with reduced cubic metres
7) new estimates came in to dredge at lower price but with reduced scope
8) dredging took place later and for less cubic metres
9) customers ripped off
10) directors got greater bonuses showing increased profits due to increased berthing charges and reduced dredging and running costs
 
rodpage said:
....

I would therefore expect the entrance and area up to the visitors pontoons to be dredged by late May, but you might want to confirm their dredging schedule with them. I've moved out for similar reasons to others described above, so I am out of touch with the exact situation.

...

Rod
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Rod

Many thanks for the detailed response. Some very useful tips there.

The lady I spoke to at the marina yesterday (over the 'phone) did not deny that the shallowest point of the entrance might be as little as 0.5m below datum (rather than the 2m it is supposed to be). I mentioned that my planned visit was at the end of May and she made no reference to any imminent dredging, so I can only assume that nothing is happening in the near term.

I can fully understand why bethholders might be going elsewhere.
 
haydude said:
It is very simple how they did it.

1) got money from customers with price hike above 3% every year
2) applied for dredging permit
3) asked estimates for dredging
4) estimates rejected and asked for new estimates with discount
5) discount not granted
6) asked for new estimates with reduced cubic metres
7) new estimates came in to dredge at lower price but with reduced scope
8) dredging took place later and for less cubic metres
9) customers ripped off
10) directors got greater bonuses showing increased profits due to increased berthing charges and reduced dredging and running costs
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Hmm!

Not a very long term approach to running a business, is it?
 
I went agroud on my berth in Gosport at the weekend at LWS. Ended up in about two feet of water with luckily soft mud but it is very due a dredging which thankfully they are going to carry out this month.
 
ricky_s said:
I went agroud on my berth in Gosport at the weekend at LWS. Ended up in about two feet of water with luckily soft mud but it is very due a dredging which thankfully they are going to carry out this month.
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I've had that problem in Gosport too - and one of the reasons I left Chi was that I was stuck there one bank holiday weekend when there was not enough water for me to leave the berth all weekend. Seems to be a common theme.
 
bedouin said:
I've had that problem in Gosport too - and one of the reasons I left Chi was that I was stuck there one bank holiday weekend when there was not enough water for me to leave the berth all weekend. Seems to be a common theme.
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I have had problems getting in and out of berths at Chi in the past but there was always enough water when free flow was operating.
 
Little Grebe said:
I have had problems getting in and out of berths at Chi in the past but there was always enough water when free flow was operating.
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But you don't get free flow every day - on this particular occasion we couldn't leave the berth on the Saturday and the next free flow (therefore the earliest we could move) was Wednesday.

We get little enough time on the boat anyway and to lose a whole weekend is a major set back.
 
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