Questions on moving to the Med

[jfm]

I have never had this. They have always used the LOA printed on the registration. Which is just as well as I have another 18ft of bowsprit sticking out.

I also only pay for LOA for the yearly contract in my home port.

Must be different practices in different ports I guess. My experience/memory is mostly east of St Trop. For sure, if you rent a berth in Antibes you pay the full size price whatever your boat, which suits me as a berth-landlord for the last year! If you were a berth owner in a pay-per-metre port, you wouldn't want the capitainerie renting your berth out to a too-small boat while you were off on a cruise

 

[EME]

Must be different practices in different ports I guess. My experience/memory is mostly east of St Trop. For sure, if you rent a berth in Antibes you pay the full size price whatever your boat, which suits me as a berth-landlord for the last year! If you were a berth owner in a pay-per-metre port, you wouldn't want the capitainerie renting your berth out to a too-small boat while you were off on a cruise

Yes ... same in La Rague, all rentals based upon berth size.

 

[MRC]

Update.

Many thanks for the help on the move from those who have answered my questions.

Berth paperwork completed this morning so I now own the lease on a Mole Sud 23x6M mooring in Antibes. Berth 474.

The boat is a black hull Sunseeker that along with a few others suffered from gel coat fade, saying that my worst areas were on the grey gelocoat on the top half. She has been fully painted by Desty Marine in the UK. They have done a few boats now, inc a few in the Med. Their work looks superb. The boat now looks better than new. The finish is superb.

She is being MCA coded in the UK by Matt Folkes, not too much as most of the safety gear is already on board, needs servicing etc along with a few modifications in engine room and around the cockpit.

Lower saloon being converted to make up 4th double for occasional bed for boys weekends away or second family / kids. Lamps / Dimmers being fitted to make evenings relaxing, fridges, coolers, ices chests, BBQs all serviced. Covers for seating, bow cushions, teak tables being made. Plenty to buy at LIBS this year.

Shipping being booked for March to Genoa.

initially using an ex Sunseeekr tester / engineer to look after her on a managment program, washdowns, preventative servicing & checks, laundry, stocking, fueling etc. is this the best option or should a perm deck hand /crew be used? I need to make next season work for my wife.

6 sets of flights already booked London - Nice starting from May. What a great airport for connections, approx 20 London flighst each day and Heathrow being cheap and easy with BA or BMI.

First few weeks will be local and back to Antibes each evening, then a few longer cruises later in the year.

What have I missed ?????

I shouldnt wish time away as there is not enough of it, but roll on March 2012.

 

[jfm]

Update.

Many thanks for the help on the move from those who have answered my questions.

Berth paperwork completed this morning so I now own the lease on a Mole Sud 23x6M mooring in Antibes. Berth 474.

The boat is a black hull Sunseeker that along with a few others suffered from gel coat fade, saying that my worst areas were on the grey gelocoat on the top half. She has been fully painted by Desty Marine in the UK. They have done a few boats now, inc a few in the Med. Their work looks superb. The boat now looks better than new. The finish is superb.

She is being MCA coded in the UK by Matt Folkes, not too much as most of the safety gear is already on board, needs servicing etc along with a few modifications in engine room and around the cockpit.

Lower saloon being converted to make up 4th double for occasional bed for boys weekends away or second family / kids. Lamps / Dimmers being fitted to make evenings relaxing, fridges, coolers, ices chests, BBQs all serviced. Covers for seating, bow cushions, teak tables being made. Plenty to buy at LIBS this year.

Shipping being booked for March to Genoa.

initially using an ex Sunseeekr tester / engineer to look after her on a managment program, washdowns, preventative servicing & checks, laundry, stocking, fueling etc. is this the best option or should a perm deck hand /crew be used? I need to make next season work for my wife.

6 sets of flights already booked London - Nice starting from May. What a great airport for connections, approx 20 London flighst each day and Heathrow being cheap and easy with BA or BMI.

First few weeks will be local and back to Antibes each evening, then a few longer cruises later in the year.

What have I missed ?????

I shouldnt wish time away as there is not enough of it, but roll on March 2012.

Great stuff MRC. I think you mean berth 374. You'll have strong words from your neighbours if you try to park your pred in 474

Each to their own but I would hire a permanent cook/stewardess. Then when you arrive the boat is all gleaming, drinks on ice, lights on, cupboards and fridge full of food, beds made and turned back, flowers on the table, cushions out, something hot bubbling in the oven and an origami flower on the end of each toilet roll.

You never get that from a guardiennage service. If you say you're arriving Friday they will allocate a kid to come and wash it on Wednesday, then on Thursday there will be ten mins of red rain, and you will arrive at a dark dirty unflowered up boat. They will have bought the food shopping you ask for, if you can be bothered to email a list. The full timer will in contrast know what you like, so without any input from you she will have planned the menus for the whole weekend and bought all the ingredients to suit

Genoa is a nice/easy port to have the boat shipped to. I've had two boats through Genoa

The cruising is excellent, both local and longer

 

[MRC]

JFM, Sounds too perfect... Whats the best way round sorting a steward(ess) for the boat? I had assumed they would be more for the larger boats down there. I would be looking for someone to do the jobs you list plus lines and fenders should we be away on the boat. Would they live onboard with you or ashore, quite confined space aboard mine as no crew cabin etc. All sounds great but just trying to work the practical elemnets out in my head.

 

[MapisM]

quite confined space aboard mine as no crew cabin etc.

Do you mean none at all, in a Pred 64 (unless I'm mistaken, judging by your avatar)?
I'm surprised to hear that, was the boat specced without it for some reason?
With apologies for the slight o/t...

 

[jfm]

JFM, Sounds too perfect... Whats the best way round sorting a steward(ess) for the boat? I had assumed they would be more for the larger boats down there. I would be looking for someone to do the jobs you list plus lines and fenders should we be away on the boat. Would they live onboard with you or ashore, quite confined space aboard mine as no crew cabin etc. All sounds great but just trying to work the practical elemnets out in my head.

No, stewies are not exclusive to megayachts. The hiring of crew is much more normal in Fr and It than in UK and zillions of stews and captains work on 20m boats

It would be normal for them not to live on board on your sized boat. So you should look for someone who has an apartment in antibes and they work on the boat during the day, plus they sleep in the crew cabin when you go off on a cruise. To hire someone talk to the crew agents eg Blue Water, ypi, etc. But they will not have "stock" of people until March, when they all come over to SoF for summer work, or down from the mountains (skiers) or back from Caribee (big yacht crew). The crew agent will advise but as a budget work on 2500/month plus maybe 1000 commission to the agent. This is all very easy and the crew agent will have referenced the candidates. Or you might get lucky just by talking to the other crew on Mole Sud, who will be networked in to who's avaialbe for work

EDIT - ah, I just read Mapis's post. No crew cabin at all? I hadn't spotted that. Well that's arguably a bonus for the employee becuase when you go off on cruises she will have to have a guest cabin, and when you're not off cusing she will live in an apartment. Whether you want/have space to allocate a cabin to the stewie on cruises is something only you can decide. Or don't take the crew on longer cruises.

It would be kinda inconvenient not to have somewhere for stewie to sleep though: for example I often go out for the day, then the evening is so nice and the company so good we are still knocking back the booze at 2am and we decide it's a shame to have to drive back so we stay on anchor. If you have the stewie on board to cook lunch you need to have briefed her "we plan to come back to Antibes this evening but you never know we might stay out for the night" and have somewhere for her to sleep. Otherwise you will spoil a nice evening/party just becuase you have to chauffeur your stewie back to her apartment in a million pound predator!

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

To hire someone talk to the crew agents eg Blue Water, ypi, etc.

MRC, if you need an intro at YPI Crew just shout and I can put you in touch with the right person there.

Cheers
Jimmy

 

[MRC]

Do you mean none at all, in a Pred 64 (unless I'm mistaken, judging by your avatar)?
I'm surprised to hear that, was the boat specced without it for some reason?
With apologies for the slight o/t...

Yep no crew cabin at all. When new the boat comes with a garage for jetbike or as an optional extra a single berth crew cabin. Not needing crew in the uk it has been good to carry a Williams, jetskis and kayaks but now the move to the med means a crew cabin would have been better. Plus we no longer use the Jetski so the garage is a large storage area.

I have enquired about a retro fit option but that's not lead anywhere.

She is 3 cabins plus convertible lower saloon. Manhattan 70 with 4 cabins and large crew would be nice.

 

[MRC]

JFM - I reckon I may be plumping my own cushions up and doing without the flowers. Will have to get the man maths working on this one but had a figure less that that in mind for a gap year uni student etc. Get what you pay for ?? Yes, 374. numbers not my strong point.

Any employment type laws to worry about if full time employed?

JTB - thanks, once the head comes round to the numbers that would be great.

I'm going from no mooring costs. No crew. Mate has been looking after her to a whole new ball game. It better be bloody good down there.

Mike

 

[Nick_H]

MRC, look forward to meeting you in Antibes next year. Don't get too hung up on whether you need crew or not, you can suck it and see when you get there, as its a very informal situation, and you can hire and fire at will. You can also have any type of arrangement you want, full time, part time or guardiennage, with or without provisioning, airport pick ups if you want, there's no set rules.

It mostly depends how you want to use the boat. If you use it most weekends Fri eve to Sunday eve, with lots of guests, as JFM does, then I guess its almost essential to have full time crew to clean and prep the boat in the days in between. On the other hand, if you only go during school holidays do you really want to pay someone 2,500 euro a month when you're not there? I generally prefer not to have crew on board, but we did have a full time stewie for two years mainly for babysitting

 

[jfm]

JFM - I reckon I may be plumping my own cushions up and doing without the flowers. Will have to get the man maths working on this one but had a figure less that that in mind for a gap year uni student etc. Get what you pay for ?? Yes, 374. numbers not my strong point.

Any employment type laws to worry about if full time employed?

JTB - thanks, once the head comes round to the numbers that would be great.

I'm going from no mooring costs. No crew. Mate has been looking after her to a whole new ball game. It better be bloody good down there.

Mike

You could get lucky mike and find someone really good for less than the figure I mentioned. e1800 maybe

There are no apparent employment law concerns and generally no written contracts, as Nick says above. The deal is, there's no deal.

It is bloody good, though part of the good-ness is arriving to a beautifully prepared boat with someone there who knows how you like it. But I guess Nick is right: suck it and see

 

[MapisM]

Manhattan 70 with 4 cabins and large crew would be nice.

Not saying it wouldn't, but in that league you'd have better alternatives, imho.

All the best for your move to SoF!

 

[MRC]

Approx 8 weeks until shipping so trying to get a few things sorted.

Does anyone know what type of electric shore power hook up is used in Port Vauban an who supplies the connectors?

 

[jfm]

It's a 63A, twist-to-lock plug that isn't in UK electrical catalogues much. I've forgotten the name but will check on boat end of this week and post a link. You might be able to buy on-line otherwise local electrical shop Lyvio right near the port sells everything electrical and is way better stocked on electricals than any English chandler you'll ever have seen.

You also need a special water connector buyable locally in all the chandlers, bayonet type

For cruising you'll need a selection of shorepower plugs becuase they are not standardised as much as UK. You'll need those dark red 3-phase plugs in both sizes, for starters, and you need to know how to wire a single phase boat to a 3-phase supply/plug (which aint rocket science but you must not get it wrong)

 

[MapisM]

For cruising you'll need a selection of shorepower plugs

You mean a selection of short cable adaptors, to interconnect between the dock and the boat cable, I suppose?
Because if you found any male/female adaptor, combined in a single plug, I'm interested to hear more about them.

 

[jfm]

You mean a selection of short cable adaptors, to interconnect between the dock and the boat cable, I suppose?

Yes, I'm afraid so. I have never found any clever magic solution (like the things you buy in airports to connect your home country 230v plug to the electricity sockets in several other countries, only 10x bigger!)

 

[MapisM]

Precisely! Wadduthink, could it be a business idea?
I guess the market potential wouldn't be huge, but otoh it neither takes rocket science nor big investments, to build some of these thingies...

 

[PowerToSail.com]

Beware the MLC (Marine Labour Covention) - a couple of points here; the first being that if you have an MCA coded commercially registered vessel, you must have a contract with a permanent crew member, albeit on 20 hours per week or whatever, in order to keep it's commercial status. Whether or not you have a contract onboard if you gave an inspection by the Douane (Customs & Excise) you will now have to prove that NI contributions are being paid. If not then you will be liable for the 12.8% National Insurance employer’s contribution plus the employee’s contribution. The French will simply not tolerate having undeclared workers, with no insurance working and living in their ports. There are ways of significantly mitigating the NI contributions and having good contracts in place; we run three boats in Antibes by way of CA for charter or gardiennage and we use Dominion Crew Solutions who are part of Dominion Marine who do a good job of keeping owners out of trouble with the authorities. You can hire and fire crew at will and they are these days very easy to find, you do not necessarily need to use an Agency, but I would be very careful about reference checking. It is a bit of a minefield here as there are so many crew members, and not all of them are good ones. The ‘Captain’ given as a reference could well be a fellow deckhand or similar. Crew contracts now will have proper notice periods which are only easy to enforce on behalf of the employee not the employer. 99% of the crew we place are for yachts 30 meters and up, which are employed by Management companies; crewing of smaller boats is more difficult as owners are often prepared to neither pay commissions nor provide the employee with a contract.

 

[jfm]

we run three boats in Antibes by way of CA for charter or gardiennage

What does "CA" mean?