South France Marina address'

[RichardK]

South France Marina address\'

Next year we're moving our boat to the south of France and hence I need to contact a number of marina's to either get a berth, or get our name on the list. Does anyone know the address' for any of the following marina's?

Port Vendres, Canet Plage, Port Leucate, Port La Nouvelle, Port de Guissan, Port Cap d'Agde, Port Argeles, Port Bacares

We're looking for anything from Narbonne down tot he Spanish border, although due to location Port Vendres would be ideal (but completely unlikely based on the waiting list).

Thanks for any help.

Richard

 

[tcm]

Re: South France Marina address\'

Not got the numbers on me, but you need to buy the "Livre de Bord", the french equivalent of "Macmillan's" with the massive difference that the LdeB is only 16euros, rather than 30 blimmin quid.

 

[tcm]

Re: oh and ...

note that lots and lots of berths (as much as 75%) will be privately owned, hence not available for the marina office to rent at all. You need to tramp around the marinas and ask the brokers if there's anything. You could consider dry berthing (try asking for er "amaragge a seck") so they plonk it in the water at a few hrs notice?

 

[RichardK]

Re: oh and ...

Interesting - thanks. When you say try the brokers who are these people? i.e. charter brokers, specific berth brokers?? When we were last in Port Vendres though there was nothing obvious (not that we were looking) aside from the Marina Office and the Harbour Master.

Any hints on the sort of shops/business' we should look for?

Thanks.

 

[tcm]

Re: berthing rant

In france, marina operators either have a short term view or shallow pockets or a stange set of rules. Whatever the cause, they are much more prone to sell off the long term leases for berths than are uk marinas. Overall, i reckon this is a bad thing - even though i've bought several.

So in most marinas (not all) at least 50% of the berths are not owned and controlled by the marina. I've heard the figure put at over 80%. It may be (i'm not sure) that the number of berths that the marina controls is the number of "visitors berths" that they quote - not many.

So, for example, with our berth we have bought a 20 year lease. I can put a dinghy in there, or nothing at all. It's mine, and like your (and my) empty gardens it's very private. At the richest spoits, you'll arrive (say) at monaco to be told that it's "complet" when in fact there are miles and miles of empty pontoon, very very frustrating.

Years ago, of course, the brokers who sell boats got wise to this. They knew that they wouldn't be able to sell a boat if the prospective owner had nowhere to put it. So, they bought berths themselves. In several marinas, the brokers are the largest controllers of the berths. The marina office draws a service charge to have staff and clean the loos, but have limited visiors berths.

All this means that in France, unles the port is "Municipal" (example include Golfe Juan Old Port, Cannes Town port, Villefranche plus some others) then most of the berths are privately owned on long leases of 20 or so years, and the on-the -ground management of these plus many others is left to a few boat brokers.

In the whole of la napoule, for example, control of 0over 50% of all berths is in the hands of jsut a few guys, each running their own boat brokerage/management business, each owning a fair number of berths, and each managing (on behalf of dozens and dozens of owners) the berths for which they get 10-15%. At any one time quite a number of the occupying boats will be out getting fixed. Nobody tells the marina office, and even if they did - its not their space to rent.

So, tour the boat brokers, anyone with a boat shop to get directions. Some boat brokers won't have a shop and some berth brokers seem so dodgy that they'll give a a mobile phone number, a Guernsey bank account number and a time at which to meet them with £100k in cash at the port office with the notaire/lawyer. legal, but probably not from a tax point of view... This is precisley how I bought one berth. not just the marina offices. Oh, and note that although berths cost a fortune, they don't cst a fortune ON PAPER - cos half the asking price is requested in cash. So, renewals at the end of twenty years might be expensive - but based on a hugely deflated figure. Buy a lease if you want to stay in your chosen place in the med.

For short term rental, almost all marina offices will say nope. Almost all the brokers will be able to say yes, at least for the short term.

 

[charles_reed]

Re: South France Marina address\'

I'm currently in Argeles and can tell you there's a 4 year waiting list, unless you're on temporary mooring.

I'll let you have the fax numbers of all of them if you'd like to send an e-mail to me at chasfgr@hotmail.com