St Katherines Dock

We are going out with the grandkids today, heading to Bocholt, kids parents picking them up in Bocholt and we stay overnight €20 for 12m boat water and electricity included as are showers etc.

For May Day we are off out with the club to Lier there it will be €7.99 per night, water and electricity excluded, and we are staying for 6 nights, there the haven is part of the same organisation that we are in so there is a big discount on the tariff :)
 
None.
Gallions Closed
South Dock at the arse end of nowhere.
Lime House . Very reluctant to accept vistors unless you are 60ft long and 3ft wide.
West India .Large groups and Rallys only if you are the ATYC or cough up £+1 K or so privately to get that monster lock open.
You can moor mid stream on commercial moorings if you have enough negociable Rubles and your super yacht has not been impounded by HMCE,
in which case you will get free berth in West India until the bailiffs arrive.
Best way of going ashore will be "your" helicopter to the helipad just up stream.

Chelsea Harbour been shut to visitors for ages.
Pontoon moorings further upstream (all tidal) can suffer from wash and requiring a method of getting back into where the action is.
Go up to Teddington for a quiet night ?

Shhhhhh ! Don’t tell everyone to come up here ( Teddington !) besides the lock is bust so I’m very restricted hours ! But there are secure floating pontoon moorings below the lock at Teddington Harbour which my friend owns and runs.

Plus Teddington was voted best place to live in the UK so it’s full of good folk ;)
 
None.
Gallions Closed
South Dock at the arse end of nowhere.
Lime House . Very reluctant to accept vistors unless you are 60ft long and 3ft wide.
West India .Large groups and Rallys only if you are the ATYC or cough up £+1 K or so privately to get that monster lock open.
You can moor mid stream on commercial moorings if you have enough negociable Rubles and your super yacht has not been impounded by HMCE,
in which case you will get free berth in West India until the bailiffs arrive.
Best way of going ashore will be "your" helicopter to the helipad just up stream.

Chelsea Harbour been shut to visitors for ages.
Pontoon moorings further upstream (all tidal) can suffer from wash and requiring a method of getting back into where the action is.
Go up to Teddington for a quiet night ?
My last trip down river we missed the tide at Hammersmith Bridge and managed to get a berth overnight on the tiny pontoon at Dove Pier. Stroke of luck, only one spot happened to be available. Thames seems poorly served with overnight berthing options. Unfamiliarity didn’t help
 
The Lower Thames down from Teddington seems almost determined to dissuade all but the brave and determined from visiting the Capitol of the UK by boat.
Price being the least ?
 
Spent hours arranging those fenders..............
All the boats got there sucessfully , only one needed a teeny bit of help to get back home using an old bit of wire.
:)
RCC ses "Hello" from St Kats

St Kats arranged a welcome reception on the evening of our arrival on their pontoon . We appreciated their leaving bar open for responsible adults to enjoy after the staff went home.
 
Last edited:
That just shows how insanely expensive the Solent is rather than London being in any way good value.
Those prices are absolutely crazy, last summer we thought €32 for a night was expensive when staying at Heusden in The Netherlands, a beautiful vestingstadt on the banks of the Maas (Meuse)
But then again boating is not quite as popular in the UK as it is in The Netherlands!
It was a traffic jam coming back from Bocholt last Saturday, we got to the rising bridge at Nystar just as the shift ended and by the time the car and foot traffic cleared there were 5 boats waiting to go through with us passing another 2 a few hundred meters later, and our canal is a bit of a backwater with not much traffic.
 
St Kats are doing a 3 nights for the price of 2. I just paid £296 for three nights in August for a 31ft boat. Five on board that’s £20 a night each in London. Comparisons are pointless as there is nowhere to compare it with.
 
None.
Gallions Closed
South Dock at the arse end of nowhere.
Lime House . Very reluctant to accept vistors unless you are 60ft long and 3ft wide.
West India .Large groups and Rallys only if you are the ATYC or cough up £+1 K or so privately to get that monster lock open.
You can moor mid stream on commercial moorings if you have enough negociable Rubles and your super yacht has not been impounded by HMCE,
in which case you will get free berth in West India until the bailiffs arrive.
Best way of going ashore will be "your" helicopter to the helipad just up stream.

Chelsea Harbour been shut to visitors for ages.
Pontoon moorings further upstream (all tidal) can suffer from wash and requiring a method of getting back into where the action is.
Go up to Teddington for a quiet night ?
I disagree about South Dock. Bus stop less than two minutes away direct to Tube station, Clipper pier immediately outside, at least one good restaurant a few minutes walk away. I think the only liftout for miles.
 
St Kats are doing a 3 nights for the price of 2. I just paid £296 for three nights in August for a 31ft boat. Five on board that’s £20 a night each in London. Comparisons are pointless as there is nowhere to compare it with.
We had 7 on board @ £365 for 3 nights £17.50 pp per night.
Perhaps if some of the complainers got a few friends ................... a bargain compared to the resturant bill three or four lucky people in the picture above paid later that evening :)
 
We had 7 on board @ £365 for 3 nights £17.50 pp per night.
Perhaps if some of the complainers got a few friends ................... a bargain compared to the resturant bill three or four lucky people in the picture above paid later that evening :)
It was €18 for one night, second night was free, 7 onboard, so roughly €1.29pp per night electricity and water included :)
Resturant was closed though :( so it was a cosey meal onboard :)
 
St Kats are doing a 3 nights for the price of 2. I just paid £296 for three nights in August for a 31ft boat. Five on board that’s £20 a night each in London. Comparisons are pointless as there is nowhere to compare it with.
Nowhere to compare it with? A city centre marina berth... Yes there are lots of comparisons to be made. Congrats on having 5 onboard. You could have 50 on board and it would be 2 quid! Bargain! Or 1 on board and its 100 quid. Value for money is always drawn from comparisons. Otherwise we do the 'English thing' and keep burying our heads saying, "if you don't like it, go somewhere else".

Sometimes flamin' expensive is indeed flamin' expensive!
 
So it was a rip-off but less of a rip-off than dinner!. :cool:
Pretty certain St Kats has been "owned" by a long list of "investment funds" , it would have been funded by borrowing money on the open market and the interest on same needs paying, some of my pension might have been invested there and need decent return to pay for my boating.

"City Developments Ltd. (CDL)—controlled by billionaire Kwek Leng Beng—said Thursday it had acquired the historic waterfront landmark St. Katharine Docks in Central London for £395 million ($486 million) from funds advised by U.S. private equity giant Blackstone."

Suspect many of the quoted good value ports and and marinas abroad are still owned by the local authorities.
Very few left in public ownership in UK, Ramsgate ? most flogged off for pennies in the 1980s .
St Kats used to be owned by the GLC and we all know what happened to them.
 
Last edited:
Pretty certain St Kats has been "owned" by a long list of "investment funds" , it would have been funded by borrowing money on the open market and the interest on same needs paying, some of my pension might have been invested there and need decent return to pay for my boating.

"City Developments Ltd. (CDL)—controlled by billionaire Kwek Leng Beng—said Thursday it had acquired the historic waterfront landmark St. Katharine Docks in Central London for £395 million ($486 million) from funds advised by U.S. private equity giant Blackstone."

Suspect many of the quoted good value ports and and marinas abroad are still owned by the local authorities.
Very few left in public ownership in UK, Ramsgate ? most flogged off for pennies in the 1980s .
St Kats used to be owned by the GLC and we all know what happened to them.
Yes, a lot of the harbours/marinas/havens are owned by the local authority and then leased to a yacht club, prices do vary, we are off for a week long cruise next week, one of the havens we are going to I mistook for another, misread the name VVW Lier instead of VPF Lier, the VVW is €4 per night and has no facilities and the VPF one has water, electricity, wifi etc. and for our boat is €16 per night.

Coming back from Volkerak we stayed at two havens, Heusden and Veghel, Heusden was €32 per night and leccy was 50cents/kW, Veghel was a bit cheaper at €20 per night and leccy was also 50cents/kW

Veghel was right in the middle of the town with a narrow entrance and just enough room to swing our 37ft boat around in the kanaal kom, lovely town and the food was excellent there.
Heusden is a Vestingstadt or fortified town with ramparts and a moat around it, ancient and very picturesque, both those places were owned and run by the respective towns, and even in late September they were busy.

IMG_0338SM.JPG
Heusden

Sunset_VeghelSM.jpg
Veghel
 

Attachments

Last edited:
Limehouse used to be my favourite when I used to come up the Thames. Shame they don’t allow people in any more.

I used to summer in the Solent and winter in the non tidal Thames. And absolutely loved the trip around.

I gave up when the locks shrunk. (Or did my boats grow?)
 
It was calm and peaceful at Greenwich Yacht Club this afternoon - no dredgers at all, one slow barge mooring up and a few Clippers passing with a gentle wash. Perfect for cleaning the boat!
 

Attachments

  • WhatsApp Image 2025-04-24 at 16.37.08-3.jpeg
    WhatsApp Image 2025-04-24 at 16.37.08-3.jpeg
    346.2 KB · Views: 23
Top