Toilet talk

powerskipper

powerskipper

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Dorset/ Hampshire. south coast
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well holding tanks,
what prices have you had for a black tank pump out.
£46 ish for a pump out,
to me that's a high price, if they want to encourage pumping out rather than dumping out , being cheaper would help or free if you take fuel from them.
any thoughts.?
 
It is expensive unfortunately. As an MDL Berth Holder I can do it cost effectively at Hythe Marina, but the pump is always broken! Therefore I end up at Swanwick for a charge of £50 for pump out which is excessive. Apparently Shephards Wharf in the IOW is free, so I will have to try and use that when I go over that way.

I am all for pump out and not distributing tanks into the sea, but some of the charges are outrageous and should be promoting safer waste disposal IMO. Shame on you Premier Marinas!
 
I just checked the marina tariff where I keep my boat and its £10 incl VAT self operated with no chemicals. They are not known for under charging for anything.
For 40 plus quid presumably they provide labour .
 
I think (though I didn't use it) I saw that the pump out at Sovereign Harbour was free when I visted.
 
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Sant Carles has introduced a fee recently.

1. Free for if you use the static pump out facility at their fuel station
2. EUR5 for MDL bertholders using the pump out by their mobile "honey-pot"
3. EUR20 for non MDL bertholders using the mobile service

Agree that for something so ecologically destructive, a fee could push boat owners into wrong choices. Whilst costs do have to be covered GBP50 seems excessive. A lower cost with a greater throughput would probably strike an economic balance for pumper and pumpee :disgust:
 
Getting rid of any waste now is rather expensive, I guess it's to do with all the licences and fees that go with it to keep the environmentalists happy, that along with the cost of buying the machine and paying someone to man it, there appears to be a great difference in what's charged from place to place
 
in the USA where they are truly 'anal' about pumping anything out unless it is done by the city council at or near local HW every day, most pumpouts are 'free' with a fuel fill. Our home marina it is free either on the fuel berth at any time or weekly in the berth by the poop boat on a Wednesday or Thursday only. However there is a big sign on the poop boat tank saying 'tips appreciated' a response of 'please don't spill any' doesn't count;) We came to an arrangement as live aboards with the poop boat guy to give him a single annual Christmas tip not $10 every week when we often missed him by being away somewhere anyway. OVER here you can be inspected anytime by any law enforcement agency to see if your on board arrangements comply. Overboard discharge valves have to be locked off to avoid accidental incidents, most people use cable ties. One local boat returning from the Bahamas did not re-tie his (correctly placed) 'Y' valve having just re-entered the 3ml no poop zone was boarded by local Sherrif's jobsworth, inspected found non compliant and spot fine $400, later halved on appeal to the court. Have heard tell of folk using the galley sink for pees to avoid filling tanks too fast:disgust:. We had a small beach bucket on the aft deck of our last boat, normally used to hold the extra hanging zinc anode when underway and this doubled to use as our pee bucket if nobody was about ( with sincere apologies to the 'gators nearby) .
We are planning to return to live aboard in the UK and a holding tank is a must have to avoid potential needs for middle of the night visits to shoreside facilities. We are considering a marina that is locked so really do not want to be 'fly tippers' and will travel weekly or more to dump at sea or the nearest free pumpout, double advantage of running the engines up and lightening ship.
 
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AndieMac said:
The solution to pollution is dilution....
Click to expand...

Agreed. I wonder if anyone has ever done a study of the ecological effect of pleasure boats discharging their blackwater tanks at sea? For a start the concentrations would be infinitesimally small and second I do wonder how ecologically unfriendly sewage from blackwater tanks actually is. Whenever I discharge my tank offshore, it seems to attract an awful lot of wildlife:D

After all in the UK we are still discharging raw sewage from treatment works into the sea at certain times and the quantities must be far higher than leisure boats

Having said this, it is unacceptable to discharge blackwater tanks in a marina or anchorage and that should be tightly controlled although I do always wonder what liveaboards do with their sewage given the fact that many seem to live in marinas for months or even years
 
Deleted User said:
Agreed. I wonder if anyone has ever done a study of the ecological effect of pleasure boats discharging their blackwater tanks at sea? For a start the concentrations would be infinitesimally small and second I do wonder how ecologically unfriendly sewage from blackwater tanks actually is. Whenever I discharge my tank offshore, it seems to attract an awful lot of wildlife:D

After all in the UK we are still discharging raw sewage from treatment works into the sea at certain times and the quantities must be far higher than leisure boats

Having said this, it is unacceptable to discharge blackwater tanks in a marina or anchorage and that should be tightly controlled although I do always wonder what liveaboards do with their sewage given the fact that many seem to live in marinas for months or even years
Click to expand...

Agreed. As live aboards we were pumped out weekly FOC in our home berth, when we moved ashore we did it on a call out add us to the list this week basis OR we went out for a sail outside the USA 3 mile zone. When we get home we will do similar and boats without a proper holding tank are off our 'possibles' list. We were in a municipal marina owned by the City and it was hypocritical that come local HW you could smell them doing a fly tip dump into the ICW.
 
Deleted User said:
Having said this, it is unacceptable to discharge blackwater tanks in a marina or anchorage and that should be tightly controlled although I do always wonder what liveaboards do with their sewage given the fact that many seem to live in marinas for months or even years
Click to expand...

and what about when you are stucked in a marina due to bad weather or technical problems ?

the only marina that I know who has a decent solution for all that is Porto Montenegro,
they have a connnection point for a suckout hose on every pontoon,
and the servive is free of charge (just a tip for the unfortunot guy who has to do the dirty job)

but even than, we've noticed that this service is not used by many boats....
 
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