Uk Marinas

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Lewisuk

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Hi all,

Just back from a two-week cruise along the South Coast and had the usual marina booking nightmare. Called ahead to three marinas near Portsmouth - two were "fully booked" but when I sailed past, saw plenty of empty berths. The third said they had space but when I arrived, turns out it was just for boats under 8m (mine's 10m).

Ended up anchoring out more nights than planned, which isn't ideal with the family aboard.

Got me wondering - in 2025, why are we still playing phone tag with marina offices that close at 5pm? My local restaurant can take bookings online 24/7, but I can't reserve a berth for next weekend without calling during office hours.

Anyone else finding marina booking frustrating? How do you handle it when cruising? Would love to hear your strategies - or horror stories!

Particularly interested in:
How far ahead do you typically book?
Ever had issues with "availability" vs reality?
Any marinas doing this particularly well?

Cheers,
Lewis
 
AntarcticPilot said:
I've never found it necessary to book - it must be a Solent thing, or maybe South coast. The few times I've rung ahead to check whether there would be a problem, they've always said call us on VHF when you're outside!
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That's right, in the South West there are no marinas in the best places, and it's first come first served with the various scattered pontoons and moorings.

You probably could make a booking in certain destinations; Dartmouth, Plymouth, Falmouth? Don't know I have never tried. I guess it is different in the Solent where there is basic under capacity and you could arrive in a packed full Lymington, say, and almost have to go home.

.
 
Well if you go somewhere in your car , do you pre book a parking space , no you hope . So if you are sailing from Weymouth to a pre booked berth in Dartmouth, and it blows up so you dip into Torquay where there is room . Would you pay for both berths . I say not so hence you can’t pre book.
 
doug748 said:
That's right, in the South West there are no marinas in the best places, and it's first come first served with the various scattered pontoons and moorings.

You probably could make a booking in certain destinations; Dartmouth, Plymouth, Falmouth? Don't know I have never tried. I guess it is different in the Solent where there is basic under capacity and you could arrive in a packed full Lymington, say, and almost have to go home.

.
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Visiting the Yealm one Saturday in late June the harbour master cleared out the downstream pontoon in expectation of two rallies that never came.

I understand the reason given was that the wind had dropped near Salcombe so they had opted to go there rather than motor for the rest of the trip
 
I rarely book ahead. To many variables and if the weather is very settled being anchored in a bay is really nice. Even my niece's and nephew enjoyed being at anchor with the dinghy to use and swimming.
Yarmouth does have some berths you can book but it is weeks in advance with prepayment, and if the weather is bad and you don't make it they keep the money.
 
We are on our sailing trip from Hull to the isle of Scilly, been doing mostly short half day sails and been pre booking in most along the way a few days before, most marinas have accepted booking, some with pre payment others just sort when arrive. Only two have not and just said call when near, Lymington and Fowey, although we have found all south coast busy all have found us space, we are two boats by the way. We are finding offering to raft up helps although we have only had to do this 3 times, we are on around our 17th marina so far since we started.

We did after we left Gosport hear a lot of requests for stays being made and space not found though
 
If you are doing the ARC this year or independently cruising, you will need to book at most Canary Island marinas in advance.

But they aren't in the UK though.

Smiley.
 
My complaint, nothing to do with the UK (maybe) - marinas seem to be built in locations which historically were good anchorages, sheltered, sensible depths, good holding. Leaving rubbish places to anchor - no wonder people don't want to anchor.

Jonathan
 
Lewisuk said:
Hi all,

Just back from a two-week cruise along the South Coast and had the usual marina booking nightmare. Called ahead to three marinas near Portsmouth - two were "fully booked" but when I sailed past, saw plenty of empty berths. The third said they had space but when I arrived, turns out it was just for boats under 8m (mine's 10m).

Ended up anchoring out more nights than planned, which isn't ideal with the family aboard.

Got me wondering - in 2025, why are we still playing phone tag with marina offices that close at 5pm? My local restaurant can take bookings online 24/7, but I can't reserve a berth for next weekend without calling during office hours.

Anyone else finding marina booking frustrating? How do you handle it when cruising? Would love to hear your strategies - or horror stories!

Particularly interested in:
How far ahead do you typically book?
Ever had issues with "availability" vs reality?
Any marinas doing this particularly well?

Cheers,
Lewis
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Hello and welcome to the forum

As many have said booking a marina space in the most popular sailing area at the busiest time of the year can be a bit fickle.

To quote Dr Who it looks like you have suffered a time and space conundrum; at the time you passed the marina the space was empty. How would you feel if you rented a berth, at Solent prices, and on arrival at 2200 UTC found the berth occupied?
 
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I think if you’re booking a pontoon space somewhere pre payment really is required to weed out the no shows/it’s a bit too windy/just covering all my options next weekend people.

Our yacht club has introduced a book a night on the pontoon system (which is free for members) so there’s no incentive to actually show up and it’s chaos. If you had to put your hand in your pocket for this they’d be less incentive to book every weekend and not show or make more of an effort to attend.

There’s also nobody to ensure sensible berthing to make maximum use of the available space.

As mentioned above by Lucky Duck making use of empty berths by incentivising berth holders to let the marina know they’re away would be a great help in overcrowded areas.
 
Neeves said:
My complaint, nothing to do with the UK (maybe) - marinas seem to be built in locations which historically were good anchorages, sheltered, sensible depths, good holding. Leaving rubbish places to anchor - no wonder people don't want to anchor.
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@Neeves given the amount of anchors you have tested you need to get out more and use them. I am assuming that they have more up to date charts than the ones Captain Cook made of Oz. I best not mention that survey ship that struck a reef a few years back

There are at least two excellent YouTube channels of people doing circumnavigations of Oz, Free Range Sailing and a rather loud couple that need to be watched with the sound on mute, giving you views of all sorts of amazing Oz anchorages..
 
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xyachtdave said:
Our yacht club has introduced a book a night on the pontoon system (which is free for members) so there’s no incentive to actually show up and it’s chaos. If you had to put your hand in your pocket for this they’d be less incentive to book every weekend and not show or make more of an effort to attend.
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There is a simple solution to that - Don't show up and you pick up the bar bill for the next week.

That will solve the problem, especially if the club secretary emails the membership at noon the next day.
 
The only time we ever booked was when we wanted a week in Dartmouth which our son's family was on holiday nearby, though I can't say I've tried Portsmouth. One of the tricks is to make sure that you are safely moored up at popular sites before the weekend.

I have to say that I did like the Continental system where free berths are marked with a green plate and reserved ones with red.
 
The pre-booking nonsense is just another covid legacy menace. Covid you may recall gave petulant authorities undue licence to interfere in the lives of ordinary citizens, including making pre-booking (generally, not just berths) a requirement. Any harbour master with latent control freak / parking warden tendencies suddenly had a licence to do the absurd, make pre-booking and even worse pre-payment a requirement. Woe betide the casual sailor who tooled up unannounced. Weymouth stands out as a particularly noxious example.

Back in the good old days (I have been sailing for more than half a century) there was no pre-booking (apart from incredibly rarely a club rally or similar), instead harbours operated a first come first served system and it worked just fine, with harbour masters somehow finding space to fit everyone in. I emphasise, it just worked. The only partial exception I know of was Yarmouth, partial because it was still first come first served, but sometimes it did get to be full on busy summer weekends, and would post a 'Harbour Full' notice at the entrance. But it wasn't a disaster, there were nearby anchorages and other harbours.

One of the reasons I go sailing is to get away from petty officialdom. I also greatly value the fact that sailing is an activity in which you have to respond to the prevailing conditions (which is both a challenge and a reward) and that might mean choosing to go into a place short of your original intended destination because of pressure of weather, or even going a bit further because the conditions were right. Pre-booking screws all that up, and worse, for the inexperienced, may even mean they press on to a pre-booked and even worse pre-paid berth when the prevailing conditions suggest that really isn't such a good idea.

It really is high time we stopped playing ball with this pre-booking nonsense, and just turned up as we always used to, and tell Harbour Master Warden Hodges to stick his pre-booking arrangements somewhere where the sun don't shine.
 
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