Vacant berths

[Gwylan]

In the Netherlands there seems to be a custom that could be useful.

At ones berth there is a board hung on nails or pegs. This board is painted red on one side and green on the other.

If you are just going for a day sail then you leave it on the red side. If you are away for longer then you can write the date of your return, in chalk, on the green side.
When you leave you just make sure that the appropriate side of the board is showing.

Then visiting boats can see which berths are available and use them accordingly.

This seems a very sensible arrangement and we took advantage of it many times whilst we were living there. Never arrived back to find someone on my berth either.

I haul off in a couple of weeks for 3 months wandering around pretending to be doing something worthwhile. It would be nice to think that my vacant berth is being used and it could be handy to benefit from this arrangement.

Putting aside the marina operators greed and 'elfin safety issues, what reasons are there for not developing such a scheme?
Alternatively a web site that allowed such information to be accessed could be useful.

 

[William_H]

Things are a lot different at our club (in the antibedes) which owns the marina. yes you may be able to use a friend's berth but only by paying rent at a temporary rate which the club pockets.
Mostly berths are jealously guarded and you would not dream of using someone else's berth.
Swing moorings are a bit the same. Indeed the government who supervise morrings have stiff fine penalties for even picnicing on someone elses swing mooring. And they charge a fee to get a different boat registered to your mooring if you wish to loan it. Mind you we often pick up a mooring for a picnic anyway.
I did come back to my swing mooring to find a mobo attached despite the dinghy also being attached. a bit of yelling and he moved. I guess he was embarrased.

 

[Koeketiene]

In the Netherlands there seems to be a custom that could be useful.

At ones berth there is a board hung on nails or pegs. This board is painted red on one side and green on the other.

When we were at Fox's, there was a similar system.
However, no-one took a blind bit of notice - ever.
I have lost count of the number of times we found a boat - 'we were just popping into the chandlery' - in our berth when returning from a daysail.