Where have all the boats come from?

jdc

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... where have those boats filling up the west country come from? This isn't an attempt to be contentious - I'm just curios. Is the Solent quieter than usual, for example?...

I can't say whether the solent is quieter this year, but Falmouth is rammed! These last 4 or 5 days there's been a rally from the RYS, so rather gleaming and expensive boats with absurdly large ensigns definitely awol from the Solent.

Me, I'm about to set off to infest Plockton...
 

Minchsailor

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I can't say whether the solent is quieter this year, but Falmouth is rammed! These last 4 or 5 days there's been a rally from the RYS, so rather gleaming and expensive boats with absurdly large ensigns definitely awol from the Solent.

Me, I'm about to set off to infest Plockton...
Plenty of room at Plockton when I was there a few days ago.
 
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I can't say whether the solent is quieter this year, but Falmouth is rammed! These last 4 or 5 days there's been a rally from the RYS, so rather gleaming and expensive boats with absurdly large ensigns definitely awol from the Solent.

Me, I'm about to set off to infest Plockton...

I passed Ardfern Marina on Friday and there was a large “gleaming and expensive” yacht with a ridiculously large white ensign flying and people fussing about. Perhaps they have migrated up here.
 

jdc

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You'll be leaving summer behind if you do that. Cold, wet, windy, just 'orrible. I'd stay in Foulmouth.

I must be a masochist then as I've a mooring there (C16)! We spend the winter and spring in Falmouth and most years 6 - 8 weeks of the summer in Plockton. Regular migration N and S for us, but the usual stop in S Ireland looks less inviting this year.
 
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geem

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Everybody that has left Glasson Marina has gone to SCOTLAND. One of the guys in the yard said I was the first person to tell him they weren't going to Scotland. We are heading a lot further South ?
 

ctva

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We had one to share between 4 of us
I took the family gold panning on the Helmsdale and the midge was so bad we all ended up running back to the car, the kids still shudder when gold panning is mentioned :D
Only one? Woose... :ROFLMAO:

I passed Ardfern Marina on Friday and there was a large “gleaming and expensive” yacht with a ridiculously large white ensign flying and people fussing about. Perhaps they have migrated up here.
There was a whole flotilla of the white ensign brigade that passed through the Crinan Canal a week or two back. Very shiny and yes big FO ensigns just incase any of us plebs were watching.
 
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... There was a whole flotilla of the white ensign brigade that passed through the Crinan Canal a week or two back. ...

Obviously connoisseurs of the finer pleasures in life, not for them the dull toil of the Mull of Kintyre (-;
 

Driftingby

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Well the Eastern Solent seemed remarkably empty on Sunday, especially given the weather - not complaining mind you, it was nice to not have to practise ColRegs every 10 mins...
 

oldharry

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I get the impression that the pressure is coming from new resident boats (maybe just fr this year, of course) rather than visitors, yet.



In that case, where have those boats filling up the west country come from? This isn't an attempt to be contentious - I'm just curios. Is the Solent quieter than usual, for example?



They'd still be resident apart from teh cruis, wouldn't they?



But where have these boats been while largely unused? Perhaps lots of boats are in the water which were effectively abandoned ashore.
Tied up unused in marinas or on moorings. Chichester Harbour has over 10k boats registered in the harbour. On a busy weekend at E Head it can feel as though they are all there. But look at the marinas or main moorings, they still are full of deserted boats. CHB for example can hav a lock queue of several hours. Walk round the marina and its hard to see where they will all fit in to the rows of boats that never went out. It would be interesting to know how long it would take to get all the boats out?

Gong home From The last fleet review in Spithead to Chi, nav wasn't needed, you just joined the stream of boats and like the M25 followed the one in front. Yet the harbours moorings and marinas still looked full. Only a tiny percentage of boats are out at any one time. This year there's more of us gone sailing and visitor facilities are straining at times.
 

dunedin

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I get the impression that the pressure is coming from new resident boats (maybe just fr this year, of course) rather than visitors, yet.
I guess this may depend where you are seeing the boats. But on the North West of Scotland it certainly seems to be visitor boats, not new residents, that are the vast majority.

They'd still be resident apart from teh cruis, wouldn't they?
That was in response to my comment that many boats up here are perhaps ”boats who would usually cruise from the UK to the Baltic, Netherlands, France, Spain, Ireland etc - but cannot this year”.
Sorry, don’t understand your comment. But there are certainly many hundreds (perhaps thousands) of boats which in a typical year would leave from the UK to cruise these other nearby waters, across the North Sea, Channel and Irish Sea. Indeed that was my plan last year, to the Baltic. But most of these foreign cruises are impossible this year so even a small proportion diverting up here would make a massive impact on capacity.
 

JumbleDuck

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I guess this may depend where you are seeing the boats. But on the North West of Scotland it certainly seems to be visitor boats, not new residents, that are the vast majority.

Thanks.

That was in response to my comment that many boats up here are perhaps ”boats who would usually cruise from the UK to the Baltic, Netherlands, France, Spain, Ireland etc - but cannot this year”.
Sorry, don’t understand your comment.

And sorry. I wasn't clear. What I meant was that boats which normally cruise to furrin parts all have somewhere to live in the UK, so their staying here would explain full visitors' berths but not full residents' berths, which were being reported a couple of months ago.

Putting together all the answers, though, I think the solution is that a fair number of boats which are usually based darn sarf, particularly on the Solent, have decided to visit nicer bits of the UK (the west country and Scotland) for a season, and because there are so many boats there[1] it makes a huge impact on the destinations without much visible change to the sources.

[1] It used to be said that there were more yachts based on the Hamble river than in Scotland.
 

wully1

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Surprised that any RYS bateau would fit in the Crinan, was it their tenders perchance?

Ive met the crews from a few smaller RYS yachts over the years - the big boat crews seem to be snootier and less competent and aloof while the smaller ones by actual humans with high levels of competence and very well maintained boat.
 

Trop Cher

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Plenty of room at Plockton when I was there a few days ago.
There were five boats anchored in the inner anchorage on Wednesday night and I usually have it to myself. Three of them had the dreaded tripping lines so I had to anchor outside the moorings. All but one of the visitor moorings was taken also.
 

Ink

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Suspect that the article on where to go this season in @yachtingmonthly.com hits WH Smith's shelves there will be a stampede.

Ink
 

oldmanofthehills

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I took an old friend down to E Coast estuaries by Harwich to look at boats sailing and also the houseboats. Only saw three yachts sailing and a dinghy all sunday. The yards were full to bursting.

Last month the Fal and Plymouth estuaries were busy but between those points very few craft. Maybe they all use their 35ft fancy things for day sailing round the cans?
 
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