Why is the marine industry obsessed with size?

[Nostrodamus]

Why is it that size matter’s so much in the marine industry?

It doesn’t seem to matter so much anywhere else in life but when it comes to boats every inch counts.

If I pick up a buoy there can be only one boat on there but the bigger you are the more you pay.

If I am berthed on a finger pontoon next to a boat half my size we take up the same space but I pay far more.

If I want to be hauled out I pay far more than the half sized boat even though it takes the same amount of time and resources.

If I went to park a car in a pay car park they are not interested in what length the car is. If I buy a bus ticket, a plane ticket or a taxi I pay the same as anyone else no matter what size we are.

Why does size matter so much?

Can I sue for sizeism as I feel I am being victimised?

 

[dylanwinter]

size is important

the marina thing always seems a bit unfair

but in sailing the size of your boat does seem to bare some relationship to the size of your disposable income

and in business it is all about getting to people to pay as much as you can

here in KTL world the subs are the same if you download small films or big films

tough on the small film downloaders

sailing magazines cost the same for small boat users as they do for big boat owners

so may be that helps to balance things up a bit

probably not

Dylan

Why is it that size matter’s so much in the marine industry?

It doesn’t seem to matter so much anywhere else in life but when it comes to boats every inch counts.

If I pick up a buoy there can be only one boat on there but the bigger you are the more you pay.

If I am berthed on a finger pontoon next to a boat half my size we take up the same space but I pay far more.

If I want to be hauled out I pay far more than the half sized boat even though it takes the same amount of time and resources.

If I went to park a car in a pay car park they are not interested in what length the car is. If I buy a bus ticket, a plane ticket or a taxi I pay the same as anyone else no matter what size we are.

Why does size matter so much?

Can I sue for sizeism as I feel I am being victimised?

 

[chewi]

point taken but bigger boats need more dredging & bigger cranes than small ones do, so the excess ought to be paid for by the bigger ones.

that said , charges are levied on length, not depth or displacement. and we don't use a crane for a marina berth.

I'm sure Ryanair would charge customers by the kg if they could!

 

[Blue5]

Why is it that size matter’s so much in the marine industry?

It doesn’t seem to matter so much anywhere else in life but when it comes to boats every inch counts.

If I pick up a buoy there can be only one boat on there but the bigger you are the more you pay.

If I am berthed on a finger pontoon next to a boat half my size we take up the same space but I pay far more.

If I want to be hauled out I pay far more than the half sized boat even though it takes the same amount of time and resources.

If I went to park a car in a pay car park they are not interested in what length the car is. If I buy a bus ticket, a plane ticket or a taxi I pay the same as anyone else no matter what size we are.

Why does size matter so much?

Can I sue for sizeism as I feel I am being victimised?

Simple equation invented by the marine industry.

size = ££££££

never quite got my head around marina berth pricing. I hire an 11m berth, if my boat is 10.5m I still pay for 11, If my boat is 11.5m I pay extra, same berth, same water how does that work.......

 

[Judders]

If you look a little more carefully at most marinas, you will notice that boats are grouped together in terms of size and further, there aere subtle differences in the width of the fairways. Bigger boats require more space to overhand the fingers and more space to turn in. Thus they are taking up more valuable space that could be better utilised by more sensibly sized boats.

Further, with mooring buoys, they are rated by weight and we'd all fib about weight, it's difficult to tell really big fibs about length.

It's not an exact science, but it has to be simplified as there are lot of simple people in sailing.

 

[Supine Being]

As Judders said, you need bigger berths on bigger boats. We have just moved our boat to allow dredging in our section. The berth that we moved to seems huuuuge for our 26 footer. The finger pontoon doesn't wobble when you stand near the end, and it's as long as our boat. As for beam, I would estimate that you can fit 21-23 boats on my 'home' pontoon in the same space as 15 on my temporary one.

 

[Judders]

I'd like to think there is also an element of encouraging new boat owners into the 'market' but I doubt most marina organisations are that forward thinking.

 

[Sans Bateau]

Look at it this way. If a flat rate were charged, bloke with a 50ftr might be well please, however someone with a Dylan sized boat would be seriously pissed off at having to pay the same.

I remember many years ago arriving at Bucklers Hard marina in a 26ftr, it was late, but they did find us a space, rafted on a 36ftr. We were told (and I cannot remember now why payment was not demanded on the spot, like they do) that we would have to pay the 36ft rate. When I asked why, I was told it was because they could have put a 36 ftr onto that berth. When we found out that the (French) boat we were rafted too was planning on leaving at 4.00 AM, we decided to bugger off. By now we had filled up with water, used the loo's and showers. So leaving to anchor without paying, I thought was good value.

 

[DRM MARINE VALETING]

A Trader 47 that I work on every year, was missing it's davits the last time I was on board. When I asked the owner the reason for this, he told me it saved him £700 a year on his annual berthing fee.

 

[Ex-SolentBoy]

Simple equation invented by the marine industry.

size = ££££££

never quite got my head around marina berth pricing. I hire an 11m berth, if my boat is 10.5m I still pay for 11, If my boat is 11.5m I pay extra, same berth, same water how does that work.......

You are lucky you aren't in Yarmouth.

They put out 11m fingers, deem these suitable for 14m boats and charge you for 14m irrespective of the length of your boat!

 

[Sybarite]

A Trader 47 that I work on every year, was missing it's davits the last time I was on board. When I asked the owner the reason for this, he told me it saved him £700 a year on his annual berthing fee.

I have a non-standard pulpit which brought me down one billing category.

 

[Tranona]

Why is it that size matter’s so much in the marine industry?

Because you need to have some basis for trying to equate usage to scarce resources.

In a marina it is area that is the scarce resource, so you have to devise a system that charges users in relation to the area they use. So bigger boats need not only bigger berths but more room to access them. We did this exercise in our club to measure the income in relation to berth sizes - you can get more 8m boats into a space than 12m if you group boats (and therefore berths) by size - just look at ariel views of marinas and you will understand why.

Anyway, we found that using length of boat as a basis is a very good approximation of the area used by each individual boat. However it is different when boats are stored on land as area (L*B) can be more directly used as the boat only "uses" its footprint when stored, so area is used for storage charges.

The advantage of using LOA is that it is simple. You can either measure it as is commonly used for permanent berths (hence the advantage of removing davits or bowsprits) or use the stated measurement on the boat's documentation. The latter is by far the most sensible for visitors as it is easy to administer.

However, as you move around the world you will find length is not a universal measure. In many North European countries L*B is used. In many Med countries it is berth size as they argue it is the berth size that determines the amount of scarce resource used - irrespective of the size of the boat in the berth.

Whichever method you use there are "winners" and "losers", but you cannot escape the fact that bigger boats use more area, so charges need to bear some relationship to size.

 

[aquaplane]

Look at it this way. If a flat rate were charged, bloke with a 50ftr might be well please, however someone with a Dylan sized boat would be seriously pissed off at having to pay the same.

A couple of years ago I took my 20'er into a marina and it cost me £11 for a walk ashore berth with showers and stuff available, cheap compared to a 35'er.

The following night I picked up a visitor mooring where the only facilities were a dingy pontoon to land at, that was a flat rate £10 for the first night and half that for subsequent nights. Good value for a 35'er, not so good for me.

I'm not complaining, it's just how it is.

 

[Gordonmc]

Whichever method you use there are "winners" and "losers", but you cannot escape the fact that bigger boats use more area, so charges need to bear some relationship to size.

Tha is fair enough when charging for pontoon berthing... the surface area of the marina space required for a 12+ metre boat will be greater than for a sub-12 metre.
But how does that apply to the hard?
When I was working on my project I was charged per-metre despite the yard arrangements which had boats of whatever size in rows. Whatever the size of vessel, the same yard space was allocated.
I was also left puzzled by the charges for mast stepping, calculated by the number of spreaders. The same crane-hours are involved, the same number of marineros... yet it cost nearly double if I had two instead of one set of spreaders.
I was already being charged double as a ketch which is more understandable.

 

[[2574]]

Big boats are cheaper to berth than small boats:

Example. Lymingtoin marinas rates (published here: http://www.yachthavens.com/lymington/rates-and-booking/annual-seasonal-rates/)

Using Bavaria yacht specs as example data.

Bav 32, 9.9 loa x 3.4 beam. Area occupied 33.66SqM. berth cost £5,773, cost per SqM £171
Bav 45, 14.3 x 4.3. Area occupied 61.5SqM. Berth cost £9,656, cost SqM £156

The larger boat is about 9% cheaper to berth than the smaller boat.

As a poster above says, marinas are about water area occupied by a boat. A marina costs money to enclose/own/protect/maintain a water area, it is essential to get the right yield from each square metre. For the marina owner larger boats yield less than smaller boats. It's no different to building out of town shopping centres, the area covered by the building has to yield the best rate to create a sustainable investment.

 

[Talbot]

Try justifying the difference in pricing for a multihull.

Fair enough if your craft takes up the space for 2 boats, but when you are allocated a berth in shallow water which is difficult to get into in a rowing boat, and then charged multiples of the going rate for boats that could not even use that berth, something is wrong.

 

[Stork_III]

Some dutch marinas charge visitors, maybe residents, on LxB. Wilhemstad is 38c/m2/night, seems fair to me.

 

[RichardTaylor]

It does strike me most marinas have fingers for a set length of vessel so you could have finger "A" for up to 28ft, finger "B" up to 34ft etc, so this will mean a 29ft vessel will take the same marina space as a 34ft one. Therefore in theory you could argue they should both pay the same. However that big wide MoBo could take up more width and therefore a 34 sailing vessel may not fit comfortably in the next berth..

 

[little_roundtop]

You're right!

I just had a chat with my mate on his 26-footer in the marina here and darned if you aren't right! My 45-footer needs bigger warps, bigger sails, a bigger engine, uses more fuel, needs a bigger anchor...the list is endless.

 

[alant]

Why is it that size matter’s so much in the marine industry?

It doesn’t seem to matter so much anywhere else in life but when it comes to boats every inch counts.

If I pick up a buoy there can be only one boat on there but the bigger you are the more you pay.

If I am berthed on a finger pontoon next to a boat half my size we take up the same space but I pay far more.

If I want to be hauled out I pay far more than the half sized boat even though it takes the same amount of time and resources.

If I went to park a car in a pay car park they are not interested in what length the car is. If I buy a bus ticket, a plane ticket or a taxi I pay the same as anyone else no matter what size we are.

Why does size matter so much?

Can I sue for sizeism as I feel I am being victimised?

'Cos boats are female & size matters?