ICA Rally of around NZ

[Elizabeth]

We paid $15,000 for our 10 metre berth about 4 years ago - probably worth about double now. We pay yearly subs of about $300. Big renovation is due - hate to think how much that will cost us.

Enjoy your trip across the Strait Seafox - we and a few friends are sailing up to Mahia tomorrow morning... yay!

[Alan Wheeler]

I just heard another sad tale in our Marina yesterday. A friend of mine has just brought a 40ft Vindex launch. The Marina superviser keeps telling us all that there is a waiting list for births of 30 boats waiting to get in. I don't think that is correct. Anyway, if you buy a boat that is in a birth, you are not allowed to automaticly keep it int he Birth. The result is that many boat sales are falling through because people don't have anywhere to put them. BUT, if you pay a small "transfer fee" to the Port company, they will allow you to keep the birth. Well a couple of weeks ago, my friend was told he had till March to get the boat out of that Marina because he could not keep the birth. So he asked what the transfer fee was. They told him $5000.00 (I think it was actually 5500 but will give them benifit of doubt) That was nothing short of Extorsion. And besides, if there is a waiting list, howcome a birth "suddenly" is available when money is paid. I didn't think we had that sort of corruption in NZ. It is highly possibel that the powers to be are so nieve, that they don't view it as corruption, but they are not looking at this from the right perspective.
My friend phoned the Mayor and complained. At least our Mayor is approachable. He was shocked and is looking into the situation. My friend is also writing a letter to a higher authority that deals with complaints in NZ and I am going to do the same addresed to the Mayor.

[seafox]

Thanks Elizabeth. Just got home. What a great sail yesterday. Popped out of Tory and had 2 to 3 knots of tide most of the way to Mana in our favour. 20knot SE most of the way. Did the first 10miles in an hour so a real fast trip.

Just got the mail and see a Port of Marlborough Dry Stack flyer inserted in the latest Boating NZ mag. $5,500 pa plus fees for a 6m for a year. A 12m is over $10,000pa.

those South Islanders must have heaps of money.

[Alan Wheeler]

Yeah and then they put a $500.00 yearly admin fee on that which is subject to increase each year. Then there are the costs they don't tell you. They charge for launching your boat, and that wonderful clean and polish service they are advertising also is at a cost as is also the maintanace service.
If someone down here is giving out heaps of money, I seem to always be standing at the wrong end of the line.

[seafox]

What are the charging to launch the boat? It will ruin the sport of watching the fizzy owners back the car and trailer into the water.....

[Alan Wheeler]

Yeah it used to be damn good family entertainment that :-)
I don't know the charge.
When a note went around everyone about the posibility of a dry stack being built, the positive response was overwhelming. But not all the story was told at that stage. I think the story was that for a small fee of say $20 to launch and $20 to retrieve and a montly storage fee of not much more than you pay now. no wonder everyone went, yeah that sounds great. Now it is all set, I can't see anyone paying that sort of money for there fizz boat.
I was talking to another mate yesterday. He has just bought a 45ft and is bringing it down this weekend from the North Island. He currently has a 40ft in the marina. He expected to pay a small increase for the extra 5ft of boat. He said well if the boat is 12%longer, I expected to pay 12% more. When he told the port he was changing his boat over, they told him the price. It was 62% more. So now he is going to look at leaving the Marina and go to a swing mooring.
I now know of three boats leaving because of cost. I hope more do, something just has to happen. We simply can not afford another increase.

[Connemara]

Wheels, I was looking at the various marina websites near Picton a few months back and the rates didn't seem all that bad to me. Was I misreading, or has something just happened?

I had in mind (and still do, sort of vaguely) buying a boat in NZ and living on it during the antipodean summer, then flying home for summer in Canada. The offspring are in Auckland, but there was loose talk of them moving to the south island, so I looked at marina websites there and not up north.

But is it the case that you have to buy a slip? I keep seeing marina births for sale on trade-a-boat NZ. Or is it just rent?

Connemara

[seafox]

Hi Connemara,
You can either buy or rent a berth. Buying in my opinion is the best way to go (where I am in Mana anyway). It worked out that the loss of interest on the capital was a lot less than the rent would have been and I have had 50% tax free capital gain in 4 years.
It also caps or fixes the cost for parking.
While Wheels rent will continue to rise, if you own it you don't get the rent increases only the capital gain as a result of the rent increases.
My rent would have gone up 50% over the time I have owned the berth if I had been renting it.
The costs of renting at POM are pretty much the same as Mana and Seaview. Just a sign of the times.

[seafox]

Wheels, there still seems to be an overwhelming demand over supply at Waikawa. There are not any empty berths so it is the market pushing up the prices.
Until someone finds a way to build another Marina I can't see that changing.
I reckon all the rich farmers will still go for the drystack. No trailer or tow car needed. No sun UV damage. Security etc etc.
There are some pretty expensive fizzies these days and that does not stop them buying them so I suppose they will pay for the storage etc.
As for the smaller launches, it will save on the above as well as anodes, anti fouling etc.

[Alan Wheeler]

Waikawa yes, but we boaters that are in Havelock choose Havelock because it used to be cheap.
Connemara, I am paying $5K per yr for 14m (45ft) on a wooden finger. The flash concrete fingers are $6K. Some of the newbies in the Marina are now paying $6K for the wooden fingers for the same length. If you want to live on board, it is another $1K ontop of that again. Waikawa used to be another $1K more expensive, but I don't know where it sits now.
For that price we get included water and power and a carpark. Nothing else. No locked gates, no security, no help from marina staff, nothing. We just have an old rickity board walk with wooden fingers. We provide all the fenders and lines we need. Although we have to use "certain types" of fenders and they can be bought from the port company.
The marina is dredged to 1.8m (5'10") So for me, I am subject to tide for manouvering. I have a small window of going in and out of the marina. There is 7Nm of narrow dredged channel that was last dredged about 5yrs ago. The only thing keeping it open is us boats churning up the bottom when we miss judge the tide.
Seafox is in a unique position that he actually "owns" the birth. We can't here. We can only own a lease. The lease has not many years to go. So if you buy a lease now for say $100K, in ten years time, the lease will have less time and who is goign to want to pay $100K for something that has little time left before it expires. If you do buy a lease, then yous till pay nearly $4K all up eahc year anyway, so you are not saving much at all. Darryl doesn't, he pays a small fee of 300 or so per year. It is worth it to him to buy. The issue with our situation is that we can not go anywhere else. There is no opposition and they will not allow any more swing moorings to go down. Infact, the word is they want to slowly abolish swing moorings in certain area's.
OK I'll stop ranting now.

[seafox]

Come to Mana Wheels. You can still get across the Strait to cruise the Sounds.

We only own a berth holders licence which entitles us to our berth.

The difference is Mana Marina is owned by the licence holders not the local Council. The Marina actually owns its piers, buildings and infastructure and we own a percentage of that being licence holders. The Marina does lease the land off the local council but that is all. The Marina has retained a few berths and rents them out to keep our operating costs down.

The main difference is Mana marina was created by a group of like minded boatees for themselves and not by a Council for profit. The Marina dredges the entrance and our largest keel (Lotus 12.8) can get out when the tide is good for the bar. I can usually get over the bar 2.30 to 3 hours either side of high tide so it gives you a few options.

Recently we have had to pay into a maintenance fund. A lot of people moaned about it but it is really just our money sitting in an account building up for any major maintenance that comes along. At the end of the year it can been seen in the accounts and if you sell your berth the buyer gets the benefit of it. It really just makes your berth worth more.

[Alan Wheeler]

If I was living on your side, I would be in in a flash.
You have a wonderful Club situation there.

I said to a guy yesterday that we should put together a group of us birth holders and dig out our own marina and go into competition.
But as you see by the line under my signature, I don't hold out much hope.

[Connemara]

Wheels: 6K a year for liveaboard does seem high, at first blush.

I'm trying to find the comparable figures for the Outer Harbour Marina in Toronto, which is the largest of the private (non-yacht club) marinas here. But the numbers are at the bottom of the pile somewhere.

When I did the math for Connemara (27 feet), it came out to about $3,000 a year, including winter storage, haulout, launch, and summer mooring. That's Canuck money; in NZ, it works out to about $3,700.

They calculated the cost based on square footage, so Tahitian Lady would be a piece more (unless she has a VERY narrow beam) but I can't find the multiplicative factor.

But it may be that the marina rates are pretty comparable. That 6K a year works out to $500 a month, which is pretty good for a place to live.

OTOH, we are members of the Toronto Hydroplane and Sailing Club, which sounds rather like the club Seafox was talking about. We're what's called a "self-help club," which means members do all the work, maintenance, cleaning, haulout, lauunch, etc. We lease the land from the city and there's a yearly club fee, mooring fee, launch and haulout fee etc.

But it works out to about half the cost of the Outer Harbour Marina, on a year-over-year basis.

No liveaboard fee, but you've got to be crazy to want to live aboard in TO in the winter. Current temp minus 12.

OTOH, some people do live aboard (at one of the downtown marinas) and they are charged about $500 C a month, depending how many shorepower lines they need.

That's more expensive than the rate you quoted, but still MUCH cheaper than an apartment in the city.

Maybe I won't deep-six my plans just yet.

Connemara

[Alan Wheeler]

Haul outs are done by businesses specialising in that process. Waikawa/Picton has one and Havelock has two. Interestingly Havelock is cheaper to haul. My boat cost me $900 to have hauled, washed, and anti-fouled. That isn't bad compared to it costing me more in Picton three years earlier and I had to do all the work.
To put the prices in our Marina in perspective, Auckland marinas are cheaper and provide more services and they are in the heart of the city. Nelson marina is almost exactly half the price and have good facilities. Wellington is slightly cheaper but is in the heart of the capital city and has good facilities. Tauranga is much cheaper, don't know what facilities. Havelock is is in the middle of nowhere apart from paradise. The price we have to pay for the place we boat I guess. If we see five boats in the sound, it's a busy day. Quen Charllote sound over the hill (where Seafox visits and Waikawa/ Picton is) is a very busy sound. Stunningly beautiful, but very crowded.

[seafox]

Went out for a sail today and decided to keep going.
Ended up at Seaview (short 45 Nautical mile trip) Marina. I phoned Chaffers and was quoted $25 plus $5 each if liveaboard and extra $10 for carpark. Seaview have put me in a new 18m berth for $10 a night. Plenty of carparks, good showers etc. Chaffers is a ripoff!!!

Going to have a weekend sailing around the harbour and some nights next week then will return to Mana.

What an amazing day to sail around. Dead calm all the way.