Safe mooring and Multihulls - costs

[spahen]

As a rule of thumb, as far as it seems from various internet sources, mooring for multihulls in safe* places - like marinas and other ports -

tends to cost about twice than similar length monohull.


Wondering whether there are certain list of Marinas, or Ports/Harbors -

or countries -

where it's relatively cheaper to moor for a catamaran??


*
by "safe" i think about a place one can leave the boat for a few days with a reasonable amount of certainty, it will be kept in the place without theft or unaccountable damage...

[Sand crab]

I kept my tri in a slip in Washington state for the same monohull rate. You just need to find a side or end tie. Most times that's the hard part.

[boatman61]

In the EU as a general rule they charge 1.5 compared to a mono of similar length.
That being said somewhere like Almerimar I've paid as little as 19.75euro/night including water and elec for a Lagoon 44.

[spahen]

Originally Posted by Sand crab

I kept my tri in a slip in Washington state for the same monohull rate. You just need to find a side or end tie. Most times that's the hard part.

guessing you mean it's a request. ie asking the marina whether they have a side or an end tie, yes?


I asked in my local marinas, south-coast uk -

they wouldn't entertain a lower price for an end tie..

(Logic was said to be that then everyone with a catamaran will ask for that arrangement..)


Cheers!

[spahen]

Originally Posted by boatman61

In the EU as a general rule they charge 1.5 compared to a mono of similar length.
That being said somewhere like Almerimar I've paid as little as 19.75euro/night including water and elec for a Lagoon 44.

Yes. Thanks for the pointer. It's a good price indeed.


Cheers!

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by spahen

Yes. Thanks for the pointer. It's a good price indeed.


Cheers!

I should point out this was pre the end of the 2019 season.. I have not sailed anywhere in '20 or '21 due to Covid, my first sail in over two years will be in March.

[Niall leslie]

With respect, do you mean mooring or docking? You stated mooring but appeared to actually mean docking.
For a mooring intended for a multi hulled vessel the multi hull requirements are generally a bit more than for the same displacement of mono hull due to the typically greater windage allowance for the multi hull.

[Scaramanga F25]

In a slip a 42' cat takes about twice the beam or width of 2 monohull slips so twice the price

[JasonS]

It all depends on where and how the marina is set up. Most places we dock our catamaran are the same or similar to monohulls, but they have side tie docks. Sometimes these are more exposed than docks bow/stern in with a finger dock on the side.

If the marina has a bow in for a multihull, it often means you are taking up two slips and they just don’t have a center piling. In this case they often charge 1.5-2x.

All this being said, the multihull market has exploded and finding dockage has often become much more difficult.

Right now it is very difficult to find dockage in Miami for instance even at $10 foot per night! And the moorings I. Miami, which used to never be full, is full and full of monthlies!

Go to Massachusetts or Maine in the winter and you’ll find space!

For now, we are in the Bahamas and we haven’t seen a dock since the first week of January when we checked in.

We love to anchor, but also used some mooring balls in Exumas Land and Sea Park.

[boatman61]

Damn.. that'd be a long and expensive commute for the OP..

[AndyinAbudhabi]

I was in the Med a few years ago on a charter cat and they were talking about charging by square meter. Not sure if that’s happening now there or other parts of the world.

[Puget Dan]

We have a 1998, 38' Horstman Tristar Trimaran (20' beam) and have had a hard time finding moorage. Now we keep the boat on the hard during the winter for about $600 a month here in Washington state and then pay high fee for daily moorage for the two months we are sailing a lot in the San Juan Islands.
So you might look for a spot on the hard. Good Luck.
PS- We have had our boat for 11 years.

[smj]

In the 30 years that we’ve owned catamarans we’ve never paid more than monohull prices, in fact we stayed at a marina 3 years ago and were charged less per foot for the t head than the monohull was paying for a standard slip. I do believe this trend is getting ready to end though.

[Franziska]

Few thoughts on this.

In France there are dry harbour (port-a-sec) where you store the boat on the hard and get it launched with a hydraulic trailer when you use it.
Say you want to go for a sail for a week, you can call them few days before and they put the boat in the water.

Here in Cordemais we pay about 2250€ a year including facilities and electricity for a 35ft catamaran.
They do this even for some 50 foot catamarans.

When afloat we tend to avoid marinas, partially due to cost and partially we don't like the camping site atmosphere.
Being self sufficient for the most part helps.

If possible we use anchorages and sometimes town docks instead.

An alternative for onshore storage over winter are shoreside businesses. Some are happy to store a boat on the hard for a very reasonable price. You just need pay for the car crane on top.

[Luvboats]

Hola,

I, much like SMJ has experienced, have never been asked nor required to pay more for either of the two catamarans we have owned. The first all throughout the sea of Cortez, Washington state, Vancouver Canada region, and Alaska. The second was in the same areas listed above minus Mexico.

We have always just asked for mooorage for an “X” length by “Y” wide vessel and have received appropriate size slip to accommodate. The fee structure was either dependent on vessel length or slip size regardless of vessel hull type. It seems some marinas do it one way and others choose another method.

On one occasion we were asked to move to a much larger slip, at no additional cost, so as to allow two smaller vessels to share our original location. Outside of that we have never been inconvenienced for owning a multihull………….knock on wood.

I read often that some marinas/locations charge a premium for multihulls but I have yet to experience this first hand in my neck of the woods.

I, also like SMJ, think this is likely to change as multihulls are becoming more popular in this region and moorage becomes more difficult and expensive to find.

Safe Journeys,
~Jeb