Shore leave
The hotel with a dock
A handful of grand hotels on the Mediterranean have their own tender landing. They are worth more to a yacht than any restaurant on the coast.
There is a particular kind of Mediterranean hotel that was built between 1880 and 1930, sits on a point with deep water below it, and has steps down to a small concrete dock that was originally for a rowing boat. Those steps are now the most useful thing the hotel owns, and the fleet knows exactly which hotels have them.
Why the dock matters
A yacht at anchor has one problem ashore: where to put the tender. Public quays are full, many harbours charge, and in August the dinghy dock in a Riviera port at one in the afternoon is a rugby match. A hotel dock solves it: a man takes the line, the guests step off dry, lunch is fifty metres up the steps, and the tender either waits alongside or goes back to the boat and returns at five.
Around that convenience the hotel has built the rest of its relationship with the fleet: a beach club for the day, a terrace for lunch, rooms for guests arriving a day before the boat, a spa for the morning after a crossing and, discreetly, somewhere for an owner to sleep when the boat is full of family.
The etiquette of using one
You are a guest of the hotel, which means eating, staying or paying for the day. The concierge wants the boat's name and the tender length a day ahead; a ten metre limousine tender does not fit where a five metre RIB does. In August the dock has a schedule, and a boat that arrives at one without warning gets a mooring buoy and a wait.
The crew who do this well build the relationship in May, when the hotel is quiet and a lunch booking is easy, and then find in August that the answer is yes.
The other use: the room that is not on the boat
Owners of very large yachts keep suites ashore, and it surprises people. The reasons are mundane and completely convincing. A night without the crew. A place to put the guests who arrive before the boat does. Somewhere for a business meeting that is not the saloon. A bathroom that is not moving, after a bad passage.
It also solves the family arithmetic. A boat that sleeps twelve and a family that is fourteen for one week in August is not a problem when the hotel behind the bay has two rooms.
Use it now
Shore Base Finder
Hotels with a dock, hotels as a charter base, and hotels for the week off the boat.
