Marinas
The berth is the hard part
Anybody with the money can buy sixty metres of yacht. Almost nobody can find her a home on the Western Mediterranean coast in July.
Berths and harbours
Marinas
A yacht spends nine tenths of its life tied to something. Marinas looks at that something: the berth shortage above 40 metres, the seasons, the two-continent calendar, and how to tell a good harbour from a pretty one in ten minutes.
Marinas
Marinas
Reading a harbour in ten minutes
Shelter, depth, services, town. In that order, and the fourth one is the one everybody judges a harbour by.
Marinas
The two continent calendar
The serious fleet lives on a loop: Mediterranean summer, Atlantic crossing or a ship, Caribbean winter, back again. Everything else follows from it.
The short version
The berth is the hard part
Anybody with the money can buy a 60 metre yacht. Very few people can find her a berth in the Western Mediterranean in July. The supply of berths over 40 metres between Barcelona and Genoa is small, mostly leased for decades, and priced by the night at a level that makes a suite at the hotel behind the quay look reasonable.
The consequence is a calendar. The serious fleet spends May to October in the Med, crosses or is shipped to the Caribbean for December to April, and lives at anchor for much of both seasons because the berth is either full or absurd. A home berth in a working harbour, Antibes, Palma, La Ciotat, Barcelona, is the base; the glamorous quay is a night or two for a party.
What matters in a harbour is shelter first, depth second, services third and the town last. A marina with a good fuel dock, a chandler, a rigger and a shipyard within an hour is worth more to an owner than one with a Hermès on the quay, and the crew will tell you so.
Worth knowing
Nightly berth for a 50 m yacht, Riviera, August
roughly €3,000 to €5,000 at the famous quays; €900 to €1,800 in a working harbour an hour away
Annual berth lease, 40 m, Western Med
typically €120,000 to €250,000 a year, when one is available at all
Superyacht berths over 60 m in the whole Med
in the low hundreds, and most of them spoken for
Price of a freehold or long-lease berth for 50 m
seven figures, with a term of 20 to 40 years and an annual service charge on top
The deck vote
Choosing a home berth, the first question is
Use it now
Berth Calculator
What a berth costs by the night and by the season, in twenty four harbours.
Questions people ask
For a 50 metre boat on the Riviera in July and August, a year, and the famous ports operate waiting lists. For a night in shoulder season a week is usually enough. For anything over 70 metres the captain is talking to three harbours in January.
It is a way of guaranteeing a home port, and occasionally it appreciates. It is rarely a good investment on its own: the term is finite, the service charges rise, and the resale market is thin. Owners buy berths because they are tired of asking, not because of the return.
Water and electricity by the metre or the reading, waste and black water, security, and in many ports a tax on the night. Budget 15 to 25 per cent on top of the headline berth rate, and more if the boat runs air conditioning alongside in August.
Stern-to with the bow held on a lazy line is the Mediterranean norm and needs a crew who have done it in a crosswind. Alongside is easier, rarer and costs more per metre. Ask the marina what the lazy lines are rated for before bringing a 60 metre boat into a harbour built for 30.
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