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Fenland Marinas for Shared Ownership Boat


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With the AGM of our Shared Ownership boat Hawksmoor approaching, the annual trawl of possible home base marinas commences (with us inevitably staying at Great Haywood for the 13th year!).
I am looking for a recommendation of a marina further East so that we might cruise the fenland waterways.
Something on the Northampton Arm or the Nene perhaps?
 
Needs to be a marina with engineering staff to carry out engine servicing and routine maintenance, and carry out running repairs as necessary during weekly/fortnightly handovers.
Advantageous if they have facilities for winter maintenance (hull blacking).
 
Any suggestions or good/bad experiences?
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1 minute ago, Loddon said:

Possibly a bit to far east but Little Ouse Moorings could fit the bill. 

But do they have engineering staff? 

 

Foxes might be better. Central between Nene and Great Ouse.

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2 minutes ago, pearley said:

But do they have engineering staff? 

 

Foxes might be better. Central between Nene and Great Ouse.

Indeed  much bigger engineering staff at Foxes, 

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2 hours ago, Simon (Hawksmoor) said:
With the AGM of our Shared Ownership boat Hawksmoor approaching, the annual trawl of possible home base marinas commences (with us inevitably staying at Great Haywood for the 13th year!).
I am looking for a recommendation of a marina further East so that we might cruise the fenland waterways.
Something on the Northampton Arm or the Nene perhaps?
 
Needs to be a marina with engineering staff to carry out engine servicing and routine maintenance, and carry out running repairs as necessary during weekly/fortnightly handovers.
Advantageous if they have facilities for winter maintenance (hull blacking).
 
Any suggestions or good/bad experiences?

Oundle

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2 hours ago, Simon (Hawksmoor) said:
With the AGM of our Shared Ownership boat Hawksmoor approaching, the annual trawl of possible home base marinas commences (with us inevitably staying at Great Haywood for the 13th year!). I am looking for a recommendation of a marina further East so that we might cruise the fenland waterways. Something on the Northampton Arm or the Nene perhaps?

P1256985a.jpg.d00eeeec8e652905fa22280bdcaac497.jpgSome Ownerships' nostalgia - relevant in that many owners' groups adopted most of the OS procedures in their new agreements. We found that the key to moving to different bases was to persuade the AGM to start with a stay/move decision., and if a majority to move, then discuss where to. The OS-recommended way was to see which base, including the current one, had the most supporters, and that makes the current base the most likely to be the one chosen, as you have done with Hawksmoor.

 

Trips from, say Fox at March, are a significantly different experience than from a narrow-canal base and we found a reluctance for a majority to impose itself if one or more owners thought it a bad idea. We managed to organise three owners to combine for a trip to Bedford and back in 2007, but the logistics almost had the better of us. Gayton seems a good compromise; haven't any information on their engineering capabilities: ABC managed some shared boats for a while so they should understand what is needed. Good luck for your discussions.

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Whether Fox's would welcome the traffic I can't say, but it's a well-equipped marina with good facilities (excellent mechanics/fitters who, inter alia, build their hire boats from the ground up), we have had work done on two boats there and have absolutely no complaints. Because they have  a hire fleet I assume they have experienced change=over staff.

   Slipway, covered paint dock, covered boatbuilding shed, diesel, chandlery, launderette, large supermarket 1 mile. No cafe, but you can't have it all.

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Hi Peter, good suggestions (both the voting system and Gayton Marina). Thank you.

 

Regarding remote handovers, we did manage very successfully a 3 way remote handover a few years back

Owner 1 cruised from GH to Liverpool leaving his car at GH

I drove to Liverpool and owner 1 drove my car back to GH where he picked up his car.

I cruised to Leeds

Owner 3 drove to GH, left his car there and drove my car to Leeds

I drove directly home from Leeds

Owner 3 cruised back to GH and picked up his car

Insuring other drivers for a couple of days is usually pretty inexpensive.

 

I tried but failed to arrange a similar journey onto the Lancaster Canal.

The problem there was always the timings of the river transit

One direction was easy to arrange, the return left no margin for error.

Still waiting, still trying!

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3 hours ago, Simon (Hawksmoor) said:

I tried but failed to arrange a [remote handover] journey onto the Lancaster Canal. The problem there was always the timings of the river transit One direction was easy to arrange, the return left no margin for error. Still waiting, still trying!

 

L1533_20090423_0053.JPG

We did the Ribble Link in 2009, an account on Tonic starts here. Three sets of owners (and two dogs) were involved, but simultaneously rather than consecutively . Original plan had been for one owner (we had four at the time) to do the outward trip, stay for a month on the Lancaster, and another owner to return, but the BW bookings didn't allow it. So the three sets of owners and associated dogs squashed aboard for two nights and we did a quick return. Plans can be disrupted by being diverted to Preston Dock overnight, postponed altogether because of the weather ... or since the crossing is only done on Spring tides, delays can be for most of a month. Or for one boater we spoke to, from October to March. Much fun, though.

L1533_20090423_0085a.jpg

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I think it was a bit more than two nights on board, Peter 🙂 . Night one we were all on board at Tarleton awaiting our trip the next day. Day two, we crossed the link (keeping the keel cooling tank cool by throwing pails of water over it while Iain had a sauna standing on the step above) and  moored at Billsborrow,  day three we went to Tewitfield  and had a nice meal out, day four we went down to Glasson docks and moored there overnight, day five we went to Preston before returning to moor at the top of the Ribble Link locks and day five we  returned to Tarleton.  It was a great trip and was the third time we have cruised the Lancaster, having towed gamebird down twice and cruised end to end. 

 

haggis

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On 30/07/2021 at 11:51, matty40s said:

Gayton already service quite a few share boats which gives you lots of options.

 

When we had a share in a shareboat, we stayed at Gayton for a couple of years.

 

They were one of the better bases we stayed at from an engineering point of view and unusually for a shareboat, allocated us a dedicated berth on a pontoon. The marina is a bit windy and the reverse to the pontoon certainly sharpened my reversing skills

 

ABC also gave each shareholder a discount card for use in any ABC marina.

 

In my experience of shareboating (1992-2013), it is better to use a marina with a hire fleet, because they understand the need to turnaround (including quick repairs) quickly.

 

Twice in my time we stayed at marinas without hire fleets and both times there were several occasions where the boat was not ready on time due to the lack of urgency getting the boat turned around.

 

Edited by cuthound
To add the last two paragraphs.
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On 30/07/2021 at 15:30, Athy said:

Whether Fox's would welcome the traffic I can't say, but it's a well-equipped marina with good facilities (excellent mechanics/fitters who, inter alia, build their hire boats from the ground up), we have had work done on two boats there and have absolutely no complaints. Because they have  a hire fleet I assume they have experienced change=over staff.

   Slipway, covered paint dock, covered boatbuilding shed, diesel, chandlery, launderette, large supermarket 1 mile. No cafe, but you can't have it all.

 

With dozens of berths empty, they need the trade. Three more boats left today sold on and heading for the bright lights of London.  As for the chandlery, I been here for over 20 years ands have yet to find it.

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14 hours ago, nbfiresprite said:

  As for the chandlery, I been here for over 20 years ands have yet to find it.

It was there when I was working on my Springer at Fox's about nine years ago. Not a large one, admittedly. Has it since closed down?

Edited by Athy
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23 minutes ago, PeterScott said:

spacer.png

 

On this day 2020 - Coventry Canal near The Plough at Huddlesford

Very accomplished signwriting - but I am not convinced that it's in the right topic.

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