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How hard to find marinas for boats > 60 feet? (US)

Discussion in 'Marinas & Waypoints' started by BlackBeard78, Jul 22, 2020.

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  1. BlackBeard78

    BlackBeard78 New Member

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    My wife and I found our dream boat (Princess V60 - haven’t figured out yet how we’re going to pay for it) - and my wife is worried that we’ll have trouble finding marinas where we can dock it. She read somewhere that a lot of marinas don’t have slips for boats longer than 60’ and that such slips are scarce in general. Is this true? How much do we need to worry about this?
  2. BlackBeard78

    BlackBeard78 New Member

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    boat draft - 4,17 ft
  3. Pascal

    Pascal Senior Member

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    Where in the US??? California, Florida , NY???

    it really varies even within states. For instance in south Florida and especially around Miami there is indeed a shortage of slips over 50’. FTL as more options incl renting a dock behind a private home

    but again, you can’t expect useful answers if you don’t even tell us where you will have the boat
  4. BlackBeard78

    BlackBeard78 New Member

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    Sorry, I forgot to write - I want to walk the entire west coast. of course when I find the money for the boat :(
  5. NYCAP123

    NYCAP123 Senior Member

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    Of the marinas I'm most familiar 50' puts you in a different situation. Probably 90%+ of the slips in most marinas are for boats under 50'. Once you cross 60' you're into more select, upscale marinas or commercial shipyards.
  6. olderboater

    olderboater Senior Member

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    And Nycap is talking NE while OP wants west coast. So let me try West Coast. It's a huge long area with many different characteristics.

    First, transient dockage is not a problem along any of the coast for your size. Permanent dockage is then what I'll discuss.

    In San Diego, it's readily available as long as you're not bothered by price. In Los Angeles, length isn't the issue, just availability of slips is and waiting lists are common. In the San Francisco area, length can be a limiting issue as many marinas are geared toward smaller boats, but there is still dockage fairly readily available for your size.

    Then there is the Pacific Northwest. Specifically, in the Seattle area, dockage is very tight and waiting lists may be long. The further from Seattle the more readily available. One issue in the area is that there are a lot of mooring balls, but none for boats this size, so they remove some boats from docking but free up no slips in your size. Still as you move away from Seattle slips are more easily found.

    Now this is without even talking Alaska.

    I don't know if you've always lived in Europe or recently, but one thing one loses sight of in Europe is the size of the US. San Diego to Seattle is over 1200 nm, about the distance from the south of Portugal to the Netherlands.

    In general, the size boat you're talking about is not a very limiting factor on the west coast, but you may find slips to be limited, especially in LA and the PNW.

    One thing Nycap alludes to is that many of the smaller, cheaper marinas may not be able to accommodate you but larger, more expensive ones may.