I'm trying to understand the rules regarding Marina pens and Boat size. Say you have a 10.5m boat. Can you put that in a 10m pen OK, what about 10.76 - 35ft. Is that allowed. Is it the same for most marinas? How does it work?

thanks In advance Neil

It will depend on the club/marina. breadth comes into it as well of course. While you can park a boat in a small pen, with say the bow sprit or stern swim platform sticking out, its not the best idea. Passing traffic can make a mess of it.

From my experience, no. Worst still your boat may be considered say 32' (just shy of 10m) but that may not include the bow sprite and swimboard that will take your overall length over 10m meaning you'll have to go into a 12m pen.

I had my boat in Mindarie where a 15mt pen had you an allowable (by management) overhanging of 50cm and your stern sticking out by up to 2mt. It was a rubbish set up that apparently is becoming the norm. I currently have the boat in Port Coogee where a 15mt pen gives you more than enough to comfortable fit in.

A good question and one I'd be interested in as well. I thought it was 10 metres and not a centimetre more. Based on one person's advice from many year's ago. My own boat must be very close to that figure. 31 foot hull plus permanent fixture bowsprit maybe another foot and a half. Give or take a bit. My registration may be the lower figure (excluding bowsprit), which may or may not be technically correct.
Keen to see if NeilMac01 gets a view of general consensus on his question.

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Toph said..
From my experience, no. Worst still your boat may be considered say 32' (just shy of 10m) but that may not include the bow sprite and swimboard that will take your overall length over 10m meaning you'll have to go into a 12m pen.

I had my boat in Mindarie where a 15mt pen had you an allowable (by management) overhanging of 50cm and your stern sticking out by up to 2mt. It was a rubbish set up that apparently is becoming the norm. I currently have the boat in Port Coogee where a 15mt pen gives you more than enough to comfortable fit in.

I had the same issue in my last pen, '12mtr' berth and my 12.5 LOA stuck out by a good 2mtrs with the bow rubbing. It was stupid, as you can't tie a proper stern line or stern spring. You do come up with some creative spaghetti to keep the boat in place, but it added a level of stress every time you have a strong wind warning.
It changes dependent upon club/marina, the previous marina would not allow any overhang at all, so that one was a 15mtr berth. It had enough room to tie the rib up behind the boat which I did a few times when heading out again the next day, only to get a stern letter from the club (only one floating thingy per berth please)

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Toph said..
From my experience, no. Worst still your boat may be considered say 32' (just shy of 10m) but that may not include the bow sprite and swimboard that will take your overall length over 10m meaning you'll have to go into a 12m pen.

I had my boat in Mindarie where a 15mt pen had you an allowable (by management) overhanging of 50cm and your stern sticking out by up to 2mt. It was a rubbish set up that apparently is becoming the norm. I currently have the boat in Port Coogee where a 15mt pen gives you more than enough to comfortable fit in.

Hi Toph
thanks for replying but a little bit confused by your answer. "I had my boat in Mindarie where a 15mt pen..." Did you mean 12m here? I take it that your boat is 32' LOA.

Basically I'm toying with the idea of getting a bigger boat. After seeing a sail boat on a swing mooring sink at Blairgowrie last week and hearing that swing mooring insurance may be difficult and expensive to get then I'm looking at pen costs. It seems a 15m pen would cost roughly an additional 2k a year compared to a 12m. So, what would be a good size for a 12m pen? 11m - 36"?

I hope I'm not opening a can of worms here ...

NeilMac, the only way you will get a definitive answer is to talk to the marinas.

Officially, the marinas are subject to their insurance rules, which will state that they cannot put oversized boats into berths. So, this usually means an 8.5m boat (LOA) has to go into a 9m berth; it can't live in an 8m berth. Officially, the "length" also means the bits hanging off the front and back of the boat, including anchors mounted on the bow and davits on the stern (caveat emptor to anyone adding these bits to his or her boat already in a berth). You might have to pony up the additional fees for a longer berth. Use a tape measure on whichever boat you might be interested in buying, and don't rely on internet numbers.

However, the marinas might unofficially allow some leeway for longstanding berths, with some favourable interpretation of what "length" means. The problem is that if they get officiously audited, they might have to "upgrade" the berths for some of their non-compliant boats.

In terms of value-for-money, there is usually an incremental cost from 8m to 9m, 9m to 10m and so on. The marina will be able to tell you which are the more popular berths. For example, in Manly QLD, there are usually many more 8m berths available than 10m berths. Factor this into your decision-making so that you can prepare yourself for the possibility of paying for an oversized berth.

Definitely talk to the marinas and read the fine print. Blairgowrie is very popular, so any pen will be expensive.

Some marinas have a bizarre marina rule that allows another 0.5m above the nominated length in the lease agreement, so a standard 10m berth is good for 10.5m. Then if the boat looks like it is less than 10.5m and nobody complains it is quite possible to squeeze an 11m boat in a 10m berth. I see lots of 13m boats (including the bits) in 12m meter pens. All depends on how vigilant the manager is.

The worst thing is to have a boat that is just over the nominal pen sizes that forces you to upsize 2m to a larger pen for an extra 20cm of boat.

If you are in for the long term, there are some crazy deals in Port Phillip for 15m+ pens for outright purchase, but probably not in Blairgowrie.

Another consideration is the Port Phillip chop and IMO 12m is needed to avoid the hobby horse action that stalls smaller boats. Depends on what you are doing.