Sweating the mooring asset

Sam Llewellyn looks at ways of getting top value out of his boat's swinging mooring

- Sam Llewellyn

Last issue I was on about the iniquity of marinas, the declared intention of some of their owners to squeeze yachties till the pips squeaked, and the general unpleasantness of the concreting over of Britain's foreshores and harbours.

Putting our money where our mouth is, the Llewellyn home fleet eschews concrete and pontoons, preferring the rough peasant option of the swinging mooring. We like the swinging mooring because of its ruggedness, its low environmental impact, and because it is cheap.

Or used to be. Recently the Crown Estate, conscious of its sacred duty to keep His Majesty in tweed suits, sent a letter informing us that the annual charge for the mooring site was going to increase by 37%, take it or leave it, justifying this with an alphabet salad of a sternly legal type. While as a family we are keen supporters of the Divine Right of Kings this seemed a bit steep, and we therefore decided to sweat the asset.