Marina mania: super-rich compete for superyacht slots

The Monaco Yacht Show is one of the highlights of the boating calendar 

© Valery Hache/AFP via Getty Images

 

From FT by Ivan Levingston

 

A shortage of places to park the world’s growing fleet of luxury vessels is driving up prices — and turning marinas into a hot new asset class for investors

A group of white yachts — sails down, masts tall — float off the Greek island of Corfu, waiting to dock at the Gouvia marina in the late afternoon sun.
It is the first Friday in September and the weather is perfect for sailing — hot, with an occasional breeze.

 

Gouvia Marine in the GeoGarage platform (HNHS ENC)

The Gouvia marina occupies the site of a former Venetian shipyard, built during an Ottoman invasion in 1716.
It now encompasses circa 200,000 sq m of green-blue waters, protected from the choppier Mediterranean Sea.
Across its pontoons, it can dock 1,300 craft, from small motorboats to multistorey yachts, and today there seem to be almost that number in residence, hardly a spare berth in sight.

“You see each year more and more boats in the Mediterranean Sea, and it is super-tough to build new marinas,” says Oliver Dörschuck, chief executive of D-Marin, which owns the port at Gouvia and more than 20 others in the region.
“We normally have three to four boats inquiring for one berth.”

 

The marina at Gouvia is one of about 400 premium marinas located in the Mediterranean, the global capital of the yachting industry, with around a thousand in total in the region.

It is in the same league as the likes of Port Hercule, host of September’s Monaco Yacht Show, and Porto Montenegro.

Port Hercule, venue for the annual Monaco Yacht Show © Alamy

Yet while the number of yachts is flourishing, the number of marinas is not.

 

Port Hercule, Monaco with the GeoGarage platform (SHOM raster chart)

 

Thanks to regulatory barriers, environmental restrictions and a limited supply of suitable locations, it remains difficult to build a port.

This mismatch is turning an overlooked sector into big business.
Earlier this year D-Marin was sold by its private equity owners, CVC, to the French investment group InfraVia for more than €1bn.
The sale auction drew interest from numerous companies, the latest deal to underscore the attraction of the business model.
Industry executives expect further acquisitions.

Marina mania is more than a business play, although it is certainly that.
The market is fragmented, with few large-scale players, and demand has grown from clients around the world.
But what gives the phenomenon its real spice is that it forces the super-wealthy into competition with each other for a defiantly limited, slowly expanding stock of berths.
They may have all the money in the world, but that does not mean they can dock where they please.

Josephine De Luca, who runs an independent consultancy representing boat owners, says that she never had trouble finding a berth at Port Vauban in Antibes for her clients before the pandemic ignited the yacht boom.
“It’s actually about scarcity now, for me that’s really key,” De Luca says.
“Berthing — it’s not just more expensive but because the yachts are bigger and there’s a finite amount of berths, the bigger change is being able to get the berth you want.”
Boating consultant Josephine De Luca says some berthing fees have doubled in 10 years

Difficulty finding ideal yacht mooring risks frustrating owners who are used to having their way.
“The egos are only getting bigger,” she says.
“Unfortunately there are some people in this industry that have come into a lot of money really quickly and perhaps they don’t quite get the nuances of decorum required.”

As the ranks of the ultra-rich have grown in the past decade, swollen by buoyant stock markets, their minds have turned to what they can spend that wealth on.
It never takes long to hit on a yacht.

The total number of yachts longer than 12 metres, which are too big to easily store on land, was set to reach about 210,000 last year, according to data compiled by consultancy McKinsey, rising by about 8,000 per year.
That compared with just 160,000 marina berths for such vessels.

The surge is even more pronounced at the top end of the market.
The global fleet of superyachts — longer than 30 metres — grew around 40 per cent to reach 6,239 in the decade to 2025, according to industry publication SuperYacht Times.
Oceanco and Feadship in the Netherlands and Benetti in Italy are among the top shipyards that have fulfilled orders for the likes of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in recent years.

The pandemic helped — a cohort of consumers looked to the water for fresh air during government lockdowns — as has the rise of satellite internet.
It is now possible to work from anywhere including the most remote sailing locations, a trend branded “yacht-desking”.

“We’ve definitely seen a lot more younger people buying boats, and especially very big boats,” says Merijn de Waard, founder of SuperYacht Times.
“A lot of people realise now they can work remotely with Starlink, there’s very good internet.
And there’s just enormous wealth being created.”

Of about 6,000 global coastal marinas, 65 per cent are in the US, according to McKinsey.
The remainder are scattered elsewhere in Europe and in the Caribbean, with a nascent industry in Asia and the Middle East.
Meanwhile, about 6,500 yachts are delivered each year and a new marina typically takes between five and 10 years to build, adding on average only about 300 berths, McKinsey said.

“The fact that demand is outstripping supply is unquestionable,” says John Nery, managing partner at Squircle Capital, which owns the superyacht repair group MB92.
“Waterfront land is scarce and, wherever you are, [getting permits] is difficult.
You’ve got high barriers to entry.”

For example, at one marina near Seattle, more than 200 vessels are on the wait-list for berths stretching beyond 20 metres.

Two decades ago, De Luca got her start as a chartered accountant before she found her way to the yachting world, eventually leaving KPMG to work for Lukas Lundin, a Swedish-Canadian mining magnate who had owned the 80-metre superyacht Savannah.
Her first position was as the ship’s purser, an onboard administrative role, before becoming an executive officer — essentially the owner’s representative.
“I absolutely loved it.
You have to be a special type of person to enjoy living out of a suitcase, but it was a home,” she says.

The Savannah was the world’s first hybrid-engine superyacht when it launched in 2015, and includes an onboard pool, gym and elevator.
Its weekly charter fee was about €1.2mn, De Luca says.

During her time working with the yacht — she left in 2025 — the price of docking it had surged to about €3,500 per night during the peak summer months at top locations, De Luca estimates.
“It approximately doubled in the 10 years, specifically in the premier locations,” she says.
“That is scarcity pricing. You’re a yacht owner, you own a new 80-metre yacht, you want it sitting in the south of France.”

Bob Hoogendoorn, who led McKinsey’s yacht practice before this year becoming a founding partner of the marina group Balmaris, compared finding a good berth to getting seats at a top sports event.
“It’s almost a bit like Wimbledon, and then there isn’t even a shortcut,” he says.
“When you own a yacht, the last thing you want to compromise on is your boating spot.”

 

Bob Hoogendoorn, former head of McKinsey’s yacht practice and co-owner of marina group Balmaris

 

Where, when and how you berth is affected by the boat’s size.
A regular yacht — up to about 50 metres in length — is unable to cross the Atlantic or other oceans.
Such boats might pay for berths on an annual or even multiyear basis while roaming around their local region.

The largest superyachts can travel the world, by contrast.
A typical one might spend the summer in the Mediterranean, then head across the ocean to winter on a Caribbean tour.
In between, there can be a few weeks at a port for repairs and to give the crew a break.

They do not often dock — the point of owning a yacht is to be out on the water — so there is a premium on location and access to amenities, both for guests and crew, when they do.
At a marina, superyachts will often have their own quay, with restricted access.
At Port Vauban, its 1,500-berth marina has 18 for superyachts over 54 metres on their own quay, with tighter security including drone surveillance.
Customers can arrive by helipad and spend time in the new yacht club, while there is a dedicated crew centre for staff including a gym.

The crew — dozens on the largest yachts — are important in determining where yachts dock.
“You want the crew to have access to gyms, culture, sport etc,” says Tim Clarke, who runs the yacht staffing agency Quay Group.
“You don’t want to be in a location where the nightlife is too good because that can cause problems as well.”
For instance, docking in Ibiza raises the chance the crew will get into trouble at nightclubs or become victims of crime, as has happened in Barcelona.

Such stopovers must be planned at least three to four months in advance, says former superyacht captain Chris Durham, who piloted the Savannah for several years.
Even that may not be enough lead time.
“If it’s a really special trip like the Monaco Grand Prix or Cannes Film Festival, you’d need to think much more in advance,” he says.
“Relationships still are really important and the way in which you conduct yourself, the crew conduct themselves, and the way in which you operate still goes a long way . . . It’s a small industry.”

It might be a small industry, but it is a desirable one for investors.
“There are two factors that make the industry so attractive.
The first one is fundamental growth in demand for yachts, full stop.
And berthing space is characteristically limited,” says Squircle Capital’s Nery.
“You put all this together and it’s turning marinas into an infrastructure asset class; people didn’t think of it that way 10 or 20 years ago.”

Indeed, marinas appear to have all the traits of a strong business model suited to private capital investors — rising demand, constricted supply, recurring revenues, fragmentation ripe for consolidation.
The industry is a $15bn market that will grow about 8 per cent annually to 2030, said McKinsey.
A marina investor notes: “If an asset can continuously increase its prices and keep its occupancy high, that usually suggests that it is a defensive asset, so we thought the marina sector demonstrated those.”

In a major deal that underscored this investment desirability, Blackstone paid $5.7bn last year for Safe Harbor Marinas, the largest marina and superyacht servicing business in the US.
Then, this August, Blackstone’s Safe Harbor agreed to acquire MarineMax for $1.5bn, paying nearly a 100 per cent premium for the company’s share price before the disclosure of takeover interest in the group.

The big money comes with plans for expansion, through both further acquisitions of independent, often family-owned, marinas and investment in areas such as technology.
D-Marin’s story is a good illustration of the boom.
It was founded in 2003 by a Turkish conglomerate, with its first location on the Bodrum peninsula, and over the past five or six years has expanded to become one of the leading marina operators in the Mediterranean, with its nearly two dozen premium ports.

Chief commercial officer Matthias Gehring touts the ability to book berths online — a contrast to the analogue operations at most marinas — and other innovations such as remote monitoring of vessels’ heat, water intrusion and battery voltage, and augmented reality directions for how to navigate to a specific berth.
D-Marin’s model “enables us to build a platform and scale”, says COO Andrea De Santis.

 

D-Marin, owner of Gouvia marina in Corfu, was sold this year for more than €1bn
© Getty Images

There is a risk, industry figures acknowledge, that the investment boom and constant premiumisation might cause these businesses to lose their charm or personal feeling.

The arrival of serious investment has coincided with the hyper-gentrification of marina spots.
By the Rybovich marina in Florida’s West Palm Beach, not far from US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, one superyacht captain fondly remembers an affordable café outside the marina which crew members frequented.
However, in recent years that café has been transformed into an upscale restaurant with valet parking.
“It was all really reasonably priced and it was a really nice place for everyone to meet and mingle and socialise, but sadly that has been turned into a swanky, very expensive restaurant, which is not very accessible to crew,” the captain says.

 

Crew guide a superyacht into its berth at a D-Marin marina
© @VangelisPaterakis

The marina investor says: “These are neighbourhood businesses, particularly in the US and southern Europe . . . When you have big money, private equity or big brands come in, that creates a lot of backlash and that’s something a lot of the platforms struggle with.”
For example, regulars who previously used the marinas feel disenfranchised.

Port Vauban, Antibes with the GeoGarage platform (SHOM raster chart)

 

The large marina groups are going up against the likes of Port Vauban, owned by the local municipality, which has a focus on making its economic impact benefit the broader region.
“We are a public entity, which makes quite a difference, because we operate not to maximise returns for shareholders but for our city and our region,” says Olivier Astolfi, director of the region’s ports.
“We have a more long-term vision for sustainable development.”

“Hotspots in yachting change very slowly,” says SuperYacht Times’s de Waard.
“A wealthy person in Singapore or Hong Kong might still want to go boating in the Mediterranean or Caribbean.”

But as yacht owners proliferate across the globe, in the long term the superyacht industry may no longer prize the Mediterranean alone.
Locales in Asia and Central and South America are gaining popularity either for their existing marinas or as sites for new ones, since it remains so challenging to build them in the Mediterranean.
Hong Kong is creating a 500-berth port for superyachts, part of its airport bay development, that will open by late 2028, while Japan’s Kobe Marina is finalising its site for the country’s first dedicated marina hub for superyachts.
Emirati developer Aldar is building Abu Dhabi’s largest yacht marina on Saadiyat Island.

“In the Mediterranean, at least, and in the US and Caribbean, you can’t build new sites.
It is pretty rare,” says the investor in the marina industry.
“Asia and the Middle East — Turkey, for example — are where you’re starting to see new assets being created.”

 

‘You wouldn’t want to take your Lamborghini or Ferrari to a truck stop’
© Tanya Cooper

But marinas that can accommodate superyachts are still not available everywhere, meaning that captains must sometimes look for other options in more remote locations, such as docking at a commercial port.
These tend to come without amenities and include potential hazards, such as the risk that metal filings could damage the paint job or that VIP guests could be exposed to unwanted publicity.

“As soon as you go outside the Mediterranean and Caribbean, and the odd place like Costa Rica, Thailand and the Seychelles that have a superyacht marina, they’re few and far between in most countries,” says Durham, the former captain.
“You wouldn’t want to take your Lamborghini or Ferrari to a truck stop.”

The generation of younger yacht buyers is also driving the industry to new frontiers, says Quay Group’s Clarke: “We’ve definitely seen owners being much more adventurous, and they’re more interested in seeing things that maybe they haven’t seen, as opposed to just doing St Tropez, Monaco, Capri.”
He suggests Central and South America and the Pacific Islands are more popular than Asia.

 

St Tropez © Getty Images

But while the marina industry is globalising, ultimately superyachts are constricted the world over by the same factor that makes them unique: their size.

“It’s certainly becoming more challenging, especially with the larger yachts,” says one captain.
“I’m captaining a 100-metre yacht at the moment and there are only a finite amount of places you can put one of these.”
But not if the marina industry has its way.

British authorities warn of consequences for sea rescue operations

Photo: YACHT/N.
Krauss

If someone falls overboard, electronic distress devices can make it easier to locate them – provided that their position is transmitted correctly.

However, as the British Coastguard warns, the data may be disrupted by jamming or spoofing. 

 

From Yacht by Ursula Meer

The British Coastguard has issued a warning about GPS interference.
Emergency equipment is also affected: AIS-MOB devices and modern EPIRBs can transmit incorrect positions if their reception is tampered with, thereby misleading rescuers.

Satellite navigation is no longer reliably available at all times in certain locations.
The British Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) is calling on the shipping industry to adapt to this situation.

In its report published on 1 October 2026, Guideline MGN 719 The authority cites, amongst others, the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, the Gulf region and parts of East Asia as regions particularly affected.
Disruptions have also been documented in the eastern Mediterranean: the Joint Maritime Information Centre reported in its bulletin published via UKMTO Situation report dated 17 May 2026 regarding recurring electronic and navigational disturbances off Cyprus and off the Levantine coast.
The warning is therefore also relevant to sailors in this area.

The publication also highlights a consequence that can be life-threatening in an emergency: Electronic distress devices also require reliable position data.
An AIS MOB transmitter or a modern EPIRB can transmit incorrect coordinates if the signal is tampered with, thereby directing the search to the wrong location.
A 406 MHz beacon for satellite distress alerts can therefore provide greater reliability.
It can also be located independently of its own GNSS position.

GPS is only part of the problem

GPS is the American satellite navigation system.
The umbrella term is GNSS, which stands for Global Navigation Satellite System.
In addition to GPS, this also includes the European Galileo, the Russian GLONASS and the Chinese BeiDou.
The satellites transmit signals which receivers use to determine their position and obtain precise time information.

An on-board GNSS receiver often supplies this data to several devices.
Incorrect data may therefore be processed simultaneously by the chartplotter, AIS, radio and autopilot.
The MCA also identifies radars with GNSS inputs, maritime distress radio systems and rescue coordination facilities as potentially affected.

Jamming is noticeable, whilst spoofing is not necessarily so

In the event of jamming, an interfering signal masks the extremely weak signals from the navigation satellites.
The receiver loses its fix or reports poor reception quality.
This is dangerous, but can often be detected.

Spoofing is more insidious.
It involves transmitting artificial satellite signals, from which the receiver calculates an incorrect position or time.
This data may appear plausible.
The vessel may then appear to be a few nautical miles off course at a credible position.

The Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN) describes the technical implications in its report published in January 2026 Report on GNSS disruptions in shipping.
The clear warning contained therein is that connected devices – and distress systems in particular – may provide incorrect position and time data in the event of a fault.

For the crew, sudden jumps in position or implausible changes in course and speed over ground may serve as warning signs.
Equally suspicious are AIS targets in obviously incorrect locations or discrepancies between the radar image and the electronic nautical chart.
A satellite display that initially appears normal does not rule out spoofing.
A smartphone or handheld GPS can also receive the same deceptive signals and is therefore not, on its own, a reliable cross-check.

From a navigation error to a distress situation

The potential unreliability of satellite-based electronic navigation can put a crew in difficulty.
However, traditional chart navigation using a compass and bearings, as well as independent radar positioning, can help to verify one’s position and continue the journey safely.
Conversely, the situation can become critical or even life-threatening if emergency beacons report an incorrect position.
The crew cannot correct the position of these beacons’ built-in GNSS receivers by taking a bearing.

The warning also applies to the GMDSS, the global maritime distress and safety radio system.
One example is the Digital Selective Calling (DSC) system: when a distress call is triggered on a VHF radio, an available position is automatically transmitted.
If this position originates from a tampered GNSS receiver, even this initial distress message may give an incorrect location for the incident.

This does not mean that all maritime distress communications fail in the event of GPS disruptions.
VHF radio does not require a satellite position for the actual radio transmission.
The crew can still describe the emergency and point out any questionable coordinates.
However, with automatic emergency transmitters, this option for immediate geolocation is not available.

When MOB transmitters and emergency beacons report incorrect positions

An AIS MOB transmitter determines its position using a built-in GNSS receiver and then transmits the coordinates via AIS on VHF to vessels within range.
GPS therefore provides the basis for the position calculation.
The device then transmits the coordinates determined in this way directly by radio to the yacht conducting the search.

Consequently, the accuracy of the transmitted position depends on the GNSS receiver: if it accepts tampered satellite signals, it will calculate incorrect coordinates, which the AIS-MOB transmitter will then relay.
The crew and other vessels might then search in the wrong location.
In the event of jamming, the current position may be completely missing.
Some AIS-MOB devices can also trigger a DSC alarm.
However, this does not alter the fact that any position transmitted also originates from the GNSS receiver.

An AIS-SART (AIS Search and Rescue Transmitter), which can also be used, for example, to locate a life raft, likewise uses GNSS for positioning and AIS for transmission.
An AIS-SART does not automatically include an additional DSC function.
It should not be confused with a conventional radar SART: the latter responds to signals from a search radar and does not require a GNSS position to do so.
Even modern EPIRBs and PLBs can be affected by incorrect satellite positions.
An EPIRB (Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon) is a distress beacon registered to the vessel.
A PLB (Personal Locator Beacon) is carried by an individual.
Unlike a dedicated AIS MOB transmitter, both alert a rescue coordination centre via the international Cospas-Sarsat satellite system.

Here, too, position determination and transmission are two separate processes.
A built-in GNSS receiver calculates the coordinates.
The beacon incorporates these into its digital distress signal and transmits them at 406 megahertz to the search and rescue satellites.
If the receiver accepts a tampered position as correct, both EPIRBs and PLBs can therefore transmit incorrect coordinates.

The different roles and alerting procedures of AIS-MOB, EPIRB and PLB are crucial for selecting and assessing one’s own emergency equipment.
Not every product labelled as a MOB system operates on the same principle; some combined devices link several radio channels.

Why EPIRBs and PLBs can still be located

A faulty GNSS receiver does not automatically silence a 406-megahertz beacon.
The reception of navigation signals and the transmission of the distress call take place on different frequencies.
An interference source in the GNSS frequency band therefore does not necessarily prevent an alarm from being triggered via Cospas-Sarsat.

The system can also locate a beacon regardless of its own GNSS position.
The Technical explanations of the NOAA SARSAT programme describe the satellite systems used for this purpose: In the case of LEOSAR, the Doppler shift of the beacon signal is analysed.
MEOSAR enables independent positioning based on differences in transit time and frequency of the transmission received via several satellites.
Geostationary GEOSAR satellites can quickly relay an alarm, but cannot determine their own position without the coordinates transmitted alongside the signal.

In the event of spoofing, the emergency control centre may therefore have conflicting information regarding the accident location: the GNSS coordinates reported by the beacon and a position determined independently from the 406-megahertz transmission.
The latter can therefore offer additional reassurance, but is no guarantee that an incorrect position will be detected immediately and that any delay will be avoided.
A standard AIS-MOB transmitter does not have this independent positioning via Cospas-Sarsat.

Where beacons are suitably equipped, a direction-finding signal at 121.5 megahertz is also transmitted.
Rescue teams with the appropriate equipment can use this to determine the direction of the transmitter without having to rely on its GNSS coordinates.
This signal assists with navigation on the ground.

The rescuers, too, must arrive without GPS

If the rescuers are in the same area of interference, their own GNSS receivers may also fail or provide incorrect data.
In that case, they must verify their route using independent methods and, if necessary, continue without reliable satellite navigation.

This has a practical implication for a yacht’s crew.
When making an emergency call via VHF radio, clearly identified landmarks, bearings, water depths and the time of the last reliable position can supplement the description of the situation.
If there is any doubt about the electronic coordinates, this should be explicitly stated.
A suspected GNSS jammer is no reason to refrain from making a necessary emergency call or activating an emergency beacon.

The North Sea and the Baltic Sea: different locations

There is one officially recorded incident in the northern North Sea: in November 2025, the British authorities reported GPS jamming during an operation in the waters north of Scotland whilst en route to the Faroe Islands.
According to the Royal Navy and civilian vessels.
In the Baltic Sea, however, the situation is quite different: Warnings are in place across a wide area there.
All countries bordering the Baltic Sea are issuing ongoing warnings about disruptions to GNSS, AIS and radar.
These affect large parts of the Baltic Sea, including the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga and the Sea of Åland.
Previous GPS interference in the Baltic Sea showed just how large the affected areas can be.
Crews must expect satellite positions to be missing or incorrect at times in these areas.

Which equipment offers greater safety?

Compared with a standard AIS MOB transmitter, a 406-megahertz beacon provides an additional safety net in the event of GNSS interference: EPIRBs and PLBs can not only alert the relevant rescue coordination centre, but can also be located independently of the GNSS coordinates they transmit.
This is the crucial advantage in relation to the risk described here.
However, this does not mean that a PLB replaces the AIS MOB transmitter in every situation.
The two systems fulfil different functions.

If someone falls overboard, the vessel’s own crew are best placed to help.
AIS helps them locate the person on the chart plotter, provided that position determination is working.
An additional 406 MHz distress alert calls in the organised maritime rescue services and provides an independent means of location if the crew cannot find the person or the GNSS position is unusable.
For personal safety, therefore, a combination of AIS-MOB and a 406 MHz PLB makes more sense than relying on AIS alone.
Both functions can be provided by separate devices or a suitable combined unit.

In the event of an emergency involving the entire yacht, a registered 406-megahertz EPIRB with a direction-finding transmitter set to 121.5 megahertz is a sensible basic measure.
An additional AIS function can make it easier for nearby vessels to locate the yacht.
However, an EPIRB that remains on board is no substitute for a transmitter worn on the body: if a person drifts away from the yacht, the distress signal must pinpoint their location, not that of the boat.
The specific choice therefore also depends on whether the vessel, a life raft or an individual person is to be safeguarded.

The beacon operating at 121.5 megahertz provides an additional means of locating the vessel.
Rescue vessels or aircraft equipped accordingly can determine the direction to the beacon without needing to use its GNSS coordinates.
To do so, they must be able to receive the signal and have suitable direction-finding equipment.
It is not a display that appears on every yacht plotter.
The Combination of 406 megahertz, AIS and bearing signal is now also available in personal emergency beacons.

However, this does not automatically mean that a combined device is protected against spoofing.
Its coordinates, which are transmitted via AIS and satellite, may originate from the same spoofed GNSS receiver.
The added security lies in the various alerting and positioning methods: direct notification to nearby vessels, alerting the rescue coordination centre, independent satellite positioning and radio direction-finding.

A different fallback option is still required for navigation: a compass, nautical chart, bearings and, where necessary, radar.

Have your say on the affordability of Admiralty paper charts

Do you still use paper charts, and should they be more affordable?

Credit: Pete Niesen/Alamy

From Pratical Boat Owner by Laura Hodgetts

The UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) is asking skippers and other maritime users to help inform the future affordability of Admiralty paper charts.

The affordability of Admiralty paper charts ’emerged as a significant concern, particularly among leisure boaters’ in a recent survey by the UKHO – prompting another chance for leisure boaters to have a say.

Although globally, digital navigation is now the primary means of navigation for skippers and navigators, and the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) has a ‘digital first’ focus to its training, paper charts continue to play an important role in supporting safe navigation for many mariners.

Maintaining traditional skills is strongly advised for skippers to counteract the threats of spoofing or jamming to electronic kit, such as chartplotters, which have Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) functionality.

The Royal Institute for Navigation (RIN) Small Craft Group’s (SCG) advises in its latest booklet Electronic Navigation Systems – Guidance for safe use on leisure vessels that:
‘For long ocean passages or in situations where electronic systems fail – due to technical breakdown, hacking, or signal jamming – ‘traditional methods remain an essential, reliable fallback’.

As part of its ongoing work to ensure the long-term sustainability of its paper chart service, the UKHO has been exploring changes to the way Admiralty paper charts are produced, maintained and updated.

Have your say to help shape future pricing decisions by taking part in the latest UKHO survey. 

Credit: Katy Stickland/Future Plc

Over the summer, the UKHO conducted research with the maritime community to gather views on proposed changes to its Admiralty Standard Nautical Charts (SNCs) and Small Craft Charts (SCCs).

The research supports the UKHO’s plans to automate chart production and, ultimately, chart maintenance to help secure the future provision of paper charts.

The survey explored two key areas of change:A rescheme of UK charting, merging the currently separate SNC and SCC charts into a single scheme that supports two different chart sizes.
Changes to how charts are updated, moving to pictorial updates instead of the current text-based approach.

More than 600 survey responses helped the UKHO identify several key themes.

Respondents highlighted the importance of maintained chart coverage, confidence and usability.

The RYA reports that findings also reinforced the continuing role of paper charts in supporting digital navigation, with more than 80% of respondents using paper charts alongside digital charts.
Affordability of Admiralty paper charts ‘a significant concern’

Paper charts were most commonly used for pre-departure appraisal and planning, while around a third of respondents said they still form part of their primary navigation method.

Affordability also emerged as a significant concern, particularly among leisure boaters.

In recent years, the UKHO has used chart pricing to help sustain its paper chart service against falling demand.

The survey results highlight the impact this is having on mariners’ ability to access the charts they need.

In response to these findings, the UKHO is now conducting a pricing survey to understand acceptable price points for the reschemed UK charts.

Leisure boaters are among those being asked to have a say on the affordability of Admiralty paper charts before the consultation ends on Saturday, 31 October 2026.

Your feedback will help to inform the UKHO’s future approach to paper chart pricing and support its ongoing work to maintain a sustainable paper chart service.

Gdynia and the dream of a maritime Poland

$The Polish passenger ship 'Pilsudski' at Gdynia, 1935.
Credit: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo

From EngelsbergIdeas by Juliette Bretan

A century ago, a Baltic fishing village began its transformation into a bustling port.
Gdynia embodied interwar Poland’s modernising ambitions, but it could not guarantee the country’s security.

The penultimate point in Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points for peace negotiations to end the First World War was the most idealised of its goals.
It called for an independent Polish state to be created, and not, as the eminent Polish-American historian Piotr Wandycz notes, resurrected – and certainly not ‘based on historical principles’, mapped on to the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that had been erased from the European map in 1795.
This would be a new Poland.
Wilson called for it to include ‘territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations’ (this would become difficult to ascertain and haunt the future of the region); and the document called for ‘political and economic independence and territorial integrity […] guaranteed by international covenant’ (plans, again, which were difficult to put into practice).
It was a puzzle.

 

Poland catalogue of ENC (HOPN) in the GeoGarage platform 

 

There was another clause in the mix, too: that Poland ‘should be assured a free and secure access to the sea’.

Poles, who had pushed for this, saw the nautical sphere as a necessity for the country.
As the historian Marta Grzechnik argues, Poles also wanted to shed the country’s image as a fragile land-locked nation.
It was also essential if Poland was to become a modern nation – ‘far-sighted’, as Grzechnik puts it – and a global nation, even an imperial one.

The problem was that access to the sea in the interwar period had a German-shaped obstacle, or, rather, two of them.
Poland had been awarded a small strip of land in the north to provide maritime links, but it was pincered between Germany proper and East Prussia, with no sizeable ports in sight; nor could it rely on the Free City of Danzig for any maritime ambitions, because although Poland had the right to use the port, Danzig was predominantly German in population, and hence tensions were frequent.
In 1920, Poland decided it would have to build its own port in the region.
In the end, experts selected a fishing and holiday village, Gdynia, as the best spot to put the plan into action due to hydrographic conditions and rail connections – and it was promptly overhauled as a modern port, fit for a modern nation.

Gdynia harbor with the GeoGarage platform

 

Gdynia, more than any other city, might be seen then as a sort of microcosm for interwar Poland itself – it was an alternative Polish capital.
Yes, Warsaw, the real capital, was the glorified location of the Miracle on the Vistula: the decisive triumph of Polish forces against the westward march of the Soviets in 1920, which pushed back the spread of communism into Europe.
Warsaw was glitzy and glamorous, a true urban marvel, featuring revolving dance floors, Art Deco skyscrapers, prosperity, but also mounting tensions and poverty.
Yes, Vilnius (then Wilno) was also a bulwark of patriotism, although to the chagrin of the newly independent Lithuania, which had broken ties with Poland because of Poland’s seizure of the city.
Lviv (then Lwów), too, had a claim to be the nation’s capital of culture.

Yet Gdynia was a new city, symbolising the modernisation of the country, and its high hopes in the interwar period.
Work on the port began in 1921; by 1926, 100 years ago this year, the once sleepy fishing village had been granted city rights and, by the end of the 1930s, it was a bustling maritime metropolis.
Its construction into the jewel of modern Poland was matched by suitable architecture: functionalist buildings, sparkling in whitewash, with curves and perpendicular lines, and sweeping, grinning windows on every façade, wide to the hopeful Baltic Sea beyond.
It was a Bauhaus fever dream.

Poets, writers and filmmakers celebrated Gdynia, too, in modernist art.
Grzechnik notes that poets wrote of the city’s machinery and its modernist architecture, while the 1935 melodrama film Rapsodia Bałtyku (Rhapsody of the Baltic), about two navy officers, celebrated Gdynia for its military prowess as well as its maritime prosperity.
By the 1930s, Gdynia was the hub of the Polish navy, and served commercial and passenger traffic.

It was also a place that illustrated the darker side of Poland’s burgeoning modernity.
Tens of thousands used the new port as a point of departure for a new life across the Atlantic, from a modernist three-storey passenger hall, constructed at the port in 1933 for this very purpose.
While the construction of Gdynia was testament to utopian ideas of a modern Poland, many did not see their future in the country, where modernity was still uneven and poverty rife.
The building they departed from now houses the Emigration Museum, witness to centuries of Polish émigré history.
Moreover, Gdynia was a stronghold of the Maritime and Colonial League – a mass Polish social organisation promoting the creation of colonies for Poland.
The city’s construction was a political statement that spoke to a new Polish prosperity and self-confidence, but it could not escape the shadow of conflict with Germany, and the difficulties of creating a new Polish future alongside neighbours with expansionist designs.

Gdynia was the fulfilment of Wilson’s promise in part, but not in whole – it was a gateway to the Baltic, and a symbol of Poland’s freedom.
It was also a place where, however much Poles tried, they were not able to guarantee the one element of the sea-life they thought indispensable for the future: security.

Germany (BSH) layer update in the GeoGarage platform

 

 2 new charts added

see GeoGarage news