Megaports for megayachts
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Spain is a land of small yacht builders, but it is the large yachts - like this 62 metre Amels Sarah and the 43 metre Perini Navi Paz - that many marinas hope to cater for. BYM visited Barcelona’s Port Forum and Marina International Tarragona, to see how their operators were planning to attract the superyachts.
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These two marinas could not be more different in style! Port Forum is a new construction and will be modern in every aspect, at Marina International Tarragona yachts will moor against 200 year old ex-commercial quays and some facilities and offices will be housed in ancient brick buildings.

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At Port Forum, yachts moor stern to the quay and alongside a finger, at Tarragona they will lie alongside the quay. 

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Tarragona’s quays may be 200 years old, but its services are absolutely state-of-the art! Those stainless steel cabinets house everything a yacht needs, by way of power, water etc and these are cabled/piped across the quay to a box beside the yacht. The crew just need to lift the lid and hook up.

Port Forum offers the same services, but these are by the usual pedestals, with their attendant trailing cables and hoses.

Tarragona also scores on black water disposal, for whilst both marinas offer this at the berth, rather than at some single point, at Tarragona it goes directly to the city’s main sewers.
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Both marinas are working on getting ISPS certification, but each has its own way of tackling security. At Port Forum visitors can walk along the quays, but a stretch of water separates them from the floating pontoon, where the large yachts moor. Visitors to Tarragona can admire the yachts from behind an attractive glass fence.

That is what will be on offer, at these two marinas, where mooring facilities are concerned, but what of the rest? BYM asked Santiago Twose, Operations Manager at Port Tarraco and Inigo Prada Nicholson, an owner of International Marina Tarraco, what else they could offer megayachts, how they intended to attract them and how they saw the future of their operations.

Some of the replies were as different as the marinas are, but in some respects their views were identical. Read Côte d’Azur versus Costa Brava.

Marian Martin & Aldous Grenville-Crowther. Photos AG-C