Haul-Out and Antifouling Costs in the UK 2026: What a Spring Lift Really Costs

A spring haul-out with wash and antifoul for a 10 metre sailing yacht can cost about £670 in yard labour at one Poole yard (paint on top), around £1,005 all-in at a Solent yard that includes a coat of dark blue, or more than £1,400 on a published Thames crane list once lift, wash, chock, antifoul and relaunch are stacked. The gap is real, and most of it is in how each yard packages the work, whether paint is included, and whether you are lifting in the Premier spring peak.

This guide works through published 2026 yard tariffs for the annual spring lift that owners actually book: haul out, pressure wash, block off, antifoul and launch. It is separate from our winter boat storage costs guide, which covers lay-up packages when the boat is already staying ashore, and from our boat survey costs guide, which covers survey lifts held in the slings. Here the question is narrower: what does the spring antifoul package cost for 8m, 10m and 12m boats, DIY versus yard labour, and which extras change the bill?

Every figure below comes from a published price list we checked in November 2026. Where we have added arithmetic, the working is shown. VAT is stated for each yard because some lists are inclusive and some are not.

The short answer

For a quick read, here are three representative all-in spring packages for a sailboat, rounded to the nearest pound. Lake Yard and Sandbanks are labour and yard fees only; paint is extra at those two. Quay Lane's antifoul line includes one coat of dark blue in the published rate.

Add paint of your own and the Lake Yard and Sandbanks totals move. Using International Micron 350 at a Port Solent chandlery web price of £109.95 for 2.5 litres (checked 3 November 2026), a typical 10m yacht needs roughly two 2.5L tins for two coats on a rule-of-thumb underwater area, about £220. That puts a Lake Yard-style 10m package near £890 once paint is in the trolley, still below Quay Lane's published all-in figure, which already includes a coat of dark blue.

Three other published lists sit in a different part of the range and are worth flagging early:

• Port Solent (Premier), spring peak: lift, wash, block and launch for a 10m boat at the 9.1-12m band with the +10% spring premium is £866 before any antifoul labour or paint. Premier's retail boatyard PDF from 1 September 2026 does not publish an antifoul labour rate.
• Bray Craning (Thames): lift out, pressure wash and chock at £54/m, launch at £42/m and antifoul one coat (sea) at £47/m come to £143/m, or £1,430 for 10m. That list is still dated 1 March 2025 on the Bray site when we checked it in November 2026.
• Morgan Marine (Brightlingsea): a round-trip lift with power wash and the listed antifouling metre rate works out at about £1,455 for 10m once VAT is added. The schedule lists antifouling at £74.50 + VAT per metre under labour rates; whether paint is included is not clear on the PDF, so treat that total with caution.

What a spring lift usually includes

Most coastal yards sell the spring job as a chain of metre (or foot) rates rather than a single package. The usual sequence is:

1. Haul out (travel hoist or crane from the water onto the hard).
2. Pressure wash below the waterline while the hull is still wet.
3. Block off or bunk the boat on the hardstanding.
4. Antifoul labour (and sometimes paint), after light keying and masking.
5. Launch back into the water once the paint is ready for immersion.

Some lists bundle haul, wash and block. Others price each step. A few sell a same-day "lift, wash, hold and relaunch" for survey or anode work, which is the wrong product for a full antifoul. Yacht Havens' Lymington page, for example, prices lift, wash, hold in slings and relaunch at £31.20/m (inc VAT, from 1 April 2026), with a one-hour lunchtime hold and £85 for an overnight hold. That is a sling job, not a blocked-off painting job.

Hardstanding days matter. Lake Yard charges £2.65/m/day short-term storage (inc VAT) and offers a 50% storage discount while the yard itself antifouls. Lymington Yacht Haven charges non-berth holders £1.42/m/day ashore (inc VAT). Haven Quay Lymington charges non-berth holders £1.30/m/day. A boat that sits for a week waiting for weather or paint cure can add a noticeable line to a bill that looked cheap at the hoist.

Regional tariff tables: lift, wash, block and launch

Solent and South Coast

Quay Lane Boatyard, Gosport publishes a price list from 1 January 2026, charged on LOA rounded up to the nearest foot. VAT is not labelled separately on the published figures, so the table below shows them as published.

Worked LOA after rounding up: 8m → 27ft, 10m → 33ft, 12m → 40ft.

Supply your own paint and Quay Lane knocks £40 off, so the 10m total becomes £964.85 before the cost of the tins.

Lake Yard, Poole (rates from 1 January 2026, per metre inc VAT, up to 13m unless noted):

Paint and anodes are charged at RRP; customers may supply their own. Sailboat spring package (lift out + wash + block + 1 coat labour + lift in), paint extra:

15.55 + 6.95 + 10.40 + 18.70 + 15.55 = £67.15/m

Sandbanks Yacht Company, Poole publishes a 2026 boatyard tariff ex VAT. Add 20% for a consumer comparison.

Members get 10% off haul out and pressure wash. Worked spring package for one bunk day and 1 coat labour, paint extra:

12.70 + 9.85 + 10.40 + 18.90 + 12.70 = £64.55/m ex VAT → £77.46/m inc VAT

Port Solent (Premier Marinas) schedule of retail boatyard charges from 1 September 2026, inc VAT, minimum 6.5m. Seasonal rules matter: winter off-peak (1 October-31 December) is −10% on lifts and launches; spring peak (1 January-31 March) is +10%. Wide-beam boats are charged at 1.5×. Antifoul labour is not on this PDF.

Pit Stop package (to 12m): lift, wash, block and launch at £62.50/m (6.6-9m) or £67.50/m (9.1-12m), plus a storage trip fee of £96.25 or £114.25, with ten days ashore including two weekends.

Spring-peak lift, wash, block and launch (no antifoul):

Hold in slings is £190/hour. Pressure washing alone is £11.50/m, or 1.5× if heavily fouled. Emergency and same-day bookings carry a 50% premium; short-notice changes within five working days can attract a £95 fee.

Lymington Yacht Haven (from 1 April 2026, inc VAT, minimum 8m for the main hoist bands):

A 10m lift, wash, block and launch at those rates is (40.80 + 29.35) × 10 = £701.50, before antifoul labour (not separately listed on the excerpt we used) and before paint. Silicone or Teflon antifoul attracts a 50% surcharge on lifting charges, one way only.

Haven Quay, Lymington is a smaller-craft yard (yachts to 8m / 3.5t; RIB and motor to 10m / 5t), rates from 1 April 2026 inc VAT. For a Category B bilge-keel yacht over 7.5m:

An 8m bilge-keeler with haul, launch and one inclusive coat: (23.50 + 23.50 + 49) × 8 = £768. The same silicone/Teflon 50% one-way lift surcharge applies.

Thames

Bray Craning at Bray Marina publishes prices including VAT, with a 10-tonne lift limit. The page still said "All prices correct as of 01 March 2025" when we checked in November 2026, so treat the figures as the latest published list and confirm before booking.

Stacked spring sea-water package at the item rates: 54 + 42 + 47 = £143/m → £1,144 / £1,430 / £1,716 for 8 / 10 / 12m. The seasonal deal at £120/m is cheaper if your dates fit (for example £1,200 for 10m), but it is a May-October product, not a mid-winter lift.

East Coast

Morgan Marine, Brightlingsea, Schedule of Charges 1 January-31 December 2026, ex VAT, charged on LOA including projections:

Paint inclusion for the Morgan antifouling metre rate is unclear on the PDF. It sits in the labour-rates block as "Antifouling £74.50 + VAT per metre" without a separate paint note. Ask the yard before comparing it with Quay Lane (coat included) or Lake Yard (paint at RRP).

If you take the published numbers at face value for a round trip with wash and antifouling:

19.90 + 6.95 + 74.50 + 19.90 = £121.25/m ex VAT → £145.50/m inc VAT

Lift and wash alone for 10m, without the antifouling line: (19.90 + 6.95 + 19.90) × 1.2 × 10 = £561.

St Osyth Boatyard (list until April 2027, subject to VAT) is a DIY-friendly yard with no published antifoul labour rate:

Round-trip lift with one wash for a 33ft (10m) boat: (4.95 + 4.95 + 2.09) × 33 = £395.67 ex VAT → £474.80 inc VAT, then you paint it yourself.

Scotland

Troon Yacht Haven boatyard rates from 1 April 2026, inc VAT, minimum 6.1m:

For 8m, 10m and 12m boats (all in the 7.9-13.5m band), lift out with wash plus launch is 35 + 28 = £63/m → £504 / £630 / £756 before antifoul labour or paint. The same Yacht Havens silicone/Teflon 50% one-way lift surcharge applies. Troon does not publish a separate antifoul metre rate on that page.

Cornwall snapshot

Falmouth Boat Yard / Port Pendennis winter 2025/26 tariff (inc VAT): haul out and chock to 14m at £34.00/m, relaunch £34.00/m, pressure wash £11.00/m, daily storage £3.60/m/day. A 10m haul, wash and relaunch is (34 + 11 + 34) × 10 = £790 before any antifoul labour (not published on the extract we used).

Antifoul labour and paint litre maths

Yard labour rates for a single coat vary widely once you put them on the same VAT basis:

Micron 350 coverage

International's Micron 350 technical data sheet (AkzoNobel) gives practical brush/roller coverage of 9 m² per litre per coat, theoretical 10 m²/L. The recommended scheme for 12 months is two coats at 60µm dry film thickness (120µm total). Three coats are specified for 24 months. It is not for aluminium or alloy, and not over VC17m/PTFE without a barrier.

A simple industry rule of thumb for underwater area on a sailing yacht is LOA × beam × 0.5. It is only an estimate; fin keels, sugar-scoop sterns and deep forefeet change the real area. Using that rule and the practical 9 m²/L figure:

Working for the 10m example: 10 × 3.4 × 0.5 = 17 m². At 9 m²/L you need 17 ÷ 9 ≈ 1.89 L per coat, so 3.78 L for two coats. Two 2.5 L tins give 5 L of working stock for stripe coats on the leading edges, rudder and sterngear. At £109.95 per 2.5 L, the litre price is £109.95 ÷ 2.5 = £43.98, and 5 L costs 2 × £109.95 = £219.90.

Prices move, and some colours or pack sizes differ. The £109.95 figure is the Marine Superstore Port Solent web price we saw listed on 3 November 2026 for Micron 350; always check the live chandlery price before you treat paint as a fixed line in a DIY budget.

Worked all-in packages

Putting yard fees and paint together for a 10m sailboat, two coats of Micron 350 at £219.90 where paint is not already included:

The pattern is consistent. Independent yards that price antifoul labour in the high teens per metre, with paint bought separately, often land a 10m spring job somewhere around £900-£1,000 once two coats of a mid-range SPC are included. Bundled coat rates and Thames crane lists sit higher. Premier-style lift packages look competitive until you remember antifoul labour is still to add, and spring peak adds 10%.

DIY labour against yard labour at Lake Yard for the same 10m boat: if you take the £671.50 yard package without the £187 of one-coat labour (18.70 × 10), the hoist and wash elements alone are 15.55 + 6.95 + 10.40 + 15.55 = £48.45/m → £484.50, plus your paint and your time. Quay Lane's £40 paint discount is modest next to the labour line; DIY saving there is really the whole £12.95/ft antifoul charge if the yard will let you paint while blocked off.

Extras that change the bill

Silicone or Teflon antifoul. Yacht Havens sites (Troon, Lymington, Haven Quay) apply a 50% surcharge on lifting charges, one way only, for vessels with silicone/Teflon antifoul. On a Troon 10m lift-out at £35/m, that is an extra 0.5 × 35 × 10 = £175 on the way out.

Premier spring peak. Port Solent's +10% from 1 January to 31 March is easy to miss if you quote the base table. On the 10m lift-and-launch stack it is the difference between £786.50 and £866.25. Winter off-peak from 1 October to 31 December is −10% on the same items.

Heavy fouling. Sandbanks charges £12.50/m ex VAT instead of £9.85/m for a heavily soiled wash. Port Solent multiplies pressure washing by 1.5 when heavily fouled. Quay Lane warns that extended cleaning for stubborn fouling may attract extra labour. St Osyth's heavy wash is £2.75/ft against £2.09/ft.

Hardstanding days. Lake Yard £2.65/m/day, Lymington Yacht Haven £1.42/m/day for non-berth holders, Haven Quay £1.30/m/day, Falmouth £3.60/m/day on the winter tariff extract. Seven days for a 10m boat at Lake Yard is 2.65 × 10 × 7 = £185.50 before the 50% discount if the yard is doing the antifoul.

Wide beam. Port Solent charges wide-beamed boats at 1.5× the published LOA rate. Multihulls at St Osyth are billed at 1.5× length. Always say if you are a cat or a wide motorboat when you ask for a quote.

Short notice and out of hours. Premier: 50% premium for emergency or same-day bookings; £95 short-notice fee possible inside five working days. Troon: out-of-hours emergency lift at double the lifting rate.

Anodes, boot-tops and polish. Quay Lane boot-top is +£3.35/ft. Lake Yard and Sandbanks sell anodes and further coating work on top. None of the worked packages above include new anodes.

DIY versus yard: the real trade-offs

DIY antifouling is usually where the money is saved, not in the hoist itself. Travel-hoist work is skilled, insured and timed around tides; few owners try to cut that corner. Painting is different. A yard metre rate for one coat is paying for scaffolding or staging time, masking, keying and disposal as well as the roller work.

Points the published lists themselves push you toward:

• DIY-friendly yards exist. St Osyth states DIY is encouraged. Lake Yard and Sandbanks both say customers may supply paint. Quay Lane gives a flat £40 for customer-supplied paint rather than removing the labour line.
• Time ashore is a cost. If you paint yourself, you need dry weather, the right temperature band (Micron 350 wants substrate above about 7°C) and immersion time after the final coat (the datasheet gives 18 hours at 15°C, 24 hours at 5°C). Extra hardstanding days can erase a chunk of the labour saving.
• Insurance and site rules. Quay Lane requires valid insurance including third-party liability. Many yards restrict external contractors or charge a day fee (Morgan Marine lists £25 + VAT for non-continuous outside contractors).
• Quality and warranty. Yard-applied coats are a known quantity if you later argue about premature fouling; DIY quality depends on preparation. The datasheet is clear that dry sanding old antifouling is not acceptable and that the correct film thickness matters.

A practical split many owners use: pay the yard for haul, wash and block, paint yourself over a weekend, pay for launch. On Lake Yard numbers for 10m that is £484.50 in hoist elements + paint + storage days, against £671.50 + paint if the yard rolls the first coat.

If the boat is already ashore for winter

If you laid up ashore in the autumn, you are not buying a spring haul-out. You are buying relaunch, and possibly antifoul if you left it until spring. That is why the winter storage costs article and this one answer different bills.

Examples from the lists above:

• Quay Lane launch alone for 33ft: 33 × £7.15 = £235.95, then antifoul if not done in the autumn.
• Lake Yard lift in alone: £15.55/m → £155.50 for 10m.
• Troon launch in the middle band: £28/m → £280 for 10m.
• Port Solent launch in the 9.1-12m band at spring peak: 33.50 × 1.10 = £36.85/m → £368.50 for 10m.

Some winter packages already include spring launch. Troon's six-month winter package ashore (1 Oct 2026-31 Mar 2027) includes lift out, pressure wash, storage and launch off at £195/m in the 7.9-13.5m band. If you bought that package, antifoul labour and paint are the main spring extras, not another full lift-out.

Practical booking notes

1. Ask what the metre (or foot) includes. Haul + wash + block is not the same as haul alone. Antifoul "per metre" may or may not include paint.
2. Confirm VAT. Sandbanks and Morgan Marine are ex VAT. Lake Yard, Premier, Yacht Havens and Bray publish inc VAT. Quay Lane figures are as published without a separate VAT label on the fees page.
3. Book early for spring. Premier's peak premium exists because January-March is busy. Independent yards fill crane slots too.
4. Measure LOA the way the yard does. Quay Lane rounds up to the nearest foot and includes projections. Morgan Marine includes bowsprit, davits, bathing platforms and other extensions. A "10m" brochure length can bill as more.
5. Say if you have silicone antifoul. The Yacht Havens 50% one-way surcharge is large enough to change the decision.
6. Check Bray's date stamp if you are on the Thames; the public list we read was still marked March 2025.
7. Get Morgan Marine to confirm paint before you use its antifouling metre rate in a comparison.
8. Hold survey work separate if you need a proper prepaint window; sling time is priced differently from blocked-off days (see survey lift costs).

How to read a yard quote

When the written quote arrives, line it up against the published tariff rather than against a club rumour. Check five things in order.

First, the length used for charging. A brochure "10 metre" boat can bill as 10.4m or 34ft once pulpits, davits and swim platforms are in. Quay Lane's rounding rule and Morgan Marine's projection rule both push the billed length up.

Second, whether wash and block are inside the haul-out line. A cheap "lift" that excludes wash will look wrong next to Quay Lane's haul-wash-block figure or Premier's lift-wash-block band.

Third, antifoul scope. One coat or two, labour only or paint included, boot-top separate or not, and whether the colour is fixed (Quay Lane's dark blue) or chosen by you.

Fourth, the date window. Premier's spring peak, Bray's May-October deal, and Yacht Havens winter packages all change the arithmetic. A quote issued in November for a February lift may need the peak premium written in.

Fifth, the extras list: hardstanding days, electricity, cradle hire, anode supply, silicone surcharge, wide-beam multiplier, and contractor day fees. Those lines are where two quotes for the "same" job diverge after the hoist rate looked similar.

If you keep a swinging mooring rather than a marina berth, remember the spring lift is only one of the annual costs. Harbour dues, strops and getting out to the buoy still sit in the swinging mooring costs picture.

FAQ

How much does a typical UK spring haul-out and antifoul cost in 2026?

For a 10m sailing yacht, published packages we worked through land roughly between about £900 and £1,500 once a coat of antifoul and ordinary paint are allowed for, with DIY lift-and-paint routes able to come in nearer £700 at a low-cost yard. Premier lift-and-launch alone can be £866 in spring peak before antifoul labour. Exact totals depend on the yard's packaging and on VAT.

Is antifoul paint usually included?

Sometimes. Quay Lane includes one coat of dark blue in its £12.95/ft rate. Haven Quay states antifouling is inclusive of materials and paint. Lake Yard and Sandbanks charge paint separately (RRP or at cost). Morgan Marine's PDF is unclear. Always ask.

DIY or yard: which is cheaper?

DIY painting is usually cheaper on labour. The hoist is similar either way. Watch storage days, weather windows and whether the yard allows owner painting on the hard.

Do I need a haul-out every year?

Many UK saltwater boats antifoul every season. Some soft SPC schemes and low-fouling berths stretch further; heavy fouling, low-speed motorboats and warm marinas often need annual attention. The paint datasheet's 12-month and 24-month schemes are about dry film thickness, not a promise about your marina's fouling pressure.

What about multihulls and wide beams?

Budget a surcharge. Port Solent uses 1.5× for wide beams. St Osyth uses 1.5× length for multihulls. Always declare beam and configuration when booking a hoist.

Finding a yard

If you need a yard with a travel hoist rather than a winter storage berth, start with Jack & Anchor's boatyards directory and compare the published tariffs above against a written quote for your LOA, beam and antifoul type.

Sources

• Quay Lane Boatyard, fees, price list from 1 January 2026
• Lake Yard, Poole, 2026 price list (inc VAT)
• Sandbanks Yacht Company, boatyard facilities and services tariff 2026 (ex VAT)
• Premier Marinas Port Solent, Schedule of Retail Boatyard Charges from 1 September 2026 (inc VAT)
• Yacht Havens, Lymington Yacht Haven boatyard rates from 1 April 2026 (inc VAT)
• Yacht Havens, Haven Quay Lymington dry stack and boatyard rates from 1 April 2026 (inc VAT)
• Yacht Havens, Troon Yacht Haven berthing and boatyard rates from 1 April 2026 (inc VAT)
• Bray Craning, prices (inc VAT; page dated 1 March 2025 when checked November 2026)
• Morgan Marine, Brightlingsea, Boatyard Schedule of Charges 2026 (ex VAT)
• St Osyth Boatyard, list of charges until April 2027 (subject to VAT)
• Falmouth Boat Yard / Port Pendennis, winter 2025/26 tariff extract (inc VAT)
• International Paint / AkzoNobel, Micron 350 technical data sheet (coverage 9 m²/L practical brush/roller; 2 × 60µm DFT for 12 months)
• Marine Superstore Port Solent, Micron 350 2.5L web price £109.95 checked 3 November 2026

Header photo: Boatyard at Universal Marina, River Hamble by Peter Facey, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.