4-month Sabbatical

[Celena]

Managed to fix up the above (unpaid!) for next year (mid-May to mid-Sept)
Question is where to go? (From the Solent)
For example:
Coast hop to southern Brittany/northern Spain?
UK circumnavigation - via/not via Caledonian?
To Scotland and back via Ireland?
E Coast, Holland and/or Baltic?

Should we leave the boat somewhere and return the following year?

What are your recommendations?

We are a middle-aged couple with a well-found, reasonably well-equipped (but no radar) Vancouver 28. Prefer relaxed coasting but don’t might the odd 24hr.+ passage. Furthest foray so far has been Douarnenez.. We don’t have vane self-steering either...Do we need it?

Finally, anyone care to join us for an extended cruise in company, some or all the way?

 

[snowleopard]

i've been around britain 3 times in the last 2 years though always in too much of a hurry to get the best out of it. there are long stretches with no suitable harbours but some great sails. don't miss the caledonian canal, and crinan if your boat fits it. be prepared to go for some less popular places, we found preston the cheapest & friendliest marina for example.

 

[gunnarsilins]

Why not give...

...the Baltic sea a try? Most UK sailors I met have been most delighted!
In 4 months you can most relaxed and easely manage to pass the Kiel Canal, cruise southern parts of Denmark and along the Swedish coast up to Stockholm. Most of the passage will be in the archipelago and sheltered waters. No tide and uncountable nice anchorages.
When in Stockholm you might make a visit in Aaland and Finland archipelagos.
If you want something more exotic, why not a short diversion to Estonia and Latvia, or even St. Petersburg (former Leningrad) in Russia?

Homebound I suggest you go the Gota Canal, a 'sister canal' to the Caledonian Canal. You enter enter the canal about 100 nm south of Stockholm and it exits in Gothenburg on the Swedish west coast. On the way you litterally pass the whole southern part of Sweden. Its about 60 locks and you sail across several lakes with good sailing. The fee will be in the region of £ 200.
When in Gothenburg you have the possibilities to cruise the archipelagos in Skagerak and Kattegat and maybe pass the rural Limfjorden in Jutland/Denmark out to the North sea again...

The favourable exchange rate GBP to the Swedish Krona will make the trip quite economical, most marinas in Sweden will not exceed approx £ 7 for a nights stay in a 10 m yacht, Denmark might be slightly more expensive.
And as I wrote - the numerous anchorages means that you can avoid almost all marina stays if you whish.

Don´t hesitate to contact me if you need further information!

Gunnar/Stockholm

 

[Guest]

Baltic sounds good or if you fancy South go to the Spanish Rias, if Charles Reed still logs on here he will be able to give you chapter & verse.

Pete

 

[alex_rogers]

I bought a second hand vane gear for my Vancouver 28 last year and now wouldn't be without it. It makes even short passages must easier and unlike the autohelm is completely silent.

Lots of Vancouvers have a Schwing Pilot wind vane fitted and swear by them. Their big advantage is that they mount very solidly onto the push-pit and require no holes or permanent fittings. If you found someone willing to lend you one, you could fit it for the cruise and hand it back afterwards.

 

[Celena]

Thanks for your reply, Alex. Schwing stopped making vane gears about 11 years ago so that will not be an option. What gear do you have or what do you recommend? (I'd quite like a vane gear but the only one I've come across for Vancouvers that I've had a personal opinion of is Autosteer trim tab on rudder - two opinions, one for and one against!)

 

[Rowana]

There's an excellent (IMHO) article in one of the mags this month regarding a guy who made his own self-steering. I think it was in PBO.

There's a winter project for you - Make your own. I'm sure you would get lots of tips and advice from the posters here. (if they're not too busy slagging each other - See Kim's post)

Jim

 

[vyv_cox]

Fully concur with the Baltic suggestion. We went there this summer and enjoyed it immensely. We basically circumnavigated the large island of Fun but missed many ports on the way. Could easily have spent twice as long on this part and that is only a small proportion of the total Danish part. Sweden is probably as good or better, judging from the books I've read and overflying it a couple of times. You could spend years there without tiring of it.

I have a Windpilot and find it to be excellent. We use it on short trips as well as longer ones and it is very reliable. I read recently of two that had casting failures but presumably these were isolated incidents. When I bought it was just about the cheapest available but perhaps the most popular.

 

[alex_rogers]

I have a Schwing Pilot which I bought secondhand for £600. I was offered another one when I was searching so there are a few around. I advertised in the wanted section of Yachting Monthly ( the magazine not the forum ) and got an instant response.

When I bought it, it needed a few replacement parts but these were all still available from Schwing. It took a while to find someone in the organisation ( their main business is making concrete mixers and pumps ) who knew about the Pilot but they can supply all the parts and will still supply the whole unit although I think they are comparatively very expensive - around £2500. They have a UK dealer who also managed to get me some parts on a different occasion.

The Schwing Pilot is proabably a little bigger than more modern designs with a horizontal vane axis but it does steer perfectly and I quite like the look of the vane on the back of the boat. Big advantage is that you can take the thing off completely whenever you don't need it.

I was originally looking at the Autosteer trim tab but was advised against it by several people. It seems a very neat solution but the people I spoke to didn't think it could provide enough steering force. Everyone I spoke to recommended a Schwing ( if you could find one ) and I'm very happy with mine.

Alex

 

[RupertW]

If you haven't explored South Brittany yet, then I would go that way and get in a cruise of Northern Spain if the weather works out.

There are so many good harbours and towns from Dournenez (which is my least favourite harbour anywhere) down to the wonderful La Rochelle and they can all be reached in day sails if you've got the time to do it. We spent our six week honeymoon (on a GK24) doing pretty much that route from the Solent, and missed out on Spain that year only because the weather was so awful in our first 3 weeks.

Given 4 months and no desire for long passages I'd do something like Poole, Falmouth, Morgat, Benodet - across to La Coruna if the weather works out - then along the Spanish coast for a couple of weeks, back to La Rochelle, and up to Ile de Yeu, Pornic, the Morbihan, Port Haliguen and Concarneu before heading home.

That's my list of favourite ports and misses out all the dull ones I've been to. The French parts have loads of lovely island anchorages as well.

I personally wouldn't bother with the wind-vane. If you have an autopilot that has been reliable so far, then the two of you should be able to steer the boat to the next harbour if it does go wrong. Wind-vanes do look and feel nice, though, and I would consider one if doing the Atlantic very short-handed.

 

[extravert]

If you decide to circumnavigate but don't want to go over the top via Cape Wrath and Pentland Firth but instead go through the Caledonian canal, if you have time don't miss out the West coast north of Oban. There would be plenty to see both ways if you went up the west coast and then back again to go through the canal. Lochinver would be a good turning point, it gets a bit bleak beyond that.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Irish pub crawl, or Iceland

Four months would let you get into a fair percentage of the be-pubbed anchorages in Ireland.

The stout, the craic, the fiddlers, the seafood, the waistline!

Or for derring-do, Iceland via the Western Isles, which is an unusual sticker to have in the logbook.

 

[Jacket]

Re: Why not give...

I'll second the suggestion of the Baltic. I've sailed out there for the last two years, and have no plans to bring my boat back in the forseable future.

As already mentioned, Denmark is lovely, with hundreds of small, pretty harbours and good anchorages. Food is expensive, but harbours cheap compared to UK. Pleanty of interesting places to visit, and everyone speaks perfect english, which is usefull if your attempts to learn Danish are as bad as mine.

The Swedish archipelagoes are a must! The scenery is spectacular. There are few harbours in these areas, but the lack of tides means that at the end of the day you just nose up to an island and tie up to it, with a kedge anchor out the back. With so many islands to chose from, you almost always get one all to yourself.

The same comments really apply for Finland.

Also, the Baltic states are well worth visiting. These countries are very different to the UK and Scandinavia. There are numerous old towns (The three capitals are all UNESCO), castles and picturesque villages along with the less attractive but interesting remains of the soviet occupation. The yacht harbours are a mixture of either very run down or brand new, but crime doesn't seem to be much of a problem, despite the warnings of doom I recieved from many scandinavian yachtsmen when I said where I was going. Indeed, I left my boat in Estonia for the winter (£86 total, including lift out and clean!) and had no problems. Everything is very cheap (£4 gets you a three course meal for two). we ate out for all meals, and the food is very good - a mixture of baltic, Polish and Russian. Tallin is a must to visit, as is Vilneus (Though this means a coach trip and overnight hotel - both very cheap).

So why not try the baltic - it would be nice to see some more British yachts out there next year.