Brittany Pilot...........which?

Fascadale

Fascadale

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Following this thread about Brittany the time has now come to ask Santa for an appropriate pilot book.

Has anyone used the West France Cruising Companion?

I would only be intending to visit one or two harbours on the south coast of Brittany to break my passage between Corunna and the Channel. I will need some harbour information, maybe some stuff on French formalities and advice on the tides, particularly regarding the various inshore passages.

I've had a good look at Reeds, it would probably do the job and I know a pilot book for only a brief visit seems an extravagance but, hey its almost Christmas and the Raz sounds a scary place.
 
Fascadale said:
Following this thread about Brittany the time has now come to ask Santa for an appropriate pilot book.

Has anyone used the West France Cruising Companion?

I would only be intending to visit one or two harbours on the south coast of Brittany to break my passage between Corunna and the Channel. I will need some harbour information, maybe some stuff on French formalities and advice on the tides, particularly regarding the various inshore passages.

I've had a good look at Reeds, it would probably do the job and I know a pilot book for only a brief visit seems an extravagance but, hey its almost Christmas and the Raz sounds a scary place.
Click to expand...

PS The Raz is fine when you take it at slack water. There are places nearby for waiting.

These are by far the most popular in France. They are in French but if you have basic French you will soon be into the vocabulary and they are very well illustrated. They used to be known as the Pen Duick Guides (Editions Tabarly) but have now been taken over by Bénéteau.

http://www.4-oceans.com/pilote-cotier-guide-nautique.asp
 
Yes, I have a copy on the boat. Don't remember it being particularly useful when we were that side of Biscay early this year. Bloc marine was the most useful book I had.

Having said that, I was relatively unimpressed by the whole area. Probably just me but I found places like the Morbihan too busy for my liking and very few decent anchorages. I'm used to the West coast of Scotland where you can always find somewhere sheltered with no swell.

Might just be that the Pilot book wasn't very good and didn't point out the good places to anchor. My draft of 2.2m didn't help either.
 
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For 2011 I was given a copy of BLOC (MARINE?) which was simply superb. it was the Reeds equivalent, but with more detail. Impressive. Where to get it, I don't know (apologies!) but Bandit of this parish does. Try a PM to him.
 
Fascadale said:
I've had a good look at Reeds, it would probably do the job and I know a pilot book for only a brief visit seems an extravagance but, hey its almost Christmas and the Raz sounds a scary place.
Click to expand...

We used the West Coast France Cruising Companion in conjunction with Reeds and found it invaluable. Ours was out of date, so we had to blag some of the new entries from other boats, for places like the Isles de Glenan.

We bought the Bloc while in France. It is very good but I feel it is only a slightly superior 'Reeds', with colour charts and translations from French into English (and maybe ? another language - it's still on the boat!!)

If I had to choose, it would be the "Companion" for me. It gives useful stuff like which day is market day as well as pointless stuff like restaurant guides.
 
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I still think the Beneteau guides are the best. I have also used the Bloc but it doesn' have nearly as much info as the Guides.
 
I still value Malcolm Robson's irreplaceable 3 volume French Pilot for Normandy and Brittany, and of course his Channel Islands Pilot. Out of date, yes, but rocks and harbours don't move much even if there are some new marinas.

They're still available second hand on the internet for remarkably few beer tokens.
 
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