Croatia Charter

Barnac1e said:
It would seem that the franchise for the various translations and publishing has been given by the original German author, Karl-Heinz Beständig, to the Italian company Edizioni Magnamare Srl, of Treviso.

This company has profited from the popularity of the original 777 Croatian guide by publishing not only English and Italian versions (both 6th editions of 2014 being the latest) but a portfolio of other sea area guides of the complete Italian coastline (only in Italian), identified by the 777 label and not in any way connected to K-H Beständig, the original 777 author.

However, he continues to constantly update the German 888 version of Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro, the latest of 2016 is the 29th edition, and offers free regular newsletters on Croatian nautical matters to buyers who register with his German publisher.
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Completeness dictates that since I posted the above I have been informed that a further concession for the 777/888 Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro guide was given by the author to the publisher Naklada Nediljko Dominovic of Zagreb and the Croatian language translation was made by Nediljko Dominovic from the 24th German edition. The result is very similar to the German version, A4 format, blue soft cover and titled "888".
 
Caladh said:
The walled town/peninsular up the river to Ston is breathtakingly stunning! Don't miss it.
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That rang no bells with me, despite the number of times we've cruised the area. I'll have to research whether that's just a failing of my (feeble!) memory...

JimB (http://www.jimbsail.info/mediterranean/adriatic/dalmatia) does not mention Ston on his Dalmatia page.

BTW "peninsular " is the adjective, "peninsula" is the noun.

Mike.
 
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We are in Javic at the moment on the second week of a charter. We have really mixed feelings about the place.

We chartered a Sun Odessy 36.1, we arrived at 11pm on the Saturday in Split and we handed over the boat. We were quite surprised to find only two flares on board and no life raft, apparently life rafts are not required for boats under 40 feet. We set off for Solta only to find on arrival that the boat did not have any baking sheets or trays so ther was no way to cookany thing in the oven(The bread I like to make). I discovered the the domestic battery did not charge on engine, only shore power. The GPS does not work, the VHF does not work. The tender measures under 2m so cannot be rowed unless me feet are crossed under the bench and my wife sits on the bow which means she is generally sodden by the time we get to the shore. The tender only had one oar attached, I had to find a circlip to hold the oar onto the spigot. We called the charter company and they told us to go to Milna where engineers were waiting to fix the battery charging problem but the rest was not fixed. We spent the rest of the first week around Paklinkski moving on to Vis (probably our favourite). We anchored on the North side of Budikovac but what looks like a clear sandy bottom is nothing but smooth rock and were forced to re-anchor in the dark when we started dragging.

The next day we went to Vela Luka for a water stop and to have breakfast. The winds were quite strongly blowing from the East so we anchored in the most beautiful west facing bay. We anchored in 7m and put out about 30m (The boat came with a Bruce copy of 20kgs). At 1am the anchor alarm went off (I set drag queen after the previous nights experience). The wind had made a 180 so we were now open to the weather. I had dived on the anchor to make sure it was set but it was not holding. I sat on anchor watch until 4am but eventually it was untenable and we had to leave. We headed back to Vela Luka and fortunately it starts to get light at 5am. Interestingly as soon as we left the anchorage all the other boats followed us out. Trying to find some protection from an increasingly strong wind from the west was a challenge. We could not head back to Hvar as by this time is was blowing over 30 knots and the sea state was awful. We headed into a small south facing bay and were joined by several other boats who headed out of Vela Luka looking for shelter from the rain, lightening and waves. When it died down we went to Otok Scedro and stayed there. It was quite nice but busy.

Today we went to Korcula but not to the marina but to anchor but it was really hard to find anywhere to anchor as by the time we arrived the winds were coming from WNW. Eventually we put into Javic which is a bit like being in a fish bowel.

The first week of our holiday was heavenly, but the second week has been ruined by the difficulty of getting the anchored to hold, winds that go 180 degrees in the night making the choice of anchorage really difficult because by the time you arrive you find the wind has changed and plan A no longer works.

As my wife says this is supposed to be a holiday not an endurance test. We were caught in a squal on our way back to Vela Luka the boat was almost knocked over by the waves and not having a working VHF or a life raft and our only means of survival an under 2m dingy has not gone down well with my wife who now want to go on Vila holidays!

We have found the wind to be very unpredictable on the second week with not clear direction and often a compleatly reversal. We love the anchoring bays but our confidence is at a low ebb right now which has somwhat spoiled it. The problem with chartering is that what you get is a fait aclompi
 
Seven Spades said:
We are in Javic at the moment on the second week of a charter. We have really mixed feelings about the place.

We chartered a Sun Odessy 36.1, we arrived at 11pm on the Saturday in Split and we handed over the boat. We were quite surprised to find only two flares on board and no life raft, apparently life rafts are not required for boats under 40 feet. We set off for Solta only to find on arrival that the boat did not have any baking sheets or trays so ther was no way to cookany thing in the oven(The bread I like to make). I discovered the the domestic battery did not charge on engine, only shore power. The GPS does not work, the VHF does not work. The tender measures under 2m so cannot be rowed unless me feet are crossed under the bench and my wife sits on the bow which means she is generally sodden by the time we get to the shore. The tender only had one oar attached, I had to find a circlip to hold the oar onto the spigot. We called the charter company and they told us to go to Milna where engineers were waiting to fix the battery charging problem but the rest was not fixed. We spent the rest of the first week around Paklinkski moving on to Vis (probably our favourite). We anchored on the North side of Budikovac but what looks like a clear sandy bottom is nothing but smooth rock and were forced to re-anchor in the dark when we started dragging.

The next day we went to Vela Luka for a water stop and to have breakfast. The winds were quite strongly blowing from the East so we anchored in the most beautiful west facing bay. We anchored in 7m and put out about 30m (The boat came with a Bruce copy of 20kgs). At 1am the anchor alarm went off (I set drag queen after the previous nights experience). The wind had made a 180 so we were now open to the weather. I had dived on the anchor to make sure it was set but it was not holding. I sat on anchor watch until 4am but eventually it was untenable and we had to leave. We headed back to Vela Luka and fortunately it starts to get light at 5am. Interestingly as soon as we left the anchorage all the other boats followed us out. Trying to find some protection from an increasingly strong wind from the west was a challenge. We could not head back to Hvar as by this time is was blowing over 30 knots and the sea state was awful. We headed into a small south facing bay and were joined by several other boats who headed out of Vela Luka looking for shelter from the rain, lightening and waves. When it died down we went to Otok Scedro and stayed there. It was quite nice but busy.

Today we went to Korcula but not to the marina but to anchor but it was really hard to find anywhere to anchor as by the time we arrived the winds were coming from WNW. Eventually we put into Javic which is a bit like being in a fish bowel.

The first week of our holiday was heavenly, but the second week has been ruined by the difficulty of getting the anchored to hold, winds that go 180 degrees in the night making the choice of anchorage really difficult because by the time you arrive you find the wind has changed and plan A no longer works.

As my wife says this is supposed to be a holiday not an endurance test. We were caught in a squal on our way back to Vela Luka the boat was almost knocked over by the waves and not having a working VHF or a life raft and our only means of survival an under 2m dingy has not gone down well with my wife who now want to go on Vila holidays!

We have found the wind to be very unpredictable on the second week with not clear direction and often a compleatly reversal. We love the anchoring bays but our confidence is at a low ebb right now which has somwhat spoiled it. The problem with chartering is that what you get is a fait aclompi
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Which charter company?
 
Seven Spades said:
We are in Javic at the moment on the second week of a charter. We have really mixed feelings about the place.

We chartered a Sun Odessy 36.1, we arrived at 11pm on the Saturday in Split and we handed over the boat. We were quite surprised to find only two flares on board and no life raft, apparently life rafts are not required for boats under 40 feet. We set off for Solta only to find on arrival that the boat did not have any baking sheets or trays so ther was no way to cookany thing in the oven(The bread I like to make). I discovered the the domestic battery did not charge on engine, only shore power. The GPS does not work, the VHF does not work. The tender measures under 2m so cannot be rowed unless me feet are crossed under the bench and my wife sits on the bow which means she is generally sodden by the time we get to the shore. The tender only had one oar attached, I had to find a circlip to hold the oar onto the spigot. We called the charter company and they told us to go to Milna where engineers were waiting to fix the battery charging problem but the rest was not fixed. We spent the rest of the first week around Paklinkski moving on to Vis (probably our favourite). We anchored on the North side of Budikovac but what looks like a clear sandy bottom is nothing but smooth rock and were forced to re-anchor in the dark when we started dragging.

The next day we went to Vela Luka for a water stop and to have breakfast. The winds were quite strongly blowing from the East so we anchored in the most beautiful west facing bay. We anchored in 7m and put out about 30m (The boat came with a Bruce copy of 20kgs). At 1am the anchor alarm went off (I set drag queen after the previous nights experience). The wind had made a 180 so we were now open to the weather. I had dived on the anchor to make sure it was set but it was not holding. I sat on anchor watch until 4am but eventually it was untenable and we had to leave. We headed back to Vela Luka and fortunately it starts to get light at 5am. Interestingly as soon as we left the anchorage all the other boats followed us out. Trying to find some protection from an increasingly strong wind from the west was a challenge. We could not head back to Hvar as by this time is was blowing over 30 knots and the sea state was awful. We headed into a small south facing bay and were joined by several other boats who headed out of Vela Luka looking for shelter from the rain, lightening and waves. When it died down we went to Otok Scedro and stayed there. It was quite nice but busy.

Today we went to Korcula but not to the marina but to anchor but it was really hard to find anywhere to anchor as by the time we arrived the winds were coming from WNW. Eventually we put into Javic which is a bit like being in a fish bowel.

The first week of our holiday was heavenly, but the second week has been ruined by the difficulty of getting the anchored to hold, winds that go 180 degrees in the night making the choice of anchorage really difficult because by the time you arrive you find the wind has changed and plan A no longer works.

As my wife says this is supposed to be a holiday not an endurance test. We were caught in a squal on our way back to Vela Luka the boat was almost knocked over by the waves and not having a working VHF or a life raft and our only means of survival an under 2m dingy has not gone down well with my wife who now want to go on Vila holidays!

We have found the wind to be very unpredictable on the second week with not clear direction and often a compleatly reversal. We love the anchoring bays but our confidence is at a low ebb right now which has somwhat spoiled it. The problem with chartering is that what you get is a fait aclompi
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There's a lot to digest there SS but it's interesting stuff.

Firstly, several of the points you make are obviously relevant to the charter company rather than Croatia so CM's question is clearly relevant.

However, I'll try and address the Croatia issues although I'm not an expert on Croatia by any stretch of the imagination as it's a massive coastline and there is much I haven't seen.

In no particular order:

The weather in Croatia most summer seasons is very stable and predictable. The only spanner in the works is the Bora/Bura katabatic wind from the N round to NE which is less predictable than the other winds. However, the Croatian met. service DHMZ are now pretty good with their Bora forecasts but it does mean getting regular forecasts over the radio, VHF or ideally, internet. Unfortunately, some years, that stability and predictability goes out the window for periods of weeks at a time and even for the entire season, as one low after another sweeps across causing thunderstorms, chaotic winds and sudden calms. In the last 10 years we have only experienced 2 years like that during July and August but it sound like this year might be another. We'll find out next week!

Anchoring ..... apart from a few places, it is certainly not like the Ionian or the Caribbean, as can be appreciated by the fact that in many places you can be sailing 100m off the coast in 50m of water! There are many bays which are basically just sheets of white rock which looks just like sand, and is sometimes covered with a cm of sand or mud which behave exactly the same as solid rock! The giveaway is usually the dark patches of weed which spring up in the gaps between the rock plates. It is so easy to be fooled into trying to drop your anchor on the white patches when what you need to do is drop it into one of the larger dark patches. If you carefully drop it in the light patch it might drag into a weed patch and grab .... but it might not and if you are dragging towards the shore then the weed patches are becoming smaller and thinner and the anchor might miss them all!

You therefore need to go deeper .... but the catch here is that most charter boats seem to have 50m of chain and a Delta anchor. The 50m often does not allow you to go out far enough and the Delta is very difficult to dig into weed and, if it drags across the rock, it will continue to plough across the weed patch if and when it does hit one. I don't believe that the Bruce is any better in this respect. After our first 1 week experience, for following 5 years we transported our Rocna out to Croatia on every holiday and the first thing we did was swap the charter Delta for our own Rocna. Once we bought our boat we extended the 50m chain to 100m. These "remedies" are clearly not open to everyone but I only mention them to highlight the issue.

Did you not have a copy of 777 on your boat? Most of the difficult bays are highlighted with appropriate anchoring comments but it's not infallible.

Anchoring near Korcula is not easy. You need to either anchor further west in one of the bays and then take a 30 to 45 minute walk along the coast or anchor across the water in one of those bays and take a very long dinghy ride over to Korcula which, in poor weather and darkness would certainly not be enjoyable as it's a busy channel.

Trust me .... I've had days and night when my confidence in Croatia has been at a very low ebb. It's a coastline where you definitely need good anchoring equipment and a good forecast and I would say that most, if not all, the charter companies fall short in that area. However, when we last chartered with The Moorings in 2013 they had installed pre-paid 3G routers in all the boats so everyone had free internet which made weather forecasts much easier. They might have even upgraded their anchoring tackle by now but I don't know.

Look at it this way, your experiences might not have been the great at the time .... but back in the pub in the UK it certainly does give you some stories to tell :)

Richard
 
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Thanks Richard, you have really confirmed my experiences. The weather seems much better today there was on a little bit of lightening last night and it was not close by. It looks as though the weather might be improving next week but then again the forecast was good for us too. So good luck.

No the Charter company have not supplied a copy of 777.


BTW how on earth did you transport a Rocna onto an aircraft?
 
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Seven Spades said:
Thanks Richard, you have really confirmed my experiences. The weather seems much better today there was on a little bit of lightening last night and it was not close by. It looks as though the weather might be improving next week but then again the forecast was good for us too. So good luck.

No the Charter company have not supplied a copy of 777.


BTW how on earth did you transport a Rocna onto an aircraft?
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The failure of the charter company to not provide a copy of 777 is very alarming. It is the anchoring bible for Croatia and, in my opinion, to be without it the company is being reckless with the safety of customers who are not familiar with Croatia. There are alternatives but those have such limited coverage in comparison that many bays are simply not mentioned whilst other bays generate lots of info about the nightlife or the restaurants but little about the seabed.

I would ask them where it is as I am inclined to suggest that your copy has been stolen or mislaid and the company have not noticed. If they say that they do not provide 777 I would advise them that they will not be seeing you again.

As for the Rocna ... the first time we chartered in Croatia we flew down from Bristol to Split. Every trip after that we drove down .... with the Rocna in the boot. :)

Of course, now we own the boat we still drive but without the Rocna as there are 2 25kg versions permanently on board.

Richard
 
Seven Spades said:
They have provided "Adriatic Sea Pilot Volume II" I assume this is not the same thing.
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There's nothing wrong with that Pilot and there are a couple of others which I also have on the boat .... but they have a lot of colour photographs and a lot of words about the various ports and anchorages and therefore, even though they are big books, there are many small bays that they simply can't cover.

777 is different in that there are few photos (in fact, none in my edition) and very few words. It's basically just charts showing every stretch of coast and every bay where it's possible to anchor (and a few where it isn't!) and telling you what the holding is like and which wind directions would make the use of that bay uncomfortable or hazardous. It's not the kind book you can take to bed and read about the places you might wish to visit, unless you like looking at charts.

It's also cheaper than the colour photo pilot books which is why I suspect that your copy might just be missing and the charter company are not checking the boats properly. :(

Richard
 
Ive always had wifi on croatian charters as part of the deal. Ive also learned that my anchoring is not up to the task so choose places where I can get on a buoy with an option of a town quay or marina as a bolthole. Had to go into Piskera this year as the wind was whipping up a bit (25-30) which wasn't cheap but actually made the night very pleasant.

Did a lot of planning beforehand to make sure I didn't make any less than optimum decisions while there.

A few bob for a mooring buoy is well worth it when the wind is blowing up.
 
RichardS said:
I assume you Guys are talking about 3G/4G rather than wifi, although you can sometimes pick up a wifi signal once you are near bars or restaurants so it can be helpful.

Richard
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Yes a dongle on the boat that connects to a 3/4G network and provides a wifi connection for your personal devices.
 
This is really interesting - we went to Croatia last year as newbies on a Sunsail flotilla (Dubrovnik), loved it and have done it again this year, 2 weeks part flotilla (6 days) and part bareboat (8 days), Marina Agana / Hvar / Brac / Skradin / Kaprije etc. The Sunsail boats seem well equipped in comparison with that of Seven Spades' experience, and we used the 777 (supplied) plus my own Croatia Cruising Companion to scout out good anchorages. Anchored every lunchtime for a few hours, plus about 6 overnights. No issues with the Delta on the S41 we had, we had one very blowy night in Tijat and elected to add shorelines.

We loved it there and will definitely return.
 
We've kept a boat for a few years in Croatia and almost always anchor. Our Delta has been fine but only by avoiding sea grass which we have to do anyway as my wife demands turquoise (we even have to move if the swimming ladder drifts over sea grass. It is real sailing some weeks with changing strong winds and wills nights at anchor but we love it windy or calm for days on end.
 
I don't want to turn this into an anchor thread, but after years of cruising in Croatia with CQR and Bruce, Rocna is definitely the way to go.
Returning to a point above, the bora starts to blow very suddenly but forecasts are usually very good at forecasting it as it depends on the movement of depressions north of the Alps. If you're in the north of Dalmatia, the clouds over the Velebit are a giveaway too.
 
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