First cruise to Northern France, advice?

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GilesC

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For me, its that time of year again. The Christmas pud has just about settled and to get through the winter I need to start thinking about the summer!

I'm thinking about cruising northern France for a week or so in the summer, but haven't been able to find much advice. I hopped over to Calais a few years ago, but fancy something more adventurous this time. So can you suggest where to look for advice, brilliant books or great places to go?

Thanks!
 
You'll find a broad brush summary of cruising the South coasts of the English channel on my web site - including comparisons with the north coast of the Channel.

It's a captivating area, some lovely half timbered towns to visit, and some of the most interesting pilotage and navigation challenges in the world. Your cruising plans will be completely dominated by tidal streams and heights - which may mean 2 am departures . . .

For a first time visit try Cherbourg, then crowded Peter Port on Guernsey, Treguier afterwards, then any French port further west, then back to UK. Select your time of year to avoid the peak French holiday season (6 weeks from July 14) and to match the tidal streams to a decent set of passage plans (westerly sets starting at 8am are comfortable for Treguier onwards!).

Once you've tried it, if you like the pilotage, you'll come back time and time again trying ever more interesting little ports.
 
If you are able to get a copy of Bloc Marine "Votre livre a bord" full edition you will have a set of 1:80000 french charts from Dunkerque to the Northern Spanish border at St Jean de luz.
Use this to plan your trip
Unless you want to push hard You will probably not get past Cherbourg on a two week trip.
Cross Dover Calais or therabouts coast hop for a few days Honfleur is worth a visit as is Caen (The museum is a must if you can get there) also near enoughj to visit Bayeaux to see tapestry. Cross back to UK to brighton (say) and go along coast back to base.

Worth looking at Channel Pilot and the Michelin Green Guides Pas de Calais,Normandy etc
Enjoy
 
What you did not mention was the size of boat and also what you exoect your daily mileage /hours to be .
as Jim says Cherbourg and West is well worth visiting but if you have to push yourself and your crew hard to cover distances it might not be as much fun.
You could always get a crew to help you get the boat to the start of your cruising area and then enjoy the rest of the trip and a crew to help bring the boat back.
 
If it's the first cruise to France, I suggest the Normandy coast, working in an anti-clockwise direction so port access times are maximised. As has been said, Cherbourg is a good first port of call being 24 hour access. Just enter the marina dn find your own berth on the visitors pontoons. Don't bother using the marina's VHF!

Then, keeping it as simple as poss, St Vaast, Courselles-sur-mer, Deauville, Fécamp (24hr), St Valerie en Caux, Boulonge (24hr), Calais, home.
 
Although our boat is a bit bigger than yours our being duffers will about even the odds. We have gone from Ipswich/Woodbridge to France for most of the last 5 years in which we have had the boat, our first.

We prefer going a bit along the English coast before crossing. More places to get in to, tide is better (just) for West-going. We think the eastern end of N France is pretty miss-able. Cherborg is a good landfall. Aim uptide. You can be miles uptide and still get in. The crossing is less hectic than the Straits of Dover too. Good set-off points from anywhere between Eastbourne and Weymouth.

Getting round the forelands is often a pain, but doesn't last long. We have sheltered off Margate, in Ramsgate and Dover and ended up coming out and going round in weather no worse than we put in to avoid, just a couple of days later! In future we will just push on unless its actually dangerous.

Best of luck with the trip.
 
Hello I'm back!

S Brittany is lovely, but its quite adventurous for a first time across to France.

First time across, you won't be disappointed with many of the ports in Normandy. Check the tides and play them accordingly. Use the tidal stream to help get up and down the coast. You need to make sure there's enough rise of tide to get into some of the Normandy ports though, so you can have some interesting passage planning. Sometimes you end up kedged off waiting for rise of tide to get into the harbour. Other times you have a slow passage to get there with enought tide to get in.

I tend not to plan in too much detail pre the holiday. Read up and choose some places you'd like to visit, then choose according to weather and tide when you go.
 
Given a good wind direction, you can get quite a way. However, if bashing in to stronger SWlys will limit how far you will get.
The problem with going west along the French coast is that you are on a falling tide and many of their harbours need a high water entry. Advice I was given many years ago is to sail down the English coast, cross when you are ready, ie to Fecamp, Cherbourg or the Channel isles and then 'eat' your way back up the French coast.
Yes, French marinas are much cheaper than the UK.
 
Hi GilesC

I can see you have got lots of advice already but, as I did a similar trip last year, I'll add mine.

I was looking for: relatively easy hops; no over-night sails; ports with easy access (in case plans went awry); the opportunity for crew changes by ferry; places to go that would be interesting even if it was raining (a wise choice as it turned out).

My route (from the East Coast) was Ramsgate, Calais (I don't like the marina at Boulogne), Dieppe, Fecamp, Honfleur, Ouistreham. We could have gone on to St. Vaast and Cherbourg but ran out of time. We took no more than a day between ports (although we had some very early starts) and we stayed at least two nights in most places.

Clearly, you won't be able to do that lot in a week but, depending on how much time you want to spend at sea and how much in port, they offer quite a few options. Longer hops are easy and practical if you have a keen crew.

I hope you have a good trip.

Oh, and a happy New Year to you and all other forumites.

Kacecar
 
Big decision is whether to hop down our S Coast and then cross to Cherbourg etc or to get over first and then hop down their side. I'd much rather do Boulogne, Dieppe, Fecamp and so on than Eastbourne, Brighton, Solent. One option to get you a bit further west is to do Dover - Dungeness and strike out for Dieppe from there if you don't fancy long legs. From there it's into the bay maybe, or across to St Vaast. Ouistrehamm itself is not too lively and the locks rise an enormous amount but the trip up the canal to Caen is a good potter and allows a patriotic visit to the cafe at Pegasus bridge.
 
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