How lucky we are in the UK!

[Fergus]

I've been trying (again) to find a permanent mooring somewhere in south Brittany. Leaving aside the difficulty in finding anything for a 2.25m draught you have to go on a waiting list for 5-10 years!! Apparently you also need to become "friends" with the capitainerie, visit regularly in person to make sure you're moving up the list and offer to pay up front in addition to €1600 to go on the list in the first place. At least here it's a lot easier!

 

[bendyone]

Yes but when you get it it will be cheap

 

[SimbaDog]

Have you tried taking the town mayor out for a sail & then a nice lunch

 

[prv]

I've been trying (again) to find a permanent mooring somewhere in south Brittany. Leaving aside the difficulty in finding anything for a 2.25m draught you have to go on a waiting list for 5-10 years!! Apparently you also need to become "friends" with the capitainerie, visit regularly in person to make sure you're moving up the list and offer to pay up front in addition to €1600 to go on the list in the first place. At least here it's a lot easier!

Apart from the lump sum, that all sounds very similar to the Crown Estate moorings on the Hamble.

Pete

 

[Fergus]

Yes but when you get it it will be cheap

Eur3000 pa!

 

[Flapjack]

Eur3000 pa!

If that's for a swinging mooring that's more than twice what I pay for mine in Emsworth, but I did have to go through the same waiting list thing and keep in regular contact with the harbour conservancy to make sure I was moving up the list, I think in the end it took about four years to get one.

 

[chinita]

I wonder if it is because we are their natural enemies.

Then again, there are some Francophobes who might object to a load of Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys having permanent moorings on the Dart or Tamar; prancing about naked on their tatty aluminum boats, nicking everything not tied down and with their funny left hand drive cars parked randomly around our streets with legions of drop dead gorgeous shabby chiccily dressed women stealing our good 'rounded' girls' men whilst breathing garlic laden billows of Gitanes and Gaulloises over our ASDA Pork pies AND REFUSING TO SPEAK OUR LANGUAGE!!!

 

[TiggerToo]

I wonder if it is because we are their natural enemies......over our ASDA Pork pies AND REFUSING TO SPEAK OUR LANGUAGE!!!

 

[AIDY]

I believe La trinite is doing a drystack scheme this year for yacht's... Like the drystack we have for ribs in the solent. Storage for you boat ashore and upto 4 lifts in and out per year... then you have to bugger off sailing no place in the marina apart for a visitor's berth... I've not investigated.

I've been on the mooring lists in brittany for about 5-7 years.

 

[Seajet]

I don't know the details, but get the strong impression from people at my club who have done / are doing it, that Spain or Eastern Med' is the place to be if you want that sort of thing.

I also suspect - though it would be a really serious pain to get proved wrong - that if one turns up in a boat, at first as a visitor, then gets friendly with the locals, that would be a very different thing to remotely applying from UK.

I know 2 boats which both found home bases in Spain without any apparent trouble, both on a budget, one 28' the other 54'.

It may not be irrelevant they were both crewed by people eager to enjoy 'foreign' cultures, and able to speak the language very well.

On the other hand, I once had a crew with me who had a wicked sense of humour, - he was to rise to great heights in the RAF - but perhaps a little high spirited at the time, he'd just joined the Light Blue.

We had sailed across from Lymington - Cherbourg, uneventful trip but of course it's still tiring.

We arrived at Cherbourg 1988 to find they were busy rebuilding the marina after the previous October Hurricane, so anchored off in mid harbour.
In the morning a launch came alongside very politely asking us to move, when my chum, spotting his first Frenchman of the trip, leapt up " I'd like to say a few words here; Cressy, Agincourt, Waterloo ! ".

Fortunately the French realised he was not a spokesman for the boat, but I wasn't laughing.

We weren't helped by the fact there was a HUGE, Thunderbirds - style explosion complete with fireball & smoke mushroom cloud in the military docks when we were about a mile off heading for the Alderney Race, the French very sensibly sent out fast patrol boats, including one about 10' behind us inspecting very carefully ( this was long before the terrorism scare there is now ) - my patriotic chum was wearing a camouflage T-shirt, so I had hustled him below...

Always wondered what the explosion was, I'd be surprised if people weren't hurt or killed.

Anyway, back to topic, I think it's the golden rule anywhere that if one even TRIES to speak the local language, doors open.

 

[Lakesailor]

Quite. I went to buy a spark plug for a mobie for a (French resident) friend in the Sof and despite my laughable attempts at asking for one in French was treated very well by the locals.
In Auxerre every year we acted out a pantomime of asking for a room in a hotel in French and the hostess would eventually begin speaking to us in perfect English.

It's obvious really. I didn't like Japanese or Spaniards who couldn't be arsed to try and speak to me in English when we had a B&B.
Mind you I can't speak Japanese or Spanish.

 

[Seajet]

Right,

Now all I need to do is learn to speak Devonian or Cornish, so I might get a pint at the same price as the locals !

 

[bendyone]

Tried to buy a hosepipe in France with sign language ---

got sent to the bog.

 

[sighmoon]

I have a bit of a pipe dream about sailing slowly around Europe, but by bit, each summer. Is it possible to find somewhere to leave a boat on the hard for a few months without too much planning?

 

[puddock]

I wonder if it is because we are their natural enemies.

Then again, there are some Francophobes who might object to a load of Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys having permanent moorings on the Dart or Tamar; prancing about naked on their tatty aluminum boats, nicking everything not tied down and with their funny left hand drive cars parked randomly around our streets with legions of drop dead gorgeous shabby chiccily dressed women stealing our good 'rounded' girls' men whilst breathing garlic laden billows of Gitanes and Gaulloises over our ASDA Pork pies AND REFUSING TO SPEAK OUR LANGUAGE!!!

;-)

 

[Seajet]

Sighmoon,

Cruiser or dinghy ?

I know a couple who left their 28' sailing cruiser either at the Southern end of the French canals or nearby Spain for winters.

 

[vyv_cox]

I have a bit of a pipe dream about sailing slowly around Europe, but by bit, each summer. Is it possible to find somewhere to leave a boat on the hard for a few months without too much planning?

It's possible but varies enormously from country to country. In mainland Mediterranean Spain it tends to be far more expensive ashore than afloat. A friend has paid €40 per day on the hard in the past month but far less in the marina. Just across the border in southern France we paid €10/metre per month ashore a few years ago at Port Leucate but further to the east, apart from Port Napoleon, it might not even be possible to find anything. In Corsica there are some ports on the east coast where ashore berthing is available, same in some ports in Sardinia but not all. There seemed to be very little available in Italy, although we didn't try. In general boating costs there are very high. Which is why so many people head for Greece. Many have also gone to Turkey for the same reasons but a good proportion of them seem to be heading west again now.

 

[Sybarite]

I would be interested to know which port in S.Brittany requires upfront payment as well as €1600 to get on the list. Sounds like a scam to me. I have never even heard of this and I am on several waiting lists. ( I would like a port a little closer to my intended future address; however the people are so friendly and helpful where I am -Locmiquélic - that I would be loth to leave).

Some ports do ask you to confirm regularly ( eg Concarneau: once per year) that you are still interested because many people get listed on several different waiting lists and forget to notify when they find a berth elsewhere.

When you say "lucky in the UK" I pay €1600 per year for 9m49 which includes free electricity, water and wifi, plus the right to visit without charge some 30 other ports in S. Brittany for up to 2 nights in each. A 24/48 hr haul-out and relaunch for cleaning and antifouling costs €66 and up to 2 months free on the hard.

 

[Cloven]

Yes but when you get it it will be cheap

Absolutely agree. We had to wait 4 years for our permanent marina berth but we now pay euro1400 annually compared to well over £3000 if we had stayed in the marina in the West of Scotland. Goodness knows how much in the Solent area or similar. There was no "signing-on cost" and other than confirming each year that we wanted to stay on the list, there were no hassles.

We have many friends out in France who have "arrived" there and they take out 6 month summer contracts. It does not give you a permanent berth but you will always be allocated a berth when you are there. They then take out a separate winter contract afloat or a 6 month winter storage contract on the hard. Many have been doing this for years whilst on the marina waiting list.

By the way, we have heard of some very popular places where the waiting list is nearer 20 years!!! Book now for the next generation.

 

[Cloven]

I have a bit of a pipe dream about sailing slowly around Europe, but by bit, each summer. Is it possible to find somewhere to leave a boat on the hard for a few months without too much planning?

From four seasons experience of Southern Brittany, it would seem that there are few problems about the above. I guess it depends when and where as there is more pressure on winter storage than summer. We have just lifted out for the winter and where we are you cannot book more than a month in advance, although I know of other places where they will accept advance bookings. I don't think it will be much of a problem.