If you lived in Leeds where would you keep your boat?

[dansaskip]

For 10 years I kept my boat in the Menai Straits N Wales whilst living and working in Sheffield . A long drive for the weekends but a beautiful place to keep and sail a boat. Plenty of places for a weekend sail and for long weekends Isle of Man & Ireland possible , Holidays all of West & South Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Well worth the pain (and expense) of the long drive. Still hard to beat Oban as a base for sailing.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I think it depends what other interests you have. I seriously thought about moving to that general (Oban-y, Ardfern-y, Crinan-y) way but decided against because although it would have been great for sailing it would have been absolutely terrible for other things I like to do. Leeds has theatres, art galleries, an opera company, two dance companies. top-division football, rugby league and rugby union clubs, a thriving LGBT scene and a huge West Indian Carnival. Oban has a pipe band, a community cinema, a shinty team and a big stone thing.

In the end I choose to live somewhere with even less to do than Oban, but with much quicker and easier access to places where things do happen.

I completely agree! My wife will retire next year, probably, and we are faced with a decision of whether to remain where we are and where there is a community that we have grown into or to remove ourselves to somewhere much more convenient for boating! If you move, it takes time to develop the contacts within a community that make living there so much more pleasant. The problem is likely to be much greater in smaller communities - a city like Leeds has many ready-made groupings into which one can fit, centred around every activity under the sun - a place like Oban will have correspondingly fewer such opportunities. Of course, if you're a religious person, church-based communities are universal (here endeth the commercial ? )

I don't know about Oban specifically, but in much of the West Coast, and more especially the islands, you're an outsider if you don't speak Gaelic. This isn't a complaint - the people are very hospitable and it isn't a problem. But it's worth remembering that you could go to a place where you'll inevitably be an outsider.

 

[Caer Urfa]

Whitby marina 73 mile away and 1 1/2hr drive

 

[AntarcticPilot]

The options within an hours drive that have access to the sea include amongst others;
Brough , South Ferriby, Grimsby, Hull, Bridlington , Scarboro', Whitby and possibly Hartlepool.
Extending the time to 1.5 hours then you can encompass Liverpool, the Lakes (ok no sea!)and Newcastle etc

Having sailed on the Humber as a child, it's worth remembering that Brough, S. Ferriby, Hull and Grimsby are ALL severely affected by tidal considerations. Three of them (Brough, S. Ferriby and Grimsby) have limited tidal access (not sure about Hull), and all are on a river a considerable distance from open waters with a very strong tidal current, such that few small-craft can make progress against it. Basically, once you're out, you're committed to going with the tide and not returning until it turns. I have memories of trying to plug the tide off Hull fish-docks; and staying in the same place for a very long time!

There are also local dangers; the edges of the channels are very steep to and it is not unknown for vessels grounding on the edge of the channel to roll over as the tide goes out. Again, we once spotted something poking out of the water once, and were going to approach it until my dad realized it was the wreck of a barge that had done exactly that a day or two previously!

Bridlington and Scarborough are drying harbours, I think - I know I ruled them out when coming south, and I think that was the reason.

Unfortunately, the coast of Yorkshire has very few harbours! But that said, East-West communications in Yorkshire aren't brilliant, and I'd have said you could get to Newcastle or thereabouts as quickly as you can to the Yorkshire or Lincolnshire coast. And yes, I have heard of Humberside, but I think it's a nasty plot to try and diminish the greatest county!

 

[Bi111ion]

Humber Cruising Association at Grimsby. I live in Derbyshire about 2 h to Conwy and 2:15 h to Grimsby and moved to boat to HCA when we returned from a trip to Denmark. HCA is a great club, and you basically buy a share in the club then the mooring is cheaper than any commercial marina. Super friendly club too. If you are shallow draft you can go north to Bridlington, but we go Scarbourgh, Whittby etc, or south we go down to Wells etc (but shallow draft you can get in Boston Kings Lynn etc. ), or go down to Lowestoft and across to Netherlands. I think it is about 1h 20 to Leeds?

 

[colind3782]

Med coast of Spain. Exact location depending on flight destinations from Leeds.

 

[Bi111ion]

Sorry .. I messed up the reply!

 

[Rafiki]

Hypothetical question, but the time might come when I move there to be near my family. It seems like a daft place to live if you have a boat.

Majorca is pretty nice and the time difference in getting there compared to a UK sailing area is not that great. Expensive though !!

 

[Bi111ion]

HCA Grimsby opens for free flow (without lock) HW plus or minus 2, or locking out for a small fee plus or minus 3. Bridlington has a couple of non drying visitor pontoon moorings and a few for residents too. Scarborough visitor pontoon is dredged to 2m, not sure about residents. Forget Hull for a sea going boat. . You use a whole tide getting to the sea and the lock gates often seem to be broken recently. We draw 1.8 and as I said we sail from HCA.

 

[Bi111ion]

Whitby marina 73 mile away and 1 1/2hr drive

It is a lovely place, really nice place to hang oyt. Even has a chandlers if you need to work on the boat, but the bridge opening is a bit restrictive. Hartlepool a bit further has a much wider range of tidal access. It depends what you like.

 

[Praxinoscope]

Spain,. Quick easy and cheap flights out 8 or 9 months season, cheap marinas.

Not so sure the cheap flights will be around for long, the airline industry is in severe difficulties, laying off staff left right and centre, add to this pressures on the environmental fronts we may have seen the best of cheap air travel for a while.
There's some good sailing to be found on the East Coast, not sure what travel From Leeds is like to East Anglia, but how about the North West?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

HCA Grimsby opens for free flow (without lock) HW plus or minus 2, or locking out for a small fee plus or minus 3. Bridlington has a couple of non drying visitor pontoon moorings and a few for residents too. Scarborough visitor pontoon is dredged to 2m, not sure about residents. Forget Hull for a sea going boat. . You use a whole tide getting to the sea and the lock gates often seem to be broken recently. We draw 1.8 and as I said we sail from HCA.

After we left, we heard a lovely story about the lock gates at Hull being damaged by a tugboat whose skipper had drunkenly gone for a joy-ride. The punch-line was that he was done for being drunk in charge of a tug-boat! It sounds like the lock gates haven't improved...

I was last in Hull aboard one of British Antarctic Survey's ships, installing software and training the ship's officers in its use. That was 10+ years ago. I recall that there weren't many ships in the dock.

Of course, your comments about Hull and sea-going boats go double for Brough, S Ferriby and N. Ferriby - is the latter still where the Humber Yawl Club hangs out? It was a very welcome port in a storm when I was crewing for a friend, and his plywood boat was stove by floating debris. Fortunately my Dad was in company in our own boat, and he was able to tow us into N Ferriby while we kept the water down as much as we could!

 

[Elessar]

Hypothetical question, but the time might come when I move there to be near my family. It seems like a daft place to live if you have a boat.

There is a Leeds dock. I spent a few months working there earlier in the year. Yes it has boats in it!

 

[Halo]

I live close to Leeds. It takes exactly one hour to get to Hartlepool marina which is my choice. It’s a days sail down to Whitby or Scarborough and the same up to Northumberland which is one of the best places in the uk for sea life and very scenic with the castles and islands.
I have had seasons in Scotland, Suffolk, N Wales with manageable driving distances. Also if you are going to take your time sailing round the uk (which I have done twice) then the central position and excellent communications make it feasible to leave your boat for a week or two between legs without really long travel times.
On the downside it is colder than the South but there are far less other boats about and a lot of offshore winds.
Whilst it’s not Oban , Lymington or St Mawes you can enjoy sailing whilst living here.

 

[Bi111ion]

I live close to Leeds. It takes exactly one hour to get to Hartlepool marina which is my choice. It’s a days sail down to Whitby or Scarborough and the same up to Northumberland which is one of the best places in the uk for sea life and very scenic with the castles and islands.
I have had seasons in Scotland, Suffolk, N Wales with manageable driving distances. Also if you are going to take your time sailing round the uk (which I have done twice) then the central position and excellent communications make it feasible to leave your boat for a week or two between legs without really long travel times.
On the downside it is colder than the South but there are far less other boats about and a lot of offshore winds.
Whilst it’s not Oban , Lymington or St Mawes you can enjoy sailing whilst living here.

 

[steve yates]

The options within an hours drive that have access to the sea include amongst others;
Brough , South Ferriby, Grimsby, Hull, Bridlington , Scarboro', Whitby and possibly Hartlepool.
Extending the time to 1.5 hours then you can encompass Liverpool, the Lakes (ok no sea!)and Newcastle etc

You do know that the lakes are within 20 mins of the coast on two sides?

 

[Solent Sailor]

Summit is often restricted in summer due to water concerns.

Is it t'ose pipe ban tha's talking about? lol

 

[BobnLesley]

When we first became boat owners we lived in Chesterfield and realised it gave us a wide choice of locations as most everywhere, ignoring what we'd found to be bleak sailing on the east Yorkshire/Lincolnshire coast was a 3.5 hour drive away, Leeds would be similar as nowhere is 'close'. That said, the area had been good for our earlier chartering as nowhere was 'too far'.
As noted earlier, pre-Covid, the Leeds-Bradford airport offered good links to the Algarve and western Med and when sailing down there ourselves we met two yachts whose owners were from Leeds and having re-located their yachts there from Devon/Solent on the basis that they could fly/taxi to their boats there almost more easily than driving to them in the south of England, the extra cost being offset by smaller mooring/storage fees and their getting a much higher percentage of 'good weather' sailing weekends than in UK waters.

 

[michael_w]

Get a small boat and sail/race at one of the many clubs in the area.

 

[croc9968]

I live in Wakefield, so not far at all from Leeds. My boat is moored in Seaham Marina which is about 1hr 20 mins away . If you're looking for a marina then the M62 is your friend and you can go East or West and be fairly equidistant....geographically I would say Goole is your nearest marina? Could be wrong though