Land locked Midlander

[Veradinz]

Avid reader but first time poster.

As the title suggests I live in the midlands (Birmingham way) just about as far from the sea as you can get. My partner and I decided that we wish to get a sailing boat around 20 to 30ft next year, do some RYA courses and get sailing.

I'm trying to plan a little in advance about where we would moor the boat and marinas to use but i'm struggling to know what's best. For a while I thought maybe joining a club around Cardiff would be best for price and ease of travel but i'm getting cold feet.

I'm new to sailing and i'm not sure Bristol Channel sailing is such a good idea for day sailing and a beginner like me. I wonder if travelling a little further for an easier sail would be better. Starting from scratch is also an expensive business so i'm looking to keep costs down.

I'm generally not sure what to do and you lot seem like a friendly bunch, little help.

Regards

V

 

[peteK]

No easy answer unless you move house.

 

[BabySharkDooDooDooDooDoo]

A significant minority of people who keep their boats on either the East or South coasts live in the Midlands.

But with driving those distances very few are going to 'nip down' for a quick day sail

 

[RJJ]

Avid reader but first time poster.

As the title suggests I live in the midlands (Birmingham way) just about as far from the sea as you can get. My partner and I decided that we wish to get a sailing boat around 20 to 30ft next year, do some RYA courses and get sailing.

I'm trying to plan a little in advance about where we would moor the boat and marinas to use but i'm struggling to know what's best. For a while I thought maybe joining a club around Cardiff would be best for price and ease of travel but i'm getting cold feet.

I'm new to sailing and i'm not sure Bristol Channel sailing is such a good idea for day sailing and a beginner like me. I wonder if travelling a little further for an easier sail would be better. Starting from scratch is also an expensive business so i'm looking to keep costs down.

I'm generally not sure what to do and you lot seem like a friendly bunch, little help.

Regards

V

Hello, the usual advice is get a little experience first and then buy the boat.

That way you know a little more what you are looking for, and you can have a meaningful conversation about any possible sailing area knowing your strengths and weaknesses. I don't know the Bristol Channel at all, but tend to the view that it can't be that hard....people do it! But presumably the consequences of any mistakes in tidal planning may be more serious, rather like in the Channel Islands?

Sailing clubs are a good way to get on the water. Personally I will offer a sail to anyone who gives me a hand with maintenance ? when you are a complete beginner and a potential owner, that's all good experience too.

Also a bit of racing can help, and racing skippers are always looking for keen helpful crew willing to learn.

RYA courses are great but they aren't the be-all-and-end-all. Anything that gives you miles, ideally sailing different boats with different people, is really useful

 

[wully1]

Find an inland club close to you and get some dinghy sailing experience to get started?
Once you can sail a dinghy then anything bigger will be easy - things happen much slower, with gin, on a cruising boat...

 

[Easticks28]

Hello, the usual advice is get a little experience first and then buy the boat.

That way you know a little more what you are looking for, and you can have a meaningful conversation about any possible sailing area knowing your strengths and weaknesses. I don't know the Bristol Channel at all, but tend to the view that it can't be that hard....people do it! But presumably the consequences of any mistakes in tidal planning may be more serious, rather like in the Channel Islands?

Sailing clubs are a good way to get on the water. Personally I will offer a sail to anyone who gives me a hand with maintenance ? when you are a complete beginner and a potential owner, that's all good experience too.

Also a bit of racing can help, and racing skippers are always looking for keen helpful crew willing to learn.

RYA courses are great but they aren't the be-all-and-end-all. Anything that gives you miles, ideally sailing different boats with different people, is really useful

+1
Best advce .

 

[Nimrod18]

veradinz

I have similar issues (East Mids). I’m both a big boat and dinghy sailor. I charter a 34fter once a year, own an 18ft westerly nimrod mostly moored (on trailer) at a local lake and have a mirror dinghy under restoration for the kids.

Given when you live and and your experience level, consider a trailer sailer. Minimal capital expense, keeps your running costs way, way down and you then have multiple cruising grounds within 2 hours of you, including Welsh and English lakes. Give it a couple of years and you can upgrade - delay that decision a year and you‘ll be able to afford a charter somewhere warm, to figure out if you want to make the step up. I would add that I have youngish kids and a smaller boat means they can do far more of the tasks than when we sail on (chartered) bigger boats.

You“ll find plenty of 18 to 22 footers on the market. Enough that you can choose something of reasonable quality. If going down that route, my top tips are that 18fters typically ride on single axle trailers, tow behind regular saloons and are easily man-handled; 22fters typically ride on twin axle trailers, may push towing limits for standard family cars and can tend to require something with an engine to move. Also, the state of the trailer is as important as the state of the boat.

Whichever route you choose, it’s a fascinating sport / past time to get involved with and I wish you luck with it.

 

[iantomlinson]

Totally agree with above.
We went too far,too quick.
Live in east mids(between stoke and uttoxeter).
Mum and dad had many boats inc colvic northerner,seadog 30, moody 36 so i have loads of experience(40yrs plus) sailing and working on boats.
Its a different thing when YOU are the captain(sorry missus)
Ive had many merlins,mirrors etc.
went to swift 18 trailer sailer(lovely dinghy with cabin). rebuilt her and sailed once(too small for sleeping).
Ebay'ed a leisure 23sl for £3.5k in torquay. best boat ever. had down south(dartmouth).
Mum and dads(god rest) money we bought a colvic victor34 ketch(proper boat).
WHAT a difference. beautiful, comfortable but by god lots of dosh and work.
It's so easy for the shine to wear off when youre always working on it and the mileage is going up on the car.
This year has been a huge reality check but im gonna fight to keep her there.

Moral of the story;
make sure youre 100% open eyed with cost,reliability and your own experience and expectations.
xx.

Try somebody elses boat for a while and ask many questions.
When it works it is the best thing on earth.

 

[TernVI]

I'd suggest considering doing a course or two, and looking at clubs/groups who charter boats.
Lots of people do live in the Midlands and sail on the Solent, sometimes referred to as 'the Birmingham Navy' or the 'A34 Yacht Club'.
Keeping a boat on the Solent is expensive and you need to use it a lot to make it worthwhile.
Driving 200 miles to go sailing to France is one thing. Driving 200 miles to do a bit of cleaning and maintenance is another.

 

[Sandy]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I moor my boat in Plymouth and there are several people from all over the UK in the marina.

Plymouth has several advantages to the Bristol Channel, the primary one being its not one of the biggest tidal ranged on the entire planet.

 

[Brentwales]

I sail on the Bristol Channel, tides are the biggest limiting factor, you can't just go out when you feel like and you have to get the tides right to get back into your mooring. Not to mention there are few harbours on the channel and those there are dry out when the tide goes out which can influence the type of boat you buy. On the flip side, club mooring costs are a fraction of the price you'd pay a marina.

 

[Stemar]

A couple of factors to consider are cost and access.

Cost of fuel and the value you put on your travelling time, but also the cost of parking the boat. A marina on the south coast will bring tears to your wallet compared with a tidal mooring up a creek on the east coast, but there are reasonably priced moorings to be had.

Access in terms of time sitting in traffic jams on a Friday evening. but also getting to the shore and finding the boat sitting out there on the mud for the next couple of hours until the tide comes in enough to get to her with a dinghy and another couple of hours before you can go anywhere. Then there's the aspect of access to destinations you want to go to for a weekend.

Somewhere in all that is a sweet spot. Travelling time you can live with, access to the boat versus cost and a choice of destinations. For me, living and working in N London, it was a tidal mooring in Gosport. A couple of hours drive, though I soon learned that if I couldn't be on my way by 1500 on Friday going down or Sunday heading home, it was worth waiting until 2000, only an hour on most tides that I couldn't access the boat with a dinghy, and a couple of hours either side of low that the boat couldn't move. It was also affordable, less than a quarter of a marina berth. I could have had a mooring on the lower Thames with all tide access, half the drive and lower cost, but the limited choice of destinations - upstream on the flood or downstream on the ebb - compared with the Solent made Gosport a far better choice for us.

I'd look at the possibilities and figure out costs - money and time, against desirability - destinations, walk ashore or dinghy ride and work out where your sweet spot is. It isn't a disaster if you get it wrong, you can always change; even moving from N Wales to the east coast, while a challenge, isn't impossible.

One final thought. If the travelling to get to the sea seems a bit daunting, could you keep a boat on Rutland or Grafham water?

 

[Skylark]

Hello and another welcome from me?

From your post it sounds as though you both want to sail on the sea, not on a lake.

I sailed around North Wales for many years and would not hesitate to recommend it for a novice sailing couple. You’ll find many Midlanders keep boats there. There are many locations and mooring options, don’t hesitate to shout up if you wish to pursue.

Assuming that you both have conventional Mon-Fri jobs, you’ll find it frustrating to travel anywhere coastbound on. Friday evenings, our roads are overcrowded.

I live south of Manchester and fairly regularly drive to The Solent and to Glasgow/The Clyde for sailing. My journeys north are a fairly consistent 4 hours. Driving south a similar distance varies from 4 to 7 hours. Reason enough (even before the eye wateringly expensive marinas) for me not to keep my own boat there. By comparison, north Wales is less than 2 hours but the A55 can be a dreadful piece of tarmac at times.

Whatever you decide, hope you both enjoy it.

 

[oldmanofthehills]

Hello, the usual advice is get a little experience first and then buy the boat.

That way you know a little more what you are looking for, and you can have a meaningful conversation about any possible sailing area knowing your strengths and weaknesses. I don't know the Bristol Channel at all, but tend to the view that it can't be that hard....people do it! But presumably the consequences of any mistakes in tidal planning may be more serious, rather like in the Channel Islands?

Sailing clubs are a good way to get on the water. Personally I will offer a sail to anyone who gives me a hand with maintenance ? when you are a complete beginner and a potential owner, that's all good experience too.

Also a bit of racing can help, and racing skippers are always looking for keen helpful crew willing to learn.

RYA courses are great but they aren't the be-all-and-end-all. Anything that gives you miles, ideally sailing different boats with different people, is really useful

The Bristol Channel has the second highest tides in the world and currents that can easily be greater than boat speeds. Not the place to learn unless coached carefully by companions. Additionally no sail in upper channel on the English side is less than 6 hours long (unless you count bay sailing round the cans) and as you usually cant get ashore at low tide, it is then 6 hours back up to start. Not dangerous but tiring trying and frustrating

Swansea Bay is nearest point I would reccomend for easy sailing, and then you must be in Swansea Marina with those costs etc

 

[Veradinz]

Thank you for all the kind messages, I honestly didn't expect such a large response.

Several of the messages have given me a lot to think about. I guess I have the winter now to consider my options. I'm certainly looking at sailing on the sea rather than on a lake but as a complete beginner i guess some dingy sailing would be wise.

 

[Laysula]

We used to live in Burton upon trent and sailed out of Conwy and then Holyhead for about twenty years. On a good day we could do Conwy in two and a quarter hours and Holyhead in three. A bad day could take five. But by picking our travel times we were rarely troubled by traffic. When we bought the current boat, it was in Dartmouth this was a four hour journey but it didn't take many trips to realise that it was worth the extra travelling time as we got far more sailing in due to the better weather and less rough seas. Now moored in Brixham we can sail in the bay, take a short hop to Torquay Dartmouth, Teignmouth or Exemouth or go farther afield to the Solent or across the channel to France or the Channel islands. It didn't take much longer to find that Brixham was much nicer than Burton and the rest is history.
Summing up It is worth the extra travelling to keep your boat somwhere that you can use it more and have a range of destinations.

 

[V1701]

Mid Wales as well might be a possibility, my Bowman 26 came from there, across the water from Aberdovey, winter storage cheap as chips, super friendly locals a lot of whom were Brummies retired there or just keeping their boats there! Not many marinas around there though. There's a whole world of difference between 20 & 30 footers so as others have said try to get some experience first. Best of luck, we all need something to aim for/look forward to especially right now...

 

[johnalison]

Thank you for all the kind messages, I honestly didn't expect such a large response.

Several of the messages have given me a lot to think about. I guess I have the winter now to consider my options. I'm certainly looking at sailing on the sea rather than on a lake but as a complete beginner i guess some dingy sailing would be wise.

The dinghy or not question always provokes controversy, but I will just say that a dinghy will allow you more experince for much less money and more quickly, even if it isn't your main target, just as a dry ski-slope will do the same for a potential skier.

A neighbour on our pontoon in Essex has driven there from South Wales for many years, so don't rule out anywhere just on the basis of distance. I think the trailer option is good advice, if not for everyone. For a more permanent choice, you will want a boat that you are happy to stay on for a few days, possibly in poor weather. In the past this would have meant 22' and upwards but I have noticed that modern ladies want something a bit bigger, say 30'.

 

[duncan99210]

North Wales has much to recommend it if you‘re living to the west of Brum and don’t have to fight the M6 on a Friday evening. There’s plenty of sailing to go at and a range berthing available from marinas to moorings. Downside can be the traffic but timing can make life easier: we kept our boats on mooring in the Menai and often would leave either late on Friday or early on Saturday to avoid the traffic in the A55.
If you live to the south of Brum, then heading to the south coast is an option but expensive in terms of travel time and moorings. You might consider Milford Haven but again, a fair step away and the M4 round Cardiff/Swansea can be a complete nightmare.
Actually, thinking about it, best bet is to sell up and move to Cornwall or Devon....

 

[Veradinz]

North Wales has much to recommend it if you‘re living to the west of Brum and don’t have to fight the M6 on a Friday evening. There’s plenty of sailing to go at and a range berthing available from marinas to moorings. Downside can be the traffic but timing can make life easier: we kept our boats on mooring in the Menai and often would leave either late on Friday or early on Saturday to avoid the traffic in the A55.
If you live to the south of Brum, then heading to the south coast is an option but expensive in terms of travel time and moorings. You might consider Milford Haven but again, a fair step away and the M4 round Cardiff/Swansea can be a complete nightmare.
Actually, thinking about it, best bet is to sell up and move to Cornwall or Devon....

I do live to the West of Birmingham and North Wales sounds like a firm option I need to consider.

thanks