Melbourne to Brest

Fascadale

Fascadale

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What suggestions, warnings, recommendations or advice might forumites have to offer anyone foolish enough to be thinking of making this voyage.

My Australian cousin has (half jokingly) invited me to join him in a voyage from the Victoria, Aust. coast to Brest to attend the 2012 Maritime festival. The festival starts in early July.

I think my employer would be only too delighted to give me unpaid leave for six or so months.

The boat is a very well built and equipped 30ft wooden Lyle Hess designed Bristol Channel type cutter.

My passage planning and sailing experience encompasses the Irish, Hebridean and North Seas. My cousin is very much more experienced, a YM for than 30 years, and having sailed many many miles.

There seem to be three options: mid Pacific though the canal and the Caribbean, east about by the Falklands or west about by Cape Town.
 
the quickest would be eastabout via cape horn but it would need to be a very well found 30' for that route. The best sailing would be round the top of australia via darwin and cocos to durban. With a good motor and an AK47 you could go via singapore, sri lanka and the suez canal. A friend of mine did this route many years ago in a H28.
 
Twister_Ken said:
Quantas/BA to London, Ryanair to Brest.
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I've tried both those options and they're rubbish. I did it last week with Singapore airlines with an overnighter in Singapore - far better!

Or if you really must sail, there are two options for an Eastbound Pacific crossing - go due east from Melbourne to South America then ride the humboldt current up to Panama or go North towards Japan and cross north of Hawaii then down the coasts of US & Latin America.

Are there still any optimists still using Suez?

The route via South Africa is beginning to look a bit suspect too. With the pirates using hijacked ships as bases, they've already got the area around the Seychelles staked out and there have been ships taken as far south as Madagascar so a stop off in Mauritius or Reunion might be risky. It's starting to look like a direct hop from Christmas Island to Durban.

I recommend Jimmy Cornell's Ocean Sailing routes. It will give you routing on every possible route including some very unlikely ones.
 
ytd said:
the quickest would be eastabout via cape horn but it would need to be a very well found 30' for that route. The best sailing would be round the top of australia via darwin and cocos to durban. With a good motor and an AK47 you could go via singapore, sri lanka and the suez canal.
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In which case best to allow another six months or so for some rather limited sightseeing in Somalia ...
 
Twister_Ken said:
Joking apart, you could truck it from California to Florida.
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Seriously, there was talk a few years ago when USA handed over the Panama Canal for an "overland canal" rail and road link for High Volume and inexpensive Container Transport between San Francisco and Housten,(or somewhere, in the Gulf of Mexico)
 
snowleopard said:
It's starting to look like a direct hop from Christmas Island to Durban.

I recommend Jimmy Cornell's Ocean Sailing routes. It will give you routing on every possible route including some very unlikely ones.
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Kinda tricky, this one. The cyclone season means an Indian Ocean crossing at this latitude is only practicable May - October, but Durban/Cape Good Hope is otoriously stormy in winter, safest January-March.

Would you recommend marking time off Madagascar for a couple of months? Maybe Jimmy has a better idea?
 
AndrewB said:
Would you recommend marking time off Madagascar for a couple of months? Maybe Jimmy has a better idea?
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My passage planning has only got as far as UK-Oz so far. I've got to persuade SWMBO about that before I start thinking about the return trip.

Edit. Here's what Jimmy Cornell says...

"...pass through Torres strait early Sept. Dep Mauritius for Durban not later than end Oct. Next leg to Cape Town best Jan/Feb..."

i.e. wait for the best weather in Durban. My friend from SA says a passage from Durban to the cape is best done by waiting for a weather window then getting offshore into the Agulhas current so you can make good up to 14 knots.
 
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snowleopard said:
I've tried both those options and they're rubbish. I did it last week with Singapore airlines with an overnighter in Singapore - far better!

Or if you really must sail, there are two options for an Eastbound Pacific crossing - go due east from Melbourne to South America then ride the humboldt current up to Panama or go North towards Japan and cross north of Hawaii then down the coasts of US & Latin America.

Are there still any optimists still using Suez?
.
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I did it 10 years ago via Suez, but missing out SE Asia. I wouldn't do it that way round now. I'd rule out most of the West Indian Ocean, given the pirate movements.

Panama via Chile would be my preference. I've just had a week in Santiago and the sailing really looked very good up the Chilean Coast.
 
I did that trip some years ago but from Cairns to France via Asia and Suez - took me around 9 months I think.... but it was a bit of a 'jolly'...
I would not go near the Suez route but cape of Good hope is possible but the route I have been looking at recently is the Straights of Magellan ... could be a faster route than the others and if done in UK winter the weather charts show it to be very doable.
Michael
 
Paw Paw said:
the route I have been looking at recently is the Straights of Magellan ... could be a faster route than the others and if done in UK winter the weather charts show it to be very doable.
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I suggest before you attempt it you read Slocum's account of passing through there. Big currents & winds, anchoring in kelp & rocks. I think I'd rather go round the Horn.

David Lewis also did it in his cat Rehu Moana and he didn't have an easy time either. Both of them were going E-W which is easier.
 
Fascadale said:
There seem to be three options: mid Pacific though the canal and the Caribbean, east about by the Falklands or west about by Cape Town.
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after all that has been said, it appears a fourth much shorter, possibly safer option: buy a fire resistant suit and dig through the centre of the earth

trelleborgimage4.jpg


:smile:
 
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