Mont St Michel and environs

[mwstork@yahoo.co.uk]

Hi, We are sailing around Mt St Michel area and wondered we can sail right up to Mt St Michel. We draw 1m, have a lifting wed , have a lifting keel and could sit on the sand for a tide. Anyone with any experience in the area? thanks, Matthew

 

[Keith-i]

Subject to a suitable height of tide you can get right alongside Mont St Michel. However, drying out is not straightforward as the rush of water on the flood is tremendous and reaches something like 10 kts. I've been there and dried out in a rib which became quite scary as the boat had dried at right angles to the incoming tide which tried to then tip us over. If you do dry out you could probably avoid some of the fastest water by keeping away from the mount and the eastern side where the river mouth is. You'd need to really trust your anchor.

 

[mwstork@yahoo.co.uk]

Hi Keith,

Thanks for the reply and that's good advice. We can do 6kn under power and having a 10kn current is not appealing at all!

I am still tempted though as it looks like the mud flats are about 6kn across so we could get there in the last hour of the flood, doing say 8kn and then moor over high tide, stay a low tide, then depart right after the next high tide on the ebb. But that speed of tide doesn't leave any margin for error.

Have you (or anyone else) seen any reference books covering this? I can't find anything on the internet.

Thanks,

Matthew

 

[Keith-i]

Just spotted a typo in my earlier reply. Should read avoid the western side by the river mouth. The eastern side should be calmer although things may well be different now the causeway is scrapped. Once the bay/flats have filled with some water the flow of tide is much calmer. It was just the first ten minutes or so in my experience between being dry and having enough water to depart in that it belted through. I don't know of any published info other than anecdotal on the odd website.

 

[gj0kyz]

Hi,
I've been to Mont St. Michel over 25 times by sea and have helped several vessels reach the mount. If you'd like any information then email me at gj0kyz@hotmail.co.uk
Paul.

 

[sarabande]

can I sound a bit of a warning about publishing personal email addresses on the forum, either as a forum ID, or in a reply.


The risk is that they will be harvested by search engine bots, and you will receive lots of interesting offers from snake oil merchants and lovely ladies from Lithuania.

 

[gj0kyz]

Thanks for that but at my age I could do with both. I forgot to mention that I have been to Avranches and Pontaubault as well if anyone needs advice getting there. Visit my YouTube channel if you like: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYgWtBxALNR554WomYzK-kw or just watch one video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipTML4pJnTQ