More detail emerges on ETIAS for those of us who sail to France etc

[awol]

Ireland most of the time. I think I need to keep my English passport as I lived in Australia for over 40 years and still have assets there. I can see that if I relinquish my U.K passport I will get stung with "foreign ownership issues" (In Oz, English passport holders have the same rights mostly, as Australian citizens. I haven't looked into it much as I've just recently retired and until now it hasn't been an issue.

You can have both.

 

[TiggerToo]

Interesting article in today's Times.
Warning of chaos at holiday ports next year under new EU entry rules

If the land-based system is as clumsliy thought out as this article suggests what hope do niche groups like mariners have in finding a workable solution?

I well recall the days before freedom from borders when a light aircraft trip to France involved the most ridiculous schenanigans of circuitous routing via expensive and time consuming exit and entry airports, and the sheer bliss of the freedom to travel when and when you wanted the following week when sanity finally prevailed. Suddenly day trips to your choice of Fraench destinations became practical instead of being forced to visit bloody Le Touquet via Southend again. In boaty terms, think weekend trips. Unless you're based at a port of entry here and only visit a port of entry there weekend trips are gone...
Sadly the insanity of Brexit has screwed us back into the dark ages in this respect, inappropriate and inconvenient routings that will likely add a day or so to the simple matter of getting to your destination in each drection, and unless we can reach some agreement for an internet based self-reporting system (the old one was fax based wasn't it, and worked just fine) travel to Europe for shorter visits once again becomes a significant and pointless burden.

Spending the best part of a day figuring out local transport to a distant port of entry (and assuming that the relevant offices are even open) just to get some ink on a piece of paper is not the way I wish to spend my sailing trips.

come on Mods: I dare you to "cancel" this very very sensible post. One that tells you the truth of the matter with regards to the impact on our beloved sport.

Madness

 

[franksingleton]

come on Mods: I dare you to "cancel" this very very sensible post. One that tells you the truth of the matter with regards to the impact on our beloved sport.

Madness

The answer to your question is at #41. Pragmatism and common sense.

 

[TiggerToo]

The answer to your question is at #41. Pragmatism and common sense.

I don't get the question... did I ask one?
Your #41 appears to me as the stuff of nightmares

 

[franksingleton]

I don't get the question... did I ask one?
Your #41 appears to me as the stuff of nightmares

You said

If the land-based system is as clumsliy thought out as this article suggests what hope do niche groups like mariners have in finding a workable solution?

Looks like a question to me. You even put a ?

 

[franksingleton]

I don't get the question... did I ask one?
Your #41 appears to me as the stuff of nightmares

There were no nightmares. There was some inconvenience. Read my post again.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Ireland most of the time. I think I need to keep my English passport as I lived in Australia for over 40 years and still have assets there. I can see that if I relinquish my U.K passport I will get stung with "foreign ownership issues" (In Oz, English passport holders have the same rights mostly, as Australian citizens. I haven't looked into it much as I've just recently retired and until now it hasn't been an issue.

Duel nationality does not require you to relinquish your UK nationality or passport with very few exceptions and Irish / UK duel nationality is not one of them.

 

[TiggerToo]

There were no nightmares. There was some inconvenience. Read my post again.

you have clearly never been traumatised by cross-border issues. I was referring to my nightmares, not yours.

 

[awol]

Duel nationality does not require you to relinquish your UK nationality or passport with very few exceptions and Irish / UK duel nationality is not one of them.

Is a gauntlet a necessity for the challenge?

 

[franksingleton]

you have clearly never been traumatised by cross-border issues. I was referring to my nightmares, not yours.

Well, I have crossed many borders many times In Europe and the Caibbean. In my long experience, if you play by the rules there are rarely any great problems. But, here we are talking about one border - the French. The point that I am trying to make is that there were no great problems even for vessels arriving from the UK direct and not via a port of entry. There was inconvenience in that the crew had to get themselves to Brest. I do not know if they used a taxi but there is a cheap and good bus service to Brest from L’Aber Wrac’h. Returning, had winds been favourable, instead of our usual Lezardrieux to St Peter Port, we could easily have gone round the corner to St Quai Portrieux, customed after a short bus journey to St Brieuc, and thence to St Peter Port. Equally, had winds been sensible, we could have gone to St Malo for customs, then St Helier and St Peter Port.
The nightmares would be if you had not been watching the weather - or had had some bad luck, following which you were in the wrong port at the wrong time. But, mishaps apart, there should be few nightmares. As I said, the French customs officials that we met were quite relaxed and prepared to be helpful. If our health holds out, we hope to return to the land of good bread, cheese, markets and wine next year. We felt far safer Covid-wise than here in the UK. People wore or were told to wear masks even in open air markets. We had to show our vaccine certificates, not having the French app, before being allowed into restaurants. And, we used to think that the French always broke rules? What did somebody say many years ago about motes and eyes??

 

[Birdseye]

How different is this EU system to that the US has been using for years?

The difference is, I suppose, that we are next door to the EU and used to just going there no problem. On the other hand we are used to being seen by unfriendly US officials as enemy aliens and maybe even "MOOOslims" or "reds"

 

[RAI]

The difference is, I suppose, that we are next door to the EU and used to just going there no problem. On the other hand we are used to being seen by unfriendly US officials as enemy aliens and maybe even "MOOOslims" or "reds"

So we will get to see a bit more of the type of hostile environment that Priti gives to foreigners?

 

[alexincornwall]

We sailed to and back from France this year. Another yacht arrived at L’Aber Wrac’h, without prior notification, direct from the UK. No problem. They told the capitainerie who contacted Brest customs. They were told to go to Brest by taxi or bus and clear customs there. Had it been convenient to the officials, they might have had to wait until customs came to them.
When we were wanting to leave, we were in Lezardrieux. The nearest port of entry is St Brieuc. We asked if we could go to St Brieuc either from Lezardrieux, not convenient, or fro St Quai Portrieux, much easier. They said yes. In the event, for weather reasons, we went back to Roscoff and thence to Mylor.
The point of all this seems to be that we could have arrived at and left from anywhere as long as we visited customs and not necessarily at the port of arrival or departure. Obviously, I cannot be sure thst every customs officer will see it this way. The impression that we got was that they were reasonable people. What is clear is that you must get passports stamped on entry and departure.

Interesting. We had a very different experience when we sailed to France a couple of weeks ago (Falmouth - L'Aberwrach).

I think the system needs a serious sort out because neither the marina staff or customs appear to have any idea what's going on! We'd toyed with our usual sail to Roscoff so I contacted the marina to ask about the procedure. We were informed (in a pretty frosty tone), that we would need to complete a form and email it to customs at least 48 hours before arrival, who would then be in contact to make an appointment for us to check in. We were happy to do that but when I asked what the procedure was a for an evening or weekend arrival, the marina didn't know. And when I asked what the procedure would be for a night time departure, they didn't know on that one either. We were only going for the weekend and I was beginning to wonder if we might be stuck on the boat for most of that time.

I then contacted L'Aberwrach marina who took a far more light-hearted attitude. They didn't think we'd need to complete a form at all and told us that we should just arrive as usual and then they'd arrange for Brest customs to travel to us by car to check us in at their leisure. That sounded a better option so we set off armed with all of our personal and ships documents, and the various Covid bits and pieces.

We arrived at 1500 French time on a Friday and when I produced our passports at the Marina, I was told that I should have made an appointment for customs to greet us on arrival. I pointed out that it's quite tricky to offer a concrete arrival time with 100 nautical miles ahead of us and that I didn’t think they'd have been happy to just sit around waiting for us! It was late on a Friday afternoon and there was a pretty clear intimation that we should just put our passports away and let the matter slide, particularly given that we were spending no more than 48 hours in the country. So, we did... although didn't feel entirely comfortable with the arrangement.

At 0700 on the Sunday morning (our departure day), we were awoken by banging on the hull and there stood 6 armed customs officers demanding to see our documents. We were happy to oblige and gave them everything they wanted. We received a bit of a dressing down and were also advised that we shouldn’t have made our initial arrival at L’Aberwrach. I carefully challenged that and the officials said something along the lines of “perhaps you’re correct”. In the end they stamped our passports for check in and departure on the same day so we’ve still got 89 precious days to play with this side of the spring!

I have to say that they were pretty friendly about the whole thing and the whole town seemed to be particularly hospitable towards us.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Interesting. We had a very different experience when we sailed to France a couple of weeks ago (Falmouth - L'Aberwrach).

I think the system needs a serious sort out because neither the marina staff or customs appear to have any idea what's going on! We'd toyed with our usual sail to Roscoff so I contacted the marina to ask about the procedure. We were informed (in a pretty frosty tone), that we would need to complete a form and email it to customs at least 48 hours before arrival, who would then be in contact to make an appointment for us to check in. We were happy to do that but when I asked what the procedure was a for an evening or weekend arrival, the marina didn't know. And when I asked what the procedure would be for a night time departure, they didn't know on that one either. We were only going for the weekend and I was beginning to wonder if we might be stuck on the boat for most of that time.

I then contacted L'Aberwrach marina who took a far more light-hearted attitude. They didn't think we'd need to complete a form at all and told us that we should just arrive as usual and then they'd arrange for Brest customs to travel to us by car to check us in at their leisure. That sounded a better option so we set off armed with all of our personal and ships documents, and the various Covid bits and pieces.

We arrived at 1500 French time on a Friday and when I produced our passports at the Marina, I was told that I should have made an appointment for customs to greet us on arrival. I pointed out that it's quite tricky to offer a concrete arrival time with 100 nautical miles ahead of us and that I didn’t think they'd have been happy to just sit around waiting for us! It was late on a Friday afternoon and there was a pretty clear intimation that we should just put our passports away and let the matter slide, particularly given that we were spending no more than 48 hours in the country. So, we did... although didn't feel entirely comfortable with the arrangement.

At 0700 on the Sunday morning (our departure day), we were awoken by banging on the hull and there stood 6 armed customs officers demanding to see our documents. We were happy to oblige and gave them everything they wanted. We received a bit of a dressing down and were also advised that we shouldn’t have made our initial arrival at L’Aberwrach. I carefully challenged that and the officials said something along the lines of “perhaps you’re correct”. In the end they stamped our passports for check in and departure on the same day so we’ve still got 89 precious days to play with this side of the spring!

I have to say that they were pretty friendly about the whole thing and the whole town seemed to be particularly hospitable towards us.

What about the dog. ?

 

[Stemar]

French administration has a certain reputation - Fans of Asterix may recall that one of the 12 Labours of Asterix was to obtain Form 127B (or whatever) from "la Maison qui rend fou" - but when admin gets in the way of relieving les rosbifs of their money, ways will be found round the obstacles. It may take a while, but when the locals find their profits diminished because it's too awkward for we Brits to get there, Something Will Be Done.

 

[franksingleton]

Interesting. We had a very different experience when we sailed to France a couple of weeks ago (Falmouth - L'Aberwrach).

I think the system needs a serious sort out because neither the marina staff or customs appear to have any idea what's going on! We'd toyed with our usual sail to Roscoff so I contacted the marina to ask about the procedure. We were informed (in a pretty frosty tone), that we would need to complete a form and email it to customs at least 48 hours before arrival, who would then be in contact to make an appointment for us to check in. We were happy to do that but when I asked what the procedure was a for an evening or weekend arrival, the marina didn't know. And when I asked what the procedure would be for a night time departure, they didn't know on that one either. We were only going for the weekend and I was beginning to wonder if we might be stuck on the boat for most of that time.

I then contacted L'Aberwrach marina who took a far more light-hearted attitude. They didn't think we'd need to complete a form at all and told us that we should just arrive as usual and then they'd arrange for Brest customs to travel to us by car to check us in at their leisure. That sounded a better option so we set off armed with all of our personal and ships documents, and the various Covid bits and pieces.

We arrived at 1500 French time on a Friday and when I produced our passports at the Marina, I was told that I should have made an appointment for customs to greet us on arrival. I pointed out that it's quite tricky to offer a concrete arrival time with 100 nautical miles ahead of us and that I didn’t think they'd have been happy to just sit around waiting for us! It was late on a Friday afternoon and there was a pretty clear intimation that we should just put our passports away and let the matter slide, particularly given that we were spending no more than 48 hours in the country. So, we did... although didn't feel entirely comfortable with the arrangement.

At 0700 on the Sunday morning (our departure day), we were awoken by banging on the hull and there stood 6 armed customs officers demanding to see our documents. We were happy to oblige and gave them everything they wanted. We received a bit of a dressing down and were also advised that we shouldn’t have made our initial arrival at L’Aberwrach. I carefully challenged that and the officials said something along the lines of “perhaps you’re correct”. In the end they stamped our passports for check in and departure on the same day so we’ve still got 89 precious days to play with this side of the spring!

I have to say that they were pretty friendly about the whole thing and the whole town seemed to be particularly hospitable towards us.

It probably is a matter of luck. We knew about the form to submit before arrival, in our case, St Brieuc. As requested on the form it was copied to the marina. On arrival the marina had our form and said that was fine, no need to see customs. It is all on the data base. We were a little slow and accepted that. However, before we got to Roscoff our CA local representative informed us that we would have to visit Roscoff customs to get passports stamped. They were helpful, we made an appoint,ent. The system is settling down and we are all on a learning curve. We are lucky with the CA local rep system in that there is often someone nearby who knows the system or, if not, knows who to ask and has good French.

 

[TiggerToo]

Fans of Asterix may recall that one of the 12 Labours of Asterix was to obtain Form 127B....

I am, and I can feel a new title coming up: Asterix in B...
?

 

[Graham376]

Understand reporting when entering from UK but, what happens if entering France from another Schengen country such as Spain? Does arrival still have to be reported?

 

[syvictoria]

Understand reporting when entering from UK but, what happens if entering France from another Schengen country such as Spain? Does arrival still have to be reported?

No, because Schengen is effectively one state without internal borders.

 

[syvictoria]

UK Gov are right on the ball as usual. Seemingly they've finally today updated their travel advice to include info about getting your passport stamped in and out of Schengen!



"Get ready for B..."!!!