Tom Price
N/A
Part 1 was posted on Scuttlebutt to encourage yotties to make this trip, for there are no bridges, no locks nor Cevni regs.
But the journey home involved a canal detour it seems more appropriate here.
Sad to be leaving, we slipped as the sun rose behind the new bridge. When large ships need to pass underneath, the whole roadway lifts to the top, an amazing sight
The trip back downriver was uneventful except that we had no need to stop: the advancing flood tide only took a few knots off the SOG, but slower vessels would have to anchor or moor for a few hours. An up-to-date pilot book or other source of information e.g. Grahan’s website, is essential before considering waiting at Caudebec or Duclair.
Our next destination was Honfleur and we crabbed across the tide to wait for the lock to open. This is an unfriendly area with no obvious holding berths– has it been improved?
Decided against going into the Inner Harbour which involved another wait for the bridge so we berthed against the quay wall – 24 hours free stay was also influential!
This is a chocolate box of a tourist attraction with quayside cafes crowded around an attractive basin filled with boats, while seafood menus and discotheques abound
But it can get crowded . . .
The opportunity to visit a local canal could not be ignored by this waterway enthusiast, so after topping up at a garage on the outskirts of town, a laborious operation involving 20-litre cans and a friendly van-driver, a short trip upriver took us back under the Tancerville Bridge and ready to lock in
The entente cordiale took a battering as we waited outside the Old lock while the Controller shouted across the New lock, but eventually we sussed our mistake and were through, steaming along 12 miles of .tranquillity. So if you must have a wake shot . . .
So what is it about this canal?? Think Henry V, think Lawrence Olivier besieging the walls of Harfleur - Harfleur, once the largest seaport in Northern France, deserted when the River Lezarde became a shallow backwater accessible only via a canal cut in 1887 to avoid the dangerous waters of the estuary. And here we were!
We didn’t manage to get past the liveaboards but found an empty berth between piles.
The little town of Harfleur is pretty enough but dead as a dodo on Saturday night and only a small corner shop was open for provisions. Definitely a night to eat on board!
Next morning we started to backtrack along the canal . . .
only to meet fog. Unable to see both banks and not liking what could be seen, que faire?
A call to Port Control for permission, then about-turn to face the daunting prospect of bridges, sluices and locks that lead through the heart of Le Havre’s dockland And it worked!
With no other traffic on Sunday morning, bridges lifted or turned, sluice gates rolled aside and in just over an hour I was in the vast Bassin Bellot waiting for the evening lock opening to the open sea.
Emerging in brilliant moonlight a problem emerged: a tired domestic battery had not survived the trip and gps and chartplotter gave up the ghost. Out came rulers, pencil, and tidal atlas – just like evening class! But before dawn St Caths and the Nab flashed in the right places and we eventually crossed the Bar, weary but safely home.
7 days, 370 miles, crossings 11 hours @ 8 knots
upriver 6 hours, downriver 9 hours
I do hope you feel encouraged to make this trip – you can miss out the canal!
But the journey home involved a canal detour it seems more appropriate here.
Sad to be leaving, we slipped as the sun rose behind the new bridge. When large ships need to pass underneath, the whole roadway lifts to the top, an amazing sight
The trip back downriver was uneventful except that we had no need to stop: the advancing flood tide only took a few knots off the SOG, but slower vessels would have to anchor or moor for a few hours. An up-to-date pilot book or other source of information e.g. Grahan’s website, is essential before considering waiting at Caudebec or Duclair.
Our next destination was Honfleur and we crabbed across the tide to wait for the lock to open. This is an unfriendly area with no obvious holding berths– has it been improved?
Decided against going into the Inner Harbour which involved another wait for the bridge so we berthed against the quay wall – 24 hours free stay was also influential!
This is a chocolate box of a tourist attraction with quayside cafes crowded around an attractive basin filled with boats, while seafood menus and discotheques abound
But it can get crowded . . .
The opportunity to visit a local canal could not be ignored by this waterway enthusiast, so after topping up at a garage on the outskirts of town, a laborious operation involving 20-litre cans and a friendly van-driver, a short trip upriver took us back under the Tancerville Bridge and ready to lock in
The entente cordiale took a battering as we waited outside the Old lock while the Controller shouted across the New lock, but eventually we sussed our mistake and were through, steaming along 12 miles of .tranquillity. So if you must have a wake shot . . .
So what is it about this canal?? Think Henry V, think Lawrence Olivier besieging the walls of Harfleur - Harfleur, once the largest seaport in Northern France, deserted when the River Lezarde became a shallow backwater accessible only via a canal cut in 1887 to avoid the dangerous waters of the estuary. And here we were!
We didn’t manage to get past the liveaboards but found an empty berth between piles.
The little town of Harfleur is pretty enough but dead as a dodo on Saturday night and only a small corner shop was open for provisions. Definitely a night to eat on board!
Next morning we started to backtrack along the canal . . .
only to meet fog. Unable to see both banks and not liking what could be seen, que faire?
A call to Port Control for permission, then about-turn to face the daunting prospect of bridges, sluices and locks that lead through the heart of Le Havre’s dockland And it worked!
With no other traffic on Sunday morning, bridges lifted or turned, sluice gates rolled aside and in just over an hour I was in the vast Bassin Bellot waiting for the evening lock opening to the open sea.
Emerging in brilliant moonlight a problem emerged: a tired domestic battery had not survived the trip and gps and chartplotter gave up the ghost. Out came rulers, pencil, and tidal atlas – just like evening class! But before dawn St Caths and the Nab flashed in the right places and we eventually crossed the Bar, weary but safely home.
7 days, 370 miles, crossings 11 hours @ 8 knots
upriver 6 hours, downriver 9 hours
I do hope you feel encouraged to make this trip – you can miss out the canal!
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Is it called a discourtesy flag when the French one is flown on the port spreader and the club burgee on the starboard? 
