Roughly how long to sail from essex to holyhead in a 26footer?

I paid Browns £700 to take my Centaur from Windermere to Kip. By the time I had paid Maiden to lift her onto the lorry and Kip to lift her off and then launch her (two operations, I had a week ashore to antifoul etc) it came to £1300.


It makes sense to buy a boat locally, especially if it's <£10K

HTH
 
Quiddle said:
That was my guess, which makes me wonder how a 550 mile trip turns into 3 weeks.
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a) The Caledonian Canal is at least two days; three if you're unlucky (as we were) with the road bridges. There's a speed limit, as well.
b) The distance was over 600 miles; ISTR (I don't have the figures to hand) that 650 is about right.
c) We didn't bash on every day; this was at the beginning of April and there were several days we waited out winds we decided were too much for comfort.
d) We didn't do 100 miles a day often; only twice (Peterhead - Eyemouth and Whitby - Lowestoft). We weren't out to set records, so we took "easy" stages. We actually did some longer stages than we'd initially planned.
e) We started from Greenock, so perhaps we had further to go than you might have imagined.
 
FWIIW SWMBO and I sailed our Konsort from Hartlepool to Beaumaris. We took one month but it was leisurely. I suppose you would need to add on three more days getting from Essex.

The stops we made were Blyth, Amble, Anstruther, Stonehaven, Findhorn, Inverness, Fort William, Dunstaffnage, Crinan, Troon, Bangor, Peel, Conway and Beaumaris.

This was back in the summer of 1999 and our first boat (bought with proceeds of an endowment policy maturing) with my longest prior passage as skipper being the 24 miles from Whitby to Hartlepool.

With the impatience and folly of inexperience we left Hartlepool in a heavy sea fret. Not trusting my GPS (!) and trusting my sense of direction (!!) I came within about 30 seconds of piling the boat on the beach about ten minutes after locking out of the marina. I think I learned more from that than I have done since.

Funnily enough, we managed to self fund this 'half round' Britain. Only a handful of people knew of the trip and we certainly wouldn't have written a blog even if they existed at the time. We met a lot of others doing pretty much the same.

If you have the opportunity to do the trip, then do it. Take as much time as you can afford because when you finally tie up at your destination you will already be thinking about the places you have whisked through.

Even these days I am quietly harbouring thoughts of doing a proper circumnav of the UK before it becomes too late.

I will let people know when I have done it.
 
Looking at the canal maps, there are a few canals across England.
Are they all narrow?
Just got me thinking, can't immediately find any info.
 
We did The Hamble to Holyhead in August 2013. It took two weeks at a leisurely pace (in a 41 foot boat). We day-sailed using fair tides only. We were weather bound for 3 days before rounding Lands End. The only exception, longest leg was Newlyn to Milford Haven. My crew was very comfortable with the pace and, as we all know, a happy crew equals peace on Earth.
 
Quiddle said:
That was my guess, which makes me wonder how a 550 mile trip turns into 3 weeks.
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On a 26 foot boat I doubt if most average leisure-sailor single-handers or couples could do it in much less: could very easily take a lot more. The 100 miles a day is grossly optimistic unless you have 2/3 fit experienced persons going non-stop, and even then you'd need favourable weather. With a 26-footer you could sit a week in Newlyn waiting for weather.

Give me three good crew and a well-sorted She 36 or similar and it could be 4 days in almost any weather. I don't think this is what Steve is talking about though. The other point is that (as has been said) that with a just-bought older boat you are quite likely to find problems.
 
jwilson said:
On a 26 foot boat I doubt if most average leisure-sailor single-handers or couples could do it in much less: could very easily take a lot more. The 100 miles a day is grossly optimistic unless you have 2/3 fit experienced persons going non-stop, and even then you'd need favourable weather. With a 26-footer you could sit a week in Newlyn waiting for weather.

Give me three good crew and a well-sorted She 36 or similar and it could be 4 days in almost any weather. I don't think this is what Steve is talking about though. The other point is that (as has been said) that with a just-bought older boat you are quite likely to find problems.
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Absolutely.

I took my Vertue (25ft 3in) from Hull to Ramsgate in about 36 hrs - although I was beginning to hallucinate towards the end!

Then spent ten days holed up waiting for fog to disperse; tried to escape three times but always had to turn back. Got to Dover then weatherbound again for another four days One of the previous YM staff was there at the same time. He got as far as Dungeness then turned back.

100 miles a day is great when you are planning, comfortably sitting by the fire. To apply that to a UK coastal passage is fantasy IMO.
 
jwilson said:
On a 26 foot boat I doubt if most average leisure-sailor single-handers or couples could do it in much less: could very easily take a lot more. The 100 miles a day is grossly optimistic unless you have 2/3 fit experienced persons going non-stop, and even then you'd need favourable weather.
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100 miles a day was my figure and is reasonable, I think, as long as you keep going. Which, on a boat that size, needs two people who know what they're doing. Of course bad weather would slow things down.
 
chinita said:
100 miles a day is great when you are planning, comfortably sitting by the fire. To apply that to a UK coastal passage is fantasy IMO.
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Of course it would be daft to say "550 miles - 5.5 days" but it's fine to say "100 miles a day when the weather's nice". You save an awful lot of time / gain an awful lot of distance by not going into harbour, and as long as the weather's nice, why stop when delivering? The key question then becomes "For how much of the time can I expect to be able to sail?"

For summer day sails in my 26 footer I reckon anything under 40nm to be a nice, easy day, 50nm to be a longish day and 60nm to be stretching it a bit. That's effectively single handed.
 
I don't think we disagree.

If it is about pure delivery, all bets are off. I know delivery guys who have motored into strong nortada winds all the way up the Portuguese coat and across Biscay on full revs and not giving a toss about anything.

For leisure sailing, apart from an ocean passage, a plan of an average achievement of 100 miles in 24 hrs is ambitious.

In my example from Hull to Brighton I reckon the average was nearer to 20 miles in 24 hrs - and that was in May, with no gear failures.
 
chinita said:
For leisure sailing, apart from an ocean passage, a plan of an average achievement of 100 miles in 24 hrs is ambitious.
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I'd say that it's fine to plan for 100 miles a day average in good weather, as long as you realise that you won't always get good weather. So yes, I think we're saying more or less the same thing in slightly different ways.
 
JumbleDuck said:
100 miles a day was my figure and is reasonable, I think, as long as you keep going. Which, on a boat that size, needs two people who know what they're doing. Of course bad weather would slow things down.
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That is fine if you are planning a long distance passage such as an atlantic crossing. You are likely to get several day runs of 100-120 miles but with many days at far less. what you are talking about is speed potential (rather like the magic hull speed).

Otherwise coastal port hopping with 60 mile days much more likely with some a bit shorter, some longer, particularly if anchoring or going into port every night. The, of course the weather delays and doing the whole south coast against the prevailing wind!
 
Tranona said:
Otherwise coastal port hopping with 60 mile days much more likely with some a bit shorter, some longer, particularly if anchoring or going into port every night. The, of course the weather delays and doing the whole south coast against the prevailing wind!
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I agree. As I said later 100 miles per day is what I expect to do in a 26 footer as long as the weather is good enough to permit sailing non-stop.
 
JumbleDuck said:
I agree. As I said later 100 miles per day is what I expect to do in a 26 footer as long as the weather is good enough to permit sailing non-stop.
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The best day's run (well not a whole 24 hours, just felt like it) in my 26' was 63 miles Cherbourg to Poole single handed in 11.5 hours. Average just under 5.5 knots. So 130 miles a day. 20-25 knots of wind on the starboard quarter so just like the trade winds, just not so warm! Sail of a lifetime. Usual time for passage nearer 24 hours.
 
Even ocean passage planning is not guaranteed.

A few months ago I was invited on a trip from Canaries to Barbados. I thought seriously about taking a month off to do it. Sadly, had to decline.

Last week I got a text. They have been stuck in the Cape Verde Islands for the past two weeks!
 
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