Sailing Solo Round Britain

[ninova]

Sailing Solo Round Britain in a Leisure 27
Recently have just updated the story of the above trip. If you are thinking of sailing around Britain in a small yacht, you might find it helpful.

Keep thinking I would like to do it again, but this time in the more sensible clockwise direction. However next birthday is the big 80 so maybe I will have to settle for the memories! Hope you find them entertaining.....

 

[Daydream believer]

Sailing round UK SH can be adictive. I have done Cally canal twice & would love to do it again.
My mate has done it in a Leisure 27 as well & I asked him what he thought. He said that in some ways he would have liked to just carry on & go round again if he had the time.

 

[jamie N]

Great story, well written! I enjoyed the North of Scotland tales featuring the unseasonably fine weather that you had, you'll probably not be as lucky on a 2nd trip!

 

[dunedin]

Great write up and a lovely voyage.

Just a shame you missed the West Coast of Scotland almost entirely - going direct from the Caledonian Canal to the Crinan.
One thought, with a boat like that, and time moving against you, is it worth considering not another round (partial) Britain trip but getting the boat trucked up to the Clyde, and spending a season seeing the places you missed?
The CA are running a Cruising in Celtic waters day at CA House on Sunday 21st January, open to non members. The photos and places might inspire you to come back up. And folks on here can certainly advise where could relaunch your boat on the Clyde, or further west.

 

[srm]

Sailing round UK

UK, (according to my passport) = United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Do tell, how does the Caledonian Canal fit in to a route that has to take you all the way around Britain and Ireland (in order to include Northern Ireland)? This is the same route as used by the "Round Britain and Ireland" sailing race that, when I looked quite some years ago, had the simple direction of "leave everything to starboard". Although the leg outside the Western Isles missed out Rockall, taking a line from west of the St Kilda group to north of the the Muckle Flugga.

 

[Alan S]

I think he meant to say [most of] Britain.

 

[Whaup367]

UK, (according to my passport) = United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Do tell, how does the Caledonian Canal fit in to a route that has to take you all the way around Britain and Ireland (in order to include Northern Ireland)?...

Think we covered this in another thread earlier this year...
Conclusion, I think, was that for those sailors based south of a line roughly between the Bristol channel and the wash "England = UK".
As that's most of the sailors in the country, the area northwest of the Great Glen doesn't really count.

Apparently.

Edit: some parts of this area are so isolated that it's still possible to obtain 4.5Kg Calor cylinders; these are believed extinct elsewhere.

 

[jac]

Think we covered this in another thread earlier this year...
Conclusion, I think, was that for those sailors based south of a line roughly between the Bristol channel and the wash "England = UK".
As that's most of the sailors in the country, the area northwest of the Great Glen doesn't really count.

Apparently.

Edit: some parts of this area are so isolated that it's still possible to obtain 4.5Kg Calor cylinders; these are believed extinct elsewhere.

Although if some reports are to be believed may be fighting their way back from extinction !

 

[Seashoreman]

Sailing Solo Round Britain in a Leisure 27
Recently have just updated the story of the above trip. If you are thinking of sailing around Britain in a small yacht, you might find it helpful.

Keep thinking I would like to do it again, but this time in the more sensible clockwise direction. However next birthday is the big 80 so maybe I will have to settle for the memories! Hope you find them entertaining.....

A great achievement in life. Well Done. I look forward to reading more than my local bit.
I have the little brother, Leisure 23sl.

 

[Daydream believer]

Well I went round to St Helier & Guernsey both times, plus St Malo once, to make up for the northern bit as I felt that a spell along the french coast was more like a holiday & missed the Solent. But I did go outside the IOW, for those that want to pick that one up.
But the wife & daughter, visited me in Guernsey & did the bit to St Helier & St Malo from St PP, so that was not SH. The rest was.

 

[dgadee]

The far north is the best part of Scotland to visit. The Caledonian Canal is considered in "the south" by many.

E.g. my uncle, from John o' Groats was talking about a rifle competition he was organising. He said they were coming all the way up from the south. Where was that I said? Inverness.

 

[Refueler]

It was always a wish of mine to circum mainland Britain ... but having moved all to Baltic - its now unlikely.

But I do have intention to do a Round Baltic job before I give up boating !!

 

[jamie N]

Some may appear to say that it was a 'Round Britain Lite', but the scale of it shouldn't be in any way diminished; full respect, and PM me for a beer, when you're here next time.

 

[oldmanofthehills]

UK, (according to my passport) = United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Do tell, how does the Caledonian Canal fit in to a route that has to take you all the way around Britain and Ireland (in order to include Northern Ireland)? This is the same route as used by the "Round Britain and Ireland" sailing race that, when I looked quite some years ago, had the simple direction of "leave everything to starboard". Although the leg outside the Western Isles missed out Rockall, taking a line from west of the St Kilda group to north of the the Muckle Flugga.

Ireland is part of the british isles but not great britan

You can cavill that he missed cape wrath but a liesure 17 may not be the craft for that and when i go to orkney via irish sea even i may miss that bit out

 

[Alan S]

Actually a 27 not 17. Big difference.

 

[Gixer]

I know this boat!

Great story, well done!

 

[oldmanofthehills]

Actually a 27 not 17. Big difference.

My misprunt, 27 is still slight for the pentland except in ideal conditions

J (LM27 owner)

 

[srm]

Ireland is part of the british isles but not great britan

You can cavill that he missed cape wrath but a liesure 17 may not be the craft for that and when i go to orkney via irish sea even i may miss that bit out

The OP took the shortest route for a seagoing boat around part of Britain, which given his choice of boat is quite an achievement. However, my comment was aimed at the later post that claimed to have sailed around the UK via the Caledonian Canal. He then claimed that going down to St Malo equals going around the UK (not just around Britain).

Those posts appear to illustrate a weirdly distorted and disorientated view of navigation and national borders. It makes no more sense than trying to claim sailing from Shetland (or Orkney) through the Caledonian Canal and the Minch back to the starting port is a circumnavigation of Britain or the UK. If the southern loop is valid then surely the even shorter, but much more interesting, northern loop is.

 

[Pye_End]

A term used figuratively. Don't get too hung up on the accuracy.

 

[The Q]

I've sailed round the top excluding the Shetlands and Orkneys, (as crew) in a 29ft boat.
Rough it was, force 5 plus, stopped in Scrabster, hid in Stonehaven to avoid a force 10.

To do the whole of the UK you'd have to sail round Scilly isles, Ireland, Rockall, Shetlands, i doubt many have done that.