Small yacht charters in Suffolk or Essex

Impaler

Impaler

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Hello all,

I'd like to charter a small sailing boat for ditch crawling in Suffolk and Essex. Nothing adventurous just day sailing in the rivers and estuaries for a week or so.

Ideally it should be able to take the ground, have a shallow draught and a couple of berths. Ideally below 25 ft.

Does anyone know if such a boat would be available anywhere? I definitely don't want any big fancy deep keeled yacht.

Thanks.
 
I hope you are successful, though I don't know of any such charters nowadays. I wonder if a trailer-sailor might be easier to acquire. You can consider yourself lucky that you won't be able to charter any of the awful craft that a mate of ours, the late Jack Mills, used to charter out of Maldon. Lovely chap though.
 
Impaler said:
I'd like to charter a small sailing boat for ditch crawling in Suffolk and Essex. Nothing adventurous just day sailing in the rivers and estuaries for a week or so.

Ideally it should be able to take the ground, have a shallow draught and a couple of berths. Ideally below 25 ft.
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Nobody charters small boats like that these days.
 
Britannia Sailing at Shotley charter yachts but I think you will find they are 32' upwards - still perfectly doable for a pleasant few days on the Stour/Orwell/Deben
 
Yep, I have a trailer. I did it once in one go and never again, nearly 13 hours. Breaking the journey is an option but I’d rather just fly down and hire.
 
If you're a member of the Shrimper Owners Association it might be worth asking if anyone in this area is interested in chartering their boat, or even a reciprocal arrangement? And/or possibly contact clubs which have whatever the collective is for Shrimper owners - e.g. Aldeburgh YC - with the same suggestion.

PS there are a number of places in Cornwall which hire Shrimpers. That is one heck of a drive though, even without the trailer!
 
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Thanks Mike, that's a good idea. I'd like to take my boat down but what with lifting it on and off the trailer (I don't want to dunk it) etc I'd need to be down south for a month to make it worth while. Banff to Titchmarsh is 600 miles. Having driven that sort of distance it takes a couple of days to recover my nerves!
 
Thousands of people would disagree. :D

Our first sailing holiday was trailing our GP14 to Potter Heigham where we pitched our tent, the GP we kept at Hickling and had a happy and instructional week or so.

Rather later we hired a sailing yacht from Acle and again had a lovely holiday exploring that part of the Broads, again mainly under sail.
 
I want to be able to cruise the estuaries and rivers from the Blackwater up to the Alde or thereabouts. I need to be able to get up small creeks and rivers, the Walton Backwaters and so on. Definitely a small boat that can dry out.
 
It may be totally off the wall, but as you are a Shrimper owner and that would be ideal for what you propose, I could mention that the Royal Hospital School at Holbrook have some , 3 or 4 I think, I have no idea if they would consider chartering them but they would not be using them during school holidays? They are moored either in Holbrook creek on the Stour, or at RHYC on the Orwell.
 
Impaler said:
I want to be able to cruise the estuaries and rivers from the Blackwater up to the Alde or thereabouts. I need to be able to get up small creeks and rivers, the Walton Backwaters and so on. Definitely a small boat that can dry out.
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Since you seem to be going up a blind alley, what about chartering whatever you can, and getting hold of a Mirror dinghy for going up the creeks?
 
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