taking boat to greece

[stella1412]

Hello everyone,

I am new to this forum, so apologies if I am posting in the wrong place.

We have bought a boat (Hardy Seawings 277) which is currently on the medway. We hope to take it to the south coast next month, and then to Greece for the summer. Our base in Greece is an island called Ithaca, and I think the nearest marina will be Levkas. Does anyone have any experience on transporting boats to Levkas, or can offer us any advice/recommendations.

Thank you for your help,

Stella

 

[jimbaerselman]

I delivered a bunch of 8.5m sailboats to Greece way back. We did road transport with a specialist to Brindisi, then took the boat on its own bottom to Corfu, then on down to Levkas.

I'm not too hot on motorboats, so I don't know your range, but that was an economic and speedy route for us, and these were important factors.

If you've got time, the canals through France are great, followed by lots of coast hopping. Fun, some crowded areas, great cruising, but many weeks needed.

You're right, Levkas is the closest marina. But other ports nearer are usable once you're settled in. My web site will give you a first introduction to the area.

 

[mont]

Hello and welcome to the forum !.
There are in fact a few Forum members who have boats out in Greece and also some who are based in Greece and bi-lingual etc.
If you have not had real positives on this one from some of them in the next few days let me know and I will send them a PM to help / get in touch.
I'm certain some will have the info you need and I was very grateful for the help received with my recent anglo/greek document translation - as my boat started life in Greece - (language and alphabet difficulties !).
Perhaps a post on another of the forums on here will help as clearly your questions are more general than specific to mobo's ???.
Welcome again.

 

[Whitelighter]

I had a boat shipped the other way in the summer. The easiest way to ship out to Greece itself is to go to Piraeus (Athens). Peters & May offer sevices via Grimaldi Lines every month during the summer. These are quite expensive, my boat (34feet) was £7500 + VAT in the summer.

A better way, if you have the time and the confidence is take the boat to holland under its own power and get a dutch transport overland to Slovenia or Croatia (slovenia is much cheaper though). I had a quote for the same 34 foot boat as the shipping, and it came in a 5200 euro. At the current axchange rate that would be a bargain. You then can spend a few weeks going down through Croatia, across to Italy and then finally Corfu befor going on thorugh Greece.

I did a lot of plannig for this trip, so if you want any advice/help/courtesy flags ( /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif ) let me know. this is the most cost effective route, but will involve a fair amount of planning and I would ensure you have the boat thouroughly serviced befor going. The Adriatic is quite sheltered, so a boat of your size would cope no problems.

Don't ask why I ended up shipping mine home - it is all to painful still.

Jez

 

[stefan_r]

A trip on your own bottom to Greece would be fun, but time consuming and the costs can add up.

I drove my 46 footer to Greece (she is now in Chios) in 2005...fantastic trip but not one to be done in a 27 footer (weather) and not a trip to be done if you're under time pressure (I took 2 weeks and that was 24x7 motoring with only 1 day lost due to weather). With your size you couldn't do the overnight runs with great confidence...especially off the coast of Portugal.

A skipper would cost a couple of grand, too.

Low loader is your best bet....and like JezBanks says combined with a gentle cruise from Croatia to Greece nice too.

You could try low-loader to somewhere like Crotone, Italy and then hop across on your own bottom but Ionian weather will play a big part in this and for the incremental cost of low-loader all the way to Greece probably outweighs the risk.

There are a number of "smaller" transport firms that will take you cheaply too because of your size. They won't have to use articulated lorries and the like.

Drop me a line if you want my 2005 passage plan or notes...but low-loader is your best bet.

 

[stella1412]

Thank you so much for your replies - how nice to get replies so quickly! unfortunately we don't have weeks to spare to do a longer trip this year - hopefully that will happen one day! Thank you for all the advice, I'll let you know what we end up doing.

Stella