To the Med

[richardknight]

We're considering taking our Moody 30 (draft 1.48) to the Med this summer. I'm hoping people can clear up a few questions for me:

1. Views on the best route to take?
2. Likely volumes and size of traffic we'll encounter?
3. Time needed for trip?
4. Aside from fuel, food etc.., what sort of costs are involved?
5. Best time of the year to go?

Thanks for any help and advice.

Richard

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[Twister_Ken]

Richard,

your question is a perennial favourite - it gets asked frequently. Using the search function will uncover lots of info. In the meantime, try <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.ybw.com/cgi-bin/forums/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=ym&Number=298143&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1#Post298143=link>click here</A> for starters

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[sailbadthesinner]

big question
lots of answers
Mine is based on roughly 10 years of sailing at least one week every summer in med and lots of odd autumn trips
time is totally open ended.
i reckon i could spend three -five years in the med before i got bored.

i would say work on an average of about 20 miles a day and that will allow you to cover some ground and still meander for a few days and not move for some.
i do between ten and sixty. so you have a figure there to work with. decide where you want to go and you can calculate rough time. I have to say tho i always factor in the one day a week 'lost' through weather hangover or cos you just donot fancy moving.

Where
i only know Greece ( okay most of it) Turkey and Balearics
Greece and Turkey are basic. If you are on a tight budget donot mind greek/turkish food ( all day everyday) and plumbing that is worse than on your boat, then it is for you. Personally i like it, altho less than i did when i first went. Familiarity and all that. If it is luxury you need france Italy spain and balearics. ( altho i would point out not all of balearics offers luxury so you can probably extrapolayte the same for France and Italy. The balearics i reccomend but they are really about amonth to get bored of. but it is hop skip and jump from say Ibiza to Valencia and then you can do Barca etc and venture inland maybe for a few days off boat??

All the posh places become very crowded in August, even in Greece. EG Fiscardo you can walk across the bay without getting feet wet. Likewisae in many other parts of Majorca. So i would not go then or be in the far eatsern med where there are in general fewer boats. or a quiet part of spain or france (if such a place exists)

season can really be from May to October. My favourite part is May to Mid July and Sept-October.

Do you like marinas or anchors. This has 2 implications.Marinas ups the costs but means you donot have to spend so much time cooking aboard and can happily get lashed and fall onto boat. We always plan a bit of both. Normally if we do a marina do a good one say twice a week with nice bars and restaraunts and with someone who will deliver food to the boat rather than yomping cases of beer and wine across the marina.

In greece marina costs used not always to be collected altho it is rarer to get away with it . France i donot know but doubt it.Spain . No. Italy well someone willalways take money fromyoun in italy if you hang around long enough looking gullible, allegedly. Icannot remmeber about 75 - 35 euros a night we paid i think in Majorca for 39 foot. Cannot rememeber how much for the cat when we had one of those i normally make fast the springs then leg it to nearest bar and donot get involved in the admin. let the kitty sort it out.

my advice is decide what you are looking for luxury wise
and how long passages you want to do.
other costs.
well kit failure i spose
always add halve to your proposed budge. that way you will not rush short and if you do come in under it is a bonus. in greece i would say £30 per person per day will be more than enough even if you are very boozy. in S france ewt al. god knows but i would, based on the fact that my bro paid 15 quid for a small bottle of water at a nightclub in Portoe Benus ( not sure of spelling), up the budget for rest of med.
i am sure no one of this is of any use and mostly badly drawn frommy ownoften fallible memory.


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[richardknight]

Many thanks - I hadn'd found that thread although I had many others! Of particular interest in this is

* the expected journey time,and
* how daunting it could be with commercial traffic.

We're looking to move the boat permanently, hence it's not really a holiday, infact we can't really spare the time but it needs to get there somehow.

Thanks,

Richard

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[Twister_Ken]

>infact we can't really spare the time but it needs to get there somehow. <

Have you thought about trucking it down?

A friend brought a boat back the other way on a truck, for relatively little money.

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[richardknight]

Interesting idea....will have to look into it. To an extent it will be governed by cost I guess - i.e. cost of fuel, food, etc...... v's transport cost on a lorry.

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[Twister_Ken]

And loss of earnings if you're taking time off work to make the trip. And engine wear. And (maybe?) the cost of a freshwater antifoul before setting out, and a saltwater one on arrival in Med.

BTW - I guess if you sailed over to a French Channel port before being trucked, you'd save a fair bit on the ferry charges for the truck.

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[tcm]

er, but only if you found a french truck.

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[Magic_Sailor]

Your questions are a bit open ended - so much depends upon your collective experience, your boat and what type of holiday you want. Anyhow, here goes.

Best route
This depends on you and your crew - what experience, confidence in boat, how much you want to be sailing for extended periods etc. If you want all those then probably across Biscay and round Portugal is the way. If not then enter the canals at Calais/Le Havre and motor gently down. A halfway house is to do what we are going to do and sail Normandy, Brittany, Biscay and enter the canals at La Gironde (Bordeaux).

Traffic
Summer is always busy.

Time
Depends on whether you've got a schedule to meet and what route you'll take.

Money
People seem to get by on between £80 - £250 (+++++) per week dependant upon what you want out of it. There's an article on this precise subject in Aprils YM - "The Med for Less" - it's quite interesting. Lower end means anchoring more, catering yourself more and fewer marinas and restaurants etc. (See Lyn and Larry Pardy's "Cost Conscious Cruiser")

Season
According to Pilots, I believe Biscay is OK May to Aug. We seem to be getting a lot of gales in October - so I'm going to avoid the Channel after the end of Sept.

Hope that's helpful. PM if not enough.

Magic



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[Escapeii]

We moved our boat to the Mediterranean last year. Sailing from the sw corner of France around Spain & Portugal and back into France.

We had no problems with large commercial traffic, but the fishing boats were a real menace. Their lack of respect for the rules of the road make UK fishing boats seem like saints in comparision.
We did quite a bit of night sailing and rarely did we encounter a fishing boat showing the correct lights. Some quite large boats showed no lights, not even accommodation lighting.

Their behaviour during the day was not much better. Off Peniche in Portugal one large fishing boat thought it would be great fun to circle around us at close quarters at high speed several times. They ignored all our attempts to communicate with them and eventually steamed off back to the coast.

The experience did no end of good the standard of lookout maintained onboard.

We took 7 weeks to sail from just north of Biarritz around to a little marina near Narbonne. But if I was to do it again I'd take twice as long.

Good luck.

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[pyrojames]

It would appear that trips to the Med are better executed sooner than later. Flicking through the latest YM earlier this week, I see that the French and the Spanish are driving to get a Med Cruising Permit introduced for all vessels entering the Med from 2004. Said to be 1000 Euros for 2 years, and you will be required to have an RCD or exemtion for a EU registered vessel.

Anyone else have more details of this?

PyroJames

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[Twister_Ken]

Suggest you check the name of the author of this article with the aid of a Fench/English dictionary if neccessary!

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[colvic]

Having done the trip then compared to quotes there is very little in it and if all you ant to do is get the boat to the Med then to be honest I'd say put it on a lorry. You know when it will arrives that way.

Even going in at Bordeaux, you've a lot of motoring to do and even a small breakdown could cost days or weeks and by the sound of things you are stuck for time as it is.

More importantly, where are you berthing the boat? Have you got a berth organised? If not you need to be there in summer to try and nick a berth whilst everyone is off sailing. Bertha are a bit like rocking horse droppings once you go over 10 meters.


Phil

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[Grehan]

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