Trip to France

poter

poter

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Still going south currently in Corsica for winter
www.fairhead.com
Trying to plan a 2 week hol. in mid July, and desperatly want to do a first trip to France, but from my home port - The Exe - to say Cherbourg is 89 miles what should I add on for tides, for an average speed of say 5 knts. Is there an easy way to calculate the deviation?

(I notice that right now: 17:35, there is a current of around 3.5 knts in mid channel.)

Is there an easier/better alternative say the channel islands? Obviously the local crusing ground would be important.

Obviously the trip will involve some smart planning as there will only be Myself & SWMBO, is there any trivial item that should be remembered? (make life a little easier) - I hope I have got all the major items sussed.

Any sugestions welcome.

thanks

poter.





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You cannot list me as a regular channel hopper. Just returned from a long weekend with three others on a friends Hanse 371, easy. But that was only my second time across.

But more to the point my first crossing was with SWMBO in our 28i ETAP, so like you it will be all down to the skipper!

I would suggest in your position come from the Exe up to Weymouth and cross from there, that will cut the distance across to Cherbourg to about 60 miles, at 5knts that is about 12hrs.

Cherbourg is easy to get into, deep water and plenty of shelter, but over calculate for the strong tide running across the Cherbourg peninsular. Construct your passage plan to leave about 4 am, that way you get a bit of night sailing in and impress SWMBO with a nice sunrise (hopefully). You will have light before the first of the shipping lanes and arrive in France late afternoon, leaving plenty of time for any problems before it gets dark. From Cherbourg you can plan for the Channel Islands or St Vast etc.

Most important though plan your passage, dont be assamed if you have to abort through weather, check all your kit, have food and drinks available for the trip, plan the trip and work the plan.

Good luck and have a great time.

PS Cambras is a good cheap wine (£1 a bottle) I just restocked, fill the boat up !!!!!!!!!!!

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I'd aim for St Peter Port from where you are. It is also a much nicer place to be than Cherbourg.

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Beg to differ

Cherbourg can be entered in all weathers and at any state of the tide. This makes it ideal for a first crossing. From Cherbourg, you can get to St Peter Port in one tide if you prefer it.

Though it isn't the prettiest place in the world, I rather like Cherbourg.

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Seconded - 1st leg to Weymouth

Then head across, 12 hours at 5 kts and the tides just about cancel themselves out. Add up all the westgoing and all the eastgoing, subtract smaller from larger and that gives you a nett offset. Add in a couple of miles uptide safety margin (NEVER arrive downtide of Chbg!) and Robert's your father's brother.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>
 
Passage Plan

I don't have a chart in front of me right now so visualising this is a little tricky. From the Exe to Cherbourg your mean course is approx 120ºT, and at 5 knots you will take 18 hrs, roughly. This means three tides, two one way and one the other. Given you are headed partly up-channel, you should make the most of tides running that way. That means leaving the Exe an hour or so before HW when the tide starts running east. A complication is (I think) that the Casquets TSS lies direct across your route. You could simply set up one waypoint at the NE corner of the TSS, and then another at Cherbourg, and follow the GPS course. However, it will be faster if you can work out a constant compass course, and steer to that, allowing for the TSS if necessary. This is a standard Coastal Skipper exercise, adding up all the expected hourly tides to calculate the total tidal push (just treat the directions as either east or west, for simplicity), and then the required compass course.

18 hours means you can do the whole thing in the light if HW at Exmouth is in the early morning. If not do the first part in the dark as you are best going through the shipping lanes and arriving at Cherbourg in the light.

In practice it never quite works out as planned. For one thing, if you sail you can't guarantee keeping up 5kts. Bear in mind that the tides are much stronger on the French side. What you really want to avoid is arriving on the French side with the tides picking up against you. So if there is any risk you won't keep up 5kts, leave earlier.

I rather sympathise with A_7's view that if you are planning Cherbourg as a stepping stone to the Channel Isles, it may be better to go direct to St Peter Port, as it can't be any further away, and working the tides is easier. However, the final approach down the Little Russell demands concentration in strong tides, best done in daylight and when you are reasonably fresh.

Personally, I wouldn't dream of going via Weymouth, which looks like a major diversion involving the Portland Race, unless facing a head wind on leaving the Exe. But it would perhaps be a little less demanding, more easily done entirely in daylight.
 
Re: Passage Plan

hm. well, i wd aim for st malo in 24-25 hours, and whoosh in to reach st malo just before high tide. Then the whole of the 2 weeks to track back thru stPP etc. I mean, St pp, braye or even cherbrg would still be an option on the way out but get the big chunk done imho else never get there. Possibly a bit much for 1st time, but july neaps should be ok really i think.

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Re: Passage Plan

Yes, agree. Not necessarily too overambitious, my very first cross-channel trip was in an engineless Kingfisher 20 direct from Southampton to St Malo with my girlfriend, then port-hopping back through CI. Romantic holiday!

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I would consider other options to pick as an alternative in case the wind is on the nose or there is a risk of fog. If you do initially head East to weymouth there may be other boats going at the same time ask at the Quayside. For 1st time most experienced yacht skippers would be happy to remain in VHF contact as you go across. Assuming it is OK for Cherbourg plan by plotting a straight line to Cherbourg plot your hourly progress along the line at say 5kts. Add the effect of tide ie 1st hr say 2kts E, 2nd hr say 3kts E, (use current predictions) therefore at 2nd hour position mark 10kts along line and 5Nm E which gives estimated position. When tide goes W deduct the effect of tide. From this trial plot and say 18hrs therefore say 2 tides E and only 1 tide W you should discover the trial plot misses by some 14Nm to the East. With experience you can just sum up the tidal vectors and offset your trial course to compensate. Try a new line to compensate for the 2 tides in one direction. Plot the effect of current along this line and your estimated positions should be a series of curves leading straight into Cherbourg. Plot the actual against this (you may make a faster or slower boat speed!) At half way if actual position is vastly different from predicted make new prediction and repeat at 3/4 and 7/8 of the way across. Its great when your predicted course matches actual and frightening how different it often is!! How did we ever manage without GPS's. Be gently with SWMBO and allow for an extra wind force if you go round Cap La Hague to the Channel Islands! Happy Sailing

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Re: St Malo

TCM, you must be psychic, I was looking at St Malo as the first port to go for, and that cruising area.
However I have only got a very large-scale chart of that area at the moment & my Macmillan Almanac is on Shady, is it a good cruising area for say 10 days?

Sailorman.. Thanks for the tip.

poter


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Sailfree,

Thankyou, will look at your sugestion, yes it would be a comfort to have someone to talk to if the need arises.

I will be VERY gentle with SWMBO as she is not that keen on going accross on our own, but I must admit to a little bit of free spirt and would like to acomplish the trip without too much assistance. I am very cautious anyway and am a stikler for lots of safety kit even redundancy. I am an ex diver with some 1000+ dives so I understand the precautions & personal routine that you should have.
Just one point I do have a lot of faith in the yacht, which of course helps alot.
She has loads of kit even a good Rada which I use as often as I can for the experience .

thanks again

poter.



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Re: St Malo

I'd say you must include Chausey on your itenerary (if you like quietness and wildness). Neaps are probably easiest for a first vist and I wouldnt entertain anything other than the southern entrance first time around. An entrancing place, particulalrly when the last of the day trippers have returned to Granville - at which point the sunbathing wall lizards outnumber the humans. Other than the 'big' harbours Sark and Herm can be delightful in settled condtions (easy pilotage to nearly all the anchorages). Granville has charm, good restaurants, but gets too hot in the marina in really good weather. Carteret is appealing, Portbail can be very quiet. Enough for 10 days? Certainly! View the tides as friends that can give you 10 miles for free!

If you need a contact in the Islands PM me and I'll give a real email and mobile for you (I'm based in Jersey).

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I'm going to suggest another idea, as I would either head for St Peter Port Guernsey as the first stop either direct or better perhaps going via Dartmouth. Going direct you might have to take a little hitch west to clear the Casquets TSS, maybe not needed if you went southabout round Guernsey. Going from Dartmouth you will be able to head directly for either the north or south route round Guernsey into the Little Russel to St Peter Port, the distance is around 65mls so 13 hours at 5kts plus a bit more to get into St PP proper. The advantage of this route for a first time over is that you avoid the strong central Channel cross tides north of Cherbourg peninsular (and possible associated wind over tide chop) during the crossing itself plus you have options on the final approach of which way you approach St PP depending on the tide. You will also avoid any need to get involved with the Alderney Race which at best is a controlling tide gate and at worst a diabolitical place, we went through last Friday at 7kts boatspeed and 15.1kts SOG!

After St PP, then you could look at several options including Jersey, St Malo, Lezardrieux, Treguier or Perros Guirec maybe depending on wind direction. Whatever you do try not to make it a route march, all of these places deserve time to explore and enjoy and there will be other trips hopefully! It is quite easy to spend 2 weeks (or more) just in the Channel Islands themselves, you have Herm, Sark and Alderney to take in as well as the bigger Guernsey and Jersey.

Whichever you choose have a great holiday!

<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1>Sermons from my pulpit are with tongue firmly in cheek and come with no warranty!</font size=1>
 
Re: St Malo

yes, agree with others below, 10 days or 10 weeks wd not really be enough to cover the area. Must be lots of people still having a great time after 10 years.

in 10 days i wd try and cover st malo, st peter port (including a day trip on er someone else's power boat ro day trip boat to Herm) and anchor off Sark for one day if settled weather. Iles Chausey is well rated tho you need to be selfsuficient, not been my self.

Alderney is different, take a mooring provided no element of NE in the wind, rent bikes and tootle around. Don't stay for more than a couple of days else you will develop claws on account of the crab salads.

Jersey is missable imho. I like Cherbourg, tho mainly for the cool way in which they manage a large port, largely by letting everyone get on with it. We took a 75footer in, dumped it on the pontoon, paid the dosh, never called at all on VHF, never had anyone patrol around, nothing. You can rent a car from here and visit around and about - 30 quid a day.

From cherbourg of course there is st Vaast, but prapps keep that for another time. Oh, and Deauville, and , and, and









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Re: Heading East

i agree that altho the departure from weymth might be easier, heading east seems a bit counterproductive: i always understood that the general convention in the channel (regardles of power or sail) is that you hold whatever west you have as of course the prevailies are from the west.

From exmouth, imho, the easy peasy option is to head out to reach the west of guensey as the tidal streem turns west and at the last moment deciding if all ok to proceed on rising tide to st malo, or to take the easypeasy route esp for people who have had little or no sleep into st peter port around the south.



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All the tips and suggestions here seem good, however your original question worries me (that about tides). Without meaning to be harsh I would go and get my coastal skipper qualification, or if you already have it, hit the books and brush up on it.

Particularly as you've not been across before, what with TSS's. fishing vessels and other things to potentially trip you up, you have to have good nav and know the rules of the road. One thing which is sure to unsettle the SWMBO is you not being confident in any of the above situations - you have to be careful not to put her off for life.

Otherwise have a great trip, there are some lovely bits around that coast (my favorite is the channel islands hands down though)

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Out of interest I put the route from the mouth of the Exe to Cherbourg on a passage planning program and got some very different results.

If (today) you left at HW+5 Dover the effective distance thro the water would be about 85nm, leave at HW-3 Dover and the route extends to 99nm.

At 5 knots it's predicting that you would take about 16h.30m.

The program seems to be indicating that the most efficient way of getting across is to arrive at the top of the Alderney race (well, 10nm offshore) just as the tide starts to go North out of the race and East towards Cherbourg. Clearly using the tide that sweeps across the Cherbourg pensinsula as the last push.

Good Luck

(O, and it says steer 135M)

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