Will you be spending Christmas day onboard?

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Isobel

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Hi all,

I know it's only October (nearly November), but I was interested to see who will be spending Christmas onboard their boat this year or whether you've done it before. Do you go out sailing or spend the day moored up somewhere? Do you make a proper Christmas dinner onboard?
 
Isobel said:
Hi all,

I know it's only October (nearly November), but I was interested to see who will be spending Christmas onboard their boat this year or whether you've done it before. Do you go out sailing or spend the day moored up somewhere? Do you make a proper Christmas dinner onboard?
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Nope but we have a family tradition of a blast over to Cowes on boxing day for fish and chips - or whatever is open
 
Yes, we've been aboard each Christmas for the past decade or so. Proper Xmas lunch then home Boxing morning for family duties. We can't sail as the lock is shut Xmas day. Last year our Xmas lunch with friends started at 1400 and finished at 2230, 'twas proper fun.
 
Isobel said:
Hi all,

I know it's only October (nearly November), but I was interested to see who will be spending Christmas onboard their boat this year or whether you've done it before. Do you go out sailing or spend the day moored up somewhere? Do you make a proper Christmas dinner onboard?
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Relaxing in the Lounge with me feet up in front of the fire
 
We've only owned a boat for five years, and there's always been major refit work over the winter (that's what you get for swapping boats as soon as you get the first one finished!) so the boat was not a habitable environment. Same again this winter although I'm hoping to make it the last.

Once the boat is up to the standard I would like, requiring only routine maintenance and the inevitable bit of minor tweaking, I plan to keep her in commission year-round - and I'd like to instigate a family tradition (like Stuart's) of a Boxing Day sail to Cowes.

When my parents were first married, their standard routine was a New Year's Day sail with my grandad and all his RNVR mates. Setting off to Cowes with everyone still pissed as a fart from the night before, long boozy lunch, then back to the Hamble and right up to Bursledon under full main and spinnaker with all on board barely able to stand up. Different world.

Pete
 
We used to have great Club "Christmas Cruises" on the Blackwater during December. What little I can remember of them is that they consisted of about six or seven boats rafting up and duties included visiting each boat in turn and having a drink before returning to one's own boat for a turkey roast. Getting back to one's berth was often challenging, but I don't think there were any tragedies. I've never made Christmas day on board due to family committments, but I have always fancied the idea and wish anyone good luck and good weather, and go easy on the drink. Feel free to ignore the last injunction.
 
Our boats are ashore for the winter, but the club does a good Boxing Day lunch; which we can't usually attend as it means driving 40 miles and arm wrestling for who's going to be nominated driver, which rather takes the fun out of it.

Sonia, our Vice President and RNLI rep', does a roaring trade in cards on the approach to Christmas though, and I try to have a pint with chums.

My boat gets a sprig of Holly on the pulpit, the usual check over and a kiss. :)
 
johnalison said:
We used to have great Club "Christmas Cruises" on the Blackwater during December. What little I can remember of them is that they consisted of about six or seven boats rafting up and duties included visiting each boat in turn and having a drink before returning to one's own boat for a turkey roast. Getting back to one's berth was often challenging, but I don't think there were any tragedies. I've never made Christmas day on board due to family committments, but I have always fancied the idea and wish anyone good luck and good weather, and go easy on the drink. Feel free to ignore the last injunction.
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When I lived in Bradwell I used to go along to The Rock every Boxing Day and watch the yachts out there, never less than a score of them. that's where I got the yearning for a proper yacht.
 
Sailorman,

where's Lakesailor when we need him ?! I'm an eyes and thighs man myself, that synthetic thing Jordan or whatever she pays someone to call her now was aversion therapy for tits for me, unless the feathered kind...:rolleyes:
 
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A lot of clubs in Chichester Harbour, mine included, have a casual Boxing Day dinghy race or get-together.

From experience having sailed both dinghies and cruisers mid-winter I reckon dinghy sailing - in a drysuit - for an hour or two then racing to the hot showers and mulled wine is far preferable to trundling about in a cruiser with short days and long cold nights onboard, wrapping up before a sortie to the nearest pub in hope of thawing out and a decent meal, then a return in the wind and rain to get back onboard.

I have an Origo spirit heater ( good bit of kit but beware it only lasts about 7 hours not the advertised 12 ) and mega 4 seasons sleeping bags which makes things OK but not fun when one gets up in the morning, and have been on boats with Eberspacher heaters which are not wonderful, noisy, draw a lot of battery power, and have you seen the number of pleas on this forum from Eberspaher owners with serious, expensive faults ?!

Winter sailing in cruisers; you can keep it !
 
Unless I can pick up a cheap ski deal we may well be here in Empuriabrava at Christmas. Christmas dinner on board or possibly with friends if we're invited. I doubt we'll go sailing though as I usually drop the genoa fro the winter due to the evil Tramontana winds which already wrecked one sail.
 
Seajet said:
From experience having sailed both dinghies and cruisers mid-winter I reckon dinghy sailing - in a drysuit - for an hour or two then racing to the hot showers and mulled wine is far preferable to trundling about in a cruiser with short days and long cold nights onboard, wrapping up before a sortie to the nearest pub in hope of thawing out and a decent meal, then a return in the wind and rain to get back onboard.
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If you want cold, try a night watch in the middle of the Baltic in February :)

Down below, a well-maintained eberspacher is a good answer - never felt even slightly cold in the cabin on that trip, even on the first night alongside where the sea was frozen around the boat. Ariam's one is not noisy inside the boat - outside in the line of fire of the exhaust is a bit loud, but fortunately in winter there usually aren't many people around to disturb. Yes, they use a bit of power, but my battery bank weighs the same as I do (and I'm no lightweight) so there's no shortage of amps.

Pete
 
Did it last year. Cooking Christmas dinner for two in a two burner Origo was a challenge but it worked out fine

I'll probably be working this year
 
prv said:
If you want cold, try a night watch in the middle of the Baltic in February :)

Down below, a well-maintained eberspacher is a good answer - never felt even slightly cold in the cabin on that trip, even on the first night alongside where the sea was frozen around the boat. Ariam's one is not noisy inside the boat - outside in the line of fire of the exhaust is a bit loud, but fortunately in winter there usually aren't many people around to disturb. Yes, they use a bit of power, but my battery bank weighs the same as I do (and I'm no lightweight) so there's no shortage of amps.

Pete
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Pete,

I found the noise from the Epershacer on a Gib Sea 42 in winter terrible, and the heating effect - mind it might have been a poor installation and there was ice on the pontoons - very weak, hardly worth the effort of turning the thing on, so snuggling in one's sleeping bag was the answer.

If I had a boat which could accomodate it I'd go for a wood / coal/ anything burning stove with some sort of seaworthy external flue, to give dry heat; not the gas catalytic things etc which pump moisture into the internal atmosphere.

When living abaord my boat one winter I found an electrical hook-up and fan heater - on a timer - was
bliss, but away from shore it's a different matter, I'm sure a solid fuel job with a seaworthy flue would be the optimum.
 
Hopefully, on son's boat on Moreton Bay, if it's not too hot!
[It's a motor boat, oh the shame, where did I go wrong? :apologetic:]
 
DanTribe said:
Hopefully, on son's boat on Moreton Bay, if it's not too hot!
[It's a motor boat, oh the shame, where did I go wrong? :apologetic:]
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Well sadly you've raised your son so poorly in such a perverted way that he has embraced the Dark Side of The Force; your only hope to cure him from the Walking Dead is to give him books like ' The Lonely Sea And The Sky ' and ' Very Willing Griffin ' to hopefully snap him out of it...:)
 
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