Adios
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True but don't do that if you actually want to go.
Wondering the practicality og a round UK trip next year
- Thread starter Birdseye
- Start date
Adios
...
Just read the thread and one thing I'd say is you don't need to change your boat, if it can do 40 miles near home it can do 40 miles up the country. If it breaks near home its just as bad as up country and vice versa. If you start "preparing" you might never leave. Just buy suitable charts and pilot books and get going, if you forgot anything they still speak English up north, sort of. I'd second a folding bike though as the amount of times I had a proper slog to get some provisions was an issue when I was cruising around but then these days you can use your smart phone and have it delivered probably.
srm
Well-known member
On my last English/Scottish east coast passage I noticed that the sea was a lot clearer with much less sediment north of the Scottish border.
Daydream believer
Well-known member
I have bags for my 2 Brunton E bikes. Makes things much easier as lines etc do not get caught in the mechanics. Plus easier to lift in & out of the boat
Lightwave395
Well-known member
I sometimes take my full size bike, having tried folding bikes and not liking them, it was an oldish but good quality lightweight 'Boardman' which after a refurb owes me less than £100. It's mostly aluminium, I hose it off regularly then spray the vulnerable bits with ACF-50, it's lasting well and sits comfortably across the stern. I really enjoy the cycling part and have seen quite a bit of Brittany, but could only manage on a 'proper' bike.
steve yates
Well-known member
4 knots is a better ave, 30-40 mile days are fine. Your current eqpt is more than up to the job.
Just go and enjoy it. Go round the top, don't just do 2/3rds by cutting thro the cally canal.
Its just going sailing, but you you get to go somewhere different everyday
srm
Well-known member
Definitely, going around England, Wales, and a little bit of Scotland via the canal misses out all the best cruising grounds the UK has to offer.
I once met a crew that claimed to have sailed around Britain twice, but had never been north of Inverness - obviously incompetent navigators.
Bouba
Well-known member
I heard that north of the ice wall there be sea monsters
doug748
Well-known member
Yep, I never really got on with folding bikes. Last 3 years I have just bought a cheap bike and gave it away/sold it in the last port of call. This year I had an all ally Raleigh that cost 20 quid in the UK. People are giving push bikes away.
Sold it to an African guy in Jersey, who said he was taking it back to Kenya! I thought it must cost a fortune to ship, he had a solution:
" What I does is take it apart, every little bit, and put the wheels my mates bag, the small bits in mine, I puts the frame on my back - had luggage. Then I put it together in Nairobi, easy. This bike will last me 10 year "
.
ylop
Well-known member
Friend with a camper charges there’s on a 300w inverter - they do tend to be driving for longer than I’d ideally motor for….
Yes i think singlehanded getting ashore in a dinghy with a bike requires some careful thought. I’ve never seen an ebike that wasn’t significantly heavier than a traditional bike so you’d want to factor that in.
Once you get to remote parts of Scotland you will get places that won’t get supermarket deliveries, and some that do but perhaps only twice a week.
The cally canal is nice in itself - you could cut through that on the way back and do a sort of figure of eight around the west and north of Scotland.
steve yates
Well-known member
Oh, and when you get a bit scunnered, or the weather is shit for a while, just leave the boat and go home for a break and chill. You have no deadlines.
srm
Well-known member
That be a lot further north than the Muckle Flugga Lighthouse, so no need to worry about being swallowed whole, and will be even further away next year.
Daydream believer
Well-known member
I Chose the cally canal route quite simply because it was simple & stress free. I had studied a few harbours & points of shelter & felt that I did not need the hassle & risk.Bits of Concerto’s story of his northern trip really put me off that. So having already done it twice via the Cally canal I do not feel I have missed much. In Peterhead a professional skipper came in SH on a 38 ft Bavaria for 12 hours rest before heading to Germany. He had been unexpectedly caught in F10 in the Pentland Firth. I could not have coped with that for 40 hours as he did.
this was borne out by the HM whose son was on a supply vessel. They had to stay at sea because they did not get paid if in port.
it seems the storm caught them out as well.
my friend went round with his son & admitted that several bits would have been tricky SH & most of his sailing is SH
I did it for enjoyment. Not to prove anything
incidentally the gybe in an earlier post (#67)about poor navigators going via the canal. May apply to me, but on my first. Trip I did not. Have a chart plotter & never use smart phones or iPads for navigation. Navigation is part of the fun
this was borne out by the HM whose son was on a supply vessel. They had to stay at sea because they did not get paid if in port.
it seems the storm caught them out as well.
my friend went round with his son & admitted that several bits would have been tricky SH & most of his sailing is SH
I did it for enjoyment. Not to prove anything
incidentally the gybe in an earlier post (#67)about poor navigators going via the canal. May apply to me, but on my first. Trip I did not. Have a chart plotter & never use smart phones or iPads for navigation. Navigation is part of the fun
dunedin
Well-known member
The point about “poor navigators” was presumably people who refer to a trip through the Caqledonian Canal as “Round Britain” - as they are out in their navigation by well over a degree of lattitude from the northern edge of Britain. Round Britain must include all 4 of the corners - Lands End, Cape Wrath, Duncansby Head and North Foreland (amongst others). Nice enough trip using the canal, but it isn’t “Round Britain”.
Clearly you don’t like anchoring, and anchoring is a great advantage going round the North of Britain. But the coastline and islands N & W of the Great Glen are undoubtedly some of the best cruising waters in the world, so shame to miss them. The rest of the route is pretty much linear compared to the archipelago of islands and indented sea lochs.
Finally, I would be fairly confident that there has not been any true F10 in the past 5-10 years that has not been forecast at least 36 hours ahead. That does not include 50 knot gusts. One should expect gusts of 1 or 2 forces higher when near headlands with high cliffs. This probably relates to Concerto’s “F9” which if I recall directly was on the W side of Orkney, so probably predictable wind acceleration to be expected from a F7-8 forecast.
But waiting for a weather window, timing the tides and enjoying the scenic anchorages, the trip “over the top” should be a positive highlight not something to be feared.
Concerto
Well-known member
At the time of the photo of the quarter berth, the storage bag was out of stock. When it came back in stock, I had it delivered on board when I met my daughter in Conwy.
Concerto
Well-known member
I can recommend the challenge of the Orkney and Shetlands. I will return in a few years for a lengthy visit to explore further. Going round the top of the Shetland adds about 750 miles - just a couple of extra day sails.
Concerto
Well-known member
Chatting with a German sailor in Wick, he said he saw a couple of Orcas near Orkney. So, yes there are sea monsters there, but the largest I saw was dolphins.
Concerto
Well-known member
The most northerly point of the UK is Out Stack, a rock about 200 metres further north than Muckle Flugga.
srm
Well-known member
Thanks to @dunedin for correctly understanding my comment about incompetent navigators as being those who claim Britain ends at the Caledonian Canal and that they have sailed around Britain.
Fourteen years based in Shetland and just over 20 in Orkney. Yes it can get very windy but modern forecasts give plenty of warning. However, I do not recognise the grim way you describe of the west and north of Scotland and am confident that you missed the best cruising areas of the UK. However, that is your choice and we can all enjoy the freedom of sailing as we choose. Just don't claim to have "sailed around Britain" as the Shetland Isles are as much a part of Britain as England.
Before moving away we made a few leisurely summer cruises south from Stromness and circumnavigated the north of Scotland via the Caledonian Canal and the Hebrides. Always a pleasant cruise starting off heading either east or west, with plenty of anchorages if the weather got a bit iffy for a few days.
I would suggest the pro skipper in Peterhead was trying to meet a deadline, a foolish pass time for any leisure sailor. (Having run a skippered charter yacht based in Shetland for a number of years I write from experience). His story is lacking in credibility though as the tide would have flushed his yacht out of the Pentland Firth in a lot less than 40 hours whatever he did. As @dunedin says an unforecast F10 in the Firth is highly unlikely as he was in range of the excellent detailed forecasts that have been broadcast by Orkney Harbours for very many years specifically for the safe operations of the oil terminal in Scapa Flow.
I have crossed the Pentland Firth a number of times without incident, but always followed the weather and worked the tide with care. Never bothered to sail through it though as Scapa Flow is much more predictable, but then my home port was Stromness so the Flow was always my obvious route.
As a footnote I have noticed that a number of accounts of sailing in the north clearly show that the skipper/navigator lacked an understanding of the tide/wind/swell interactions and/or had ignored the cautions given in various sailing guides and that often explained their "challenging conditions". As long as you can wait for suitable conditions it is a safe area to sail in.
Indeed it is, but Muckle Flugga is more easily found on a chart or Google Earth so I used that name for easy recognition.
Daydream believer
Well-known member
I did sail round Guernsey on both trips to make up for the lost miles up north I quite like the CIs so stopped for a couple of weeks to meet my family to do st Helier, st malo lezardrieux Granville . So I still did some good cruising & time with family is quality time
I reckoned that made up for the bit up the top
I reckoned that made up for the bit up the top
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