Cruises – Page 2 – tide by tide

PS – sting in the Brexit tail

Both the Royal Yachting Association and the Cruising Association now think that there is a real risk that a British boat will lose UK VAT-paid status if it is in the European Union on Brexit day, and so VAT would be payable on return to the UK.

If that happens, rushing over to France by 29 March (or whenever Brexit happens if there is a delay) to keep EU VAT-paid status is not necessarily such a good idea, unless you want to stay there permanently. Better to stay here and just apply for temporary importation whenever you visit the continent or Ireland in future. Continue reading “PS – sting in the Brexit tail”

Swiss afloat

Nothing really to do with Brexit – but interesting to find the Swiss merchant navy in a stained glass window

at 2 Temple Place, London. Presumably the cargo ship is on a lake?

Bang goes our EU status

It has now been confirmed that we will lose our boat’s VAT-paid status in Europe on Brexit day, leaving us with only the possibility of a temporary importation licence for up to 18 months.

Only British boats actually kept in the EU on that day will be treated as if the VAT paid on them in the UK is still European VAT. If they are in the UK on Brexit day, then they lose that ‘union goods’ status and can only apply for temporary importation.

Spring Fever in Cowes, awaiting a new engine

Continue reading “Bang goes our EU status”

Channel migrants

An anxious thought after watching the news yesterday: what do we do if we come across a dinghy full of distressed migrants in mid-channel? Do we follow our instincts and get them on board, put the heater on, wrap them in warm sleeping bags and offer sympathy? Or must we stand off, watch, and wait for help?

I am sure the very firm advice from the authorities will be to call the Coastguard on VHF/DSC, and stand by till the Border Force vessel (there is only one near Dover at the moment), a lifeboat or some other help arrives. But if the dinghy were swamped and people were in the water, nobody, surely, would hesitate before trying to get them on board: in the Dover Straits it would take only a moment to tell the Coastguard what we are up to and where, and professional help would come soon after.

Border Force patrol boat in Cowes, seen from Spring Fever

Continue reading “Channel migrants”

Brexit and our boat

We’ve been looking into the impact of Brexit on our sailing, on the assumption that at some point we will be treated as a third country, just like US and Canadian sailors who cross the Atlantic to visit the EU. If there is a hard Brexit at the end of March, this could all be upon us next season. The result is likely to be a long term increase in paperwork and bureaucracy and a permanent annoyance for British yacht owners.

Even as EU members we have not been bureaucracy free. Because the UK is outside the Schengen zone, we have been obliged in theory to show our passports on arrival, though some Schengen countries such as France often do not bother to enforce passport checks on yachts. (That might be changing, because in July, for the first time in many years, we were boarded on a mooring by French customs officers in a RIB, whose only interest was in our passports).

View from our mooring at Îles Chausey, where we were boarded by French customs.

Continue reading “Brexit and our boat”

…a 2018 Adriatic success

Here’s the certificate for third in class in the 2018 Transadriatica race – the second time in the race for me – from Venice to Novigrad and back, overnight each way in Martin Walker’s Spiuma. The certificate was presented to Martin recently, though the race was the weekend at the end of May and beginning of June.

This time we were third in both directions. Continue reading “…a 2018 Adriatic success”

Big tides in Brittany

For the last couple of weeks we’ve been pottering around the Channel Islands and the nearby French coast, reminding ourselves what really big tides are like. It’s our very own Bay of Fundy, the place in Canada with the world’s biggest tidal range.

The marina pontoons in St Malo climb the huge posts (below), and the tide outside can still go a few metres lower because the water inside is held back by a sill.

Continue reading “Big tides in Brittany”

Venice to Novigrad and back – 2017 Transadriatica race

Delighted to be sent this picture of the cup for third in class in the 2017 Transadriatica race, especially since we were the smallest boat and the oldest crew.

Martin Walker received the cup for the race, which was actually last June, at the annual dinner last month of his club, Diporto Velico Veneziano. Continue reading “Venice to Novigrad and back – 2017 Transadriatica race”

Biscay cruise

This year, after a few days fitting out in Vannes, we had a brief local cruise and then left the boat in the inland city of Redon for 5 weeks, a very economical but pleasant place where we were charged only a couple of hundred euros.

Redon is 25 miles up the freshwater Vilaine, so after our return from home there was a pleasant dawdle back to the sea, with an overnight stop at a lonely pontoon out in the fields with no-one else in sight.

After passing through the lock into tidal waters, we headed round to Le Pouliguen, near La Baule, where we anchored for a rather disturbed night, because a swell got up in the early hours. Next morning early we set off for Sables d’Olonne in the Vendéé.

As we were passing the island of Noirmoutier, the battery alarm went off because the new alternator, which we had just installed ourselves at Redon, had blown. Thankfully there was an excellent engineer near the marina who worked out why two had blown in quick succession, put it right and fitted a new one.

Continue reading “Biscay cruise”

Vannes and the Aussi menace

Wintering in Vannes, we’ve been under massive attack from ficopomaticus enigmaticus, otherwise called the Australian tube worm.

Lovely place to winter afloat, Vannes, right by the old walled town and its markets and restaurants. The main gate through the mediaeval walls overlooks the basin.

Continue reading “Vannes and the Aussi menace”

What to do with an old liferaft

It’s 17 years old, requires expensive annual servicing and it’s cheaper to buy a new one: here’s a fun way to dispose of the old one, on a pond:

River Ore’s hidden pool

We’ve many times threaded through the shifting gravel banks to enter the River Ore in Suffolk without seeing what is sometimes hidden behind – a clean, warm, tide-free swimming pool, 10 feet deep in the middle and perfect for a dip on a hot afternoon in August. Local residents told us it appears every few years but is it’s an easily-guarded secret – you can’t even see it from the top of the beach by the coastguard cottages. Not sensible to try to get to it by boat, of course.

Taking your dinghy through the Venice canals

After last year’s exploration of the Venice lagoon (see this post), we learnt recently about pilotage inside Venice’s own canal system, with a tour in a private motor boat. With care, you could do the same in a visiting yacht’s tender.

Shout as you approach a junction.... — Shout as you approach a junction….

A new set of municipal rules took effect on 1 April, though apparently some of its key provisions, such as limits on the speed of water taxis, were dropped after protests from their vociferous spokesmen.

In a nutshell, drive on the right except for one canal near Piazzale Roma in the North West which for obscure reasons has a keep to the left rule. Continue reading “Taking your dinghy through the Venice canals”

Thames dangers

Last May I wrote that actors Timothy West and Prunella Scales were banned from taking their hired narrowboat onto the tidal Thames at Limehouse in 2014 for a TV programme, even though we had managed the same trip with the same company shortly before. I was surprised and puzzled.

I now have to admit that I didn’t do enough research on the problem, having just discovered from the website of Black Prince , the hire company, that they have withdrawn their London fleet. One of the reasons is a ban on using the tidal Thames.

A quick search located a lot of internet discussion of the repercussions of an accident in August 2014, when a hire boat found itself straddled across the bows of a moored houseboat in a strong tide and gusty winds just above Hammersmith Bridge. It was rescued by an RNLI lifeboat. The Port of London Authority’s reaction was to reclassify hired narrowboats as commercial, and effectively ban them from the tidal Thames. Continue reading “Thames dangers”

Summer cruise to the Morbihan

This summer we took the boat to southern Brittany for 6 weeks, a 950 mile round trip that convinced us that it is worth much more exploration. For nearly three weeks of the cruise we kept the boat in the Gulf of Morbihan, the little inland sea full of islands that runs up to the city of Vannes.

The average air temperatures in the region are significantly higher than in the English Channel in summer, the food is excellent and the beaches beautiful. Though the Biscay coast (the Golfe de Gascogne on French charts) is exposed to Atlantic swells from south to west, there are some lovely sheltered cruising areas, including Quiberon Bay, canvassed as a sailing site for a coming French Olympics bid, and the almost entirely enclosed Gulf of Morbihan.

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