French Canals UK to the Med

[AxelCl]

France-based sailor here. Probably mentioned above, but don't trust the French re canal depths. With your draft you will be alright in the Seine, but for small canals it will be a bit risky

[CaptainJohn49]

Always thought my Flicka would make a good canal boat. Draws about 1 meter with about 2.6 meters beam. Maybe I could buy a horse to tow it. That would be a sight. It would take 2 people though. One to guide the horse and a second to steer the boat. In the canal era the children were given the task of guiding the horse. Anybody up for a canal ride? Must have kid(s).

CaptainJohn49

[waterman46]

Originally Posted by Chanticleer

Forgot to add, and I appreciate it is not your objective, but cruise the canals of The Netherlands, 'Standing Maste route' or mast down. Bit flat (!) but just the best!

And all the gentle small rivers of western Germany,
they are so beautiful. But not the Danube, it flows 8 knots in places.

[dannc]

The big problem that Ruby Rose had on the canal was during the last 10K when they hit huge amounts of what they called algae. It looked like plants to me. Whatever the green stuff was, it was clogging their water intake and wrapping around their rudders.

The green stuff was supposedly from the heat wave. Shaded parts of the canal did not have the growth while parts of the canal with sunshine had the problem. The canal workers were out pulling the green stuff out of the canal.

Later,
Dan

[StoneCrab]

There is another thread from a guy wanting to have a suitcase boat in Thailand. He would have a blast in France.

[ohgary]

Originally Posted by WTRacer

Sailing Ruby Rose on Youtube is worth checking out, they have recently gone the other way in their Southerly. I imagine you might find quite a bit of useful info in their content, IIRC you would have no chance in some of the canals.

Distant shores folks also went across the canal's a while back as well.

[Hawkeye118]

Originally Posted by hoolie

You won't have any draft problems on the navigable river sections, Seine, Saone and Rhone but you'll have to choose your canals carefully. We went through the Canal de Bourgogne a few years ago and with our 1.5m draft we were ploughing the bottom in lots of places. Beware - the Canal du Midi has a solid bottom that fixes the depth to 1.6m at best.

I think you can regard the official depths as wishful thinking except on sections used by large commercial vessels.

I quite like that idea; sailing the river system. I work on the assumption that the Seine and the Saone are then linked by the canals. Where would you pick up the River Saone from? Would it be as far south as Dijon? Does anyone have any experience as to the possibility of taking the boat out in Paris (or thereabouts) and transporting it by road to the Saone? The plan then would be to take it into the Rhone and down to the Med. Just an idea that I would like to expand on.

[stevead]

Whilst sailing the western Med this year met two boats (one yacht, one trawler style motor boat) who had come down the canals from the UK.

Both mentioned a lack of water in (hence depth) and the yacht even had to turn back to Paris, and find another route down the rivers instead adding another month to their voyage. They even contemplated hauling their yacht out and trucking it to Port Napoloeon.

I think you may be hard pressed to get a boat of your size down the canals. Navigating the rivers.may be your only option.

[Montymariner]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye118

How can I get an accurate assessment of what the draft is on our yacht?

Without drying out, you could try using a scaffold pole a bit longer than your beam, tie two graduated ropes to the ends of the scaffold pole then lower it over the bow and hawling it aft under the deepest part of the keel. Line up the graduations with the rubbing strake then note the graduations at water level.

To be honest, I think you will be pushing your luck with your draft, the canals often have less water in them than stated, a lot depends on the quantity of winter rainfall.

[SaltyMetals]

If you have a 50ft sailing boat and the other comments have been that yr draft is too much for the canals, then why on earth do you not SAIL yr boat across Buscay down to Gib. It makes a great trip.I am sure there are others on this forum who have done it many more times than me but on the first two times we almost ran out of fuel due to no wind. The fishing boats will kindly help out of you run low on fuel.

The third time i loaded up with 50% extra diesel fuel but it was blowing like stink so never used a drop! A great trip. My recommendation would be to stay outside the continental shelf as long as poss and staying about 50 nm away from Finistere to go into Portosin marina /Ria de Muros. Some stop on the north coast of Spain but i think that is a mistake since you are then likely to be faced with a westerly on the nose in order to get around Finistere. Much better to use the distance you have from land to pass Finistere at about 40-50 nm distance.

Portosin enables you to visit the amazing cathedral of Santiago de Compostela to which thousands make a pilgrimage on foot for a thousand km or so. Portosin marina has all the facilities for haulout and antifouling at about 1/3rd of the price in the UK. After that you can port-hop along the coast of Portugal or stay out about 50 nm (which is what i did) and then stop in Gib, see the rock, monkeys, tunnels etc.

So in conclusion, i think you should be sailing yr lovely yacht instead of subjecting it to the rough and tumble of the French canals. Alternatively, maybe you should have bought a stinkpot instead of a sailing boat.

[hoolie]

I hadn't noticed the OP's boat is 50ft. A yacht has the wrong hull shape for narrow canals. Locks can be very savage when the water is let in and we frequently struggled to keep our 40ft under control. With a boat your size you will suffer damage, particularly if you're carrying your mast. I agree going round Cantabria would be a better option for your boat

[Hawkeye118]

Originally Posted by stevead

Whilst sailing the western Med this year met two boats (one yacht, one trawler style motor boat) who had come down the canals from the UK.

Both mentioned a lack of water in (hence depth) and the yacht even had to turn back to Paris, and find another route down the rivers instead adding another month to their voyage. They even contemplated hauling their yacht out and trucking it to Port Napoloeon.

I think you may be hard pressed to get a boat of your size down the canals. Navigating the rivers.may be your only option.

I think, having read all these answers that we are going to be better going across the Bay of Biscay. But, at the risk of flogging this subject to death, there was a suggestion of 'just doing the rivers instead'. Is that an option? if so, what route would you take?

[cblurton]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye118

Has anyone got experience of sailing the french canal system from the English Channel to the Mediterranean? It is something I am looking into.

Check this YouTube channel for videos of a couple who recently did the trip.


https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...5lKhIUvkHC58VG

[hoolie]

But, at the risk of flogging this subject to death, there was a suggestion of 'just doing the rivers instead'. Is that an option? if so, what route would you take?

I don't think there is "just rivers" option for fairly obvious geographic reasons. I haven't looked at this for a while but the larger/deeper connecting canals seem to be further north where a lot of the traffic is commercial barges

[Catalacmarc]

Just a note, I used to own a 9 Meter Catalac Catamaran, as cats go it was a 3/5 ton truck, but it was narrow enough for the canals and had a tabernacle for the mast. Very shallow draft as well. A number have trasited.