The
Catalac was designed to be beached and many in the UK are on tidal moorings that dry twice a day. If its soft mud then no problem. Muddy shingle or sand will scratch the antifouling and possibly the
gelcoat. The only solution to that is either
keel shoes or something like coppercoat. If its sand then it must be very sheltered otherwise the
boat will pound heavily on taking the bottom and lifting off and possibly do structural damage. The question I have is why would you live onboard on a drying
mooring? In most places it will be mud and getting ashore when the tide is down can be very problematical. While you can use waders or splatchers, whatever you do there will be mud everywhere. There are lots of reasonably priced moorings or marina berths available in the UK out of season even for cats which to me is a more practical solution for long term unless you are practising hermits.
The french canals are wonderful, but unless you are near the coast, winters will be much colder than UK south coast. We have transited our
Maldives (5.3m wide) through the
Canal Du Midi from Bordeaux to Port St Louis du Rhone and its very nice and there are an infinite no of places to moor, but few places where you have
power and
water. North and
west coast of
France have a lot of high quality
marinas and they are generally cheaper than the UK with similar
weather to UK (slightly warmer in South Brittany southwards)