Motorhomes and boats

[Jake Royd]

For those of you , like me , used to own a boat I was thinking about the little frison of excitement and I suppose slight unease I feel when wild camping or perhaps camping in somewhere other than a for Mal site.

A formal site is to a marina (or swinging mooring) as anchoring is to wild camping.

In the sense that when at anchor you are constantly aware of where you are and what's around you etc.

Do you agree?

(Also for the non sailors among you , no it's not that kind of swinging mooring )

 

[Spriddler]

In the sense that when at anchor you are constantly aware of where you are and what's around you etc.

Do you agree?

Indeed, but in a m/h you don't get woken up in the wee small hours by the noise of the anchor chain dragging through 180 deg across the bottom as the tide turns.
Or for the anxious skipper: Lying awake in the wee small hours waiting to hear the noise of the anchor chain dragging through 180 deg across the bottom as the tide turns .

 

[Jake Royd]

Indeed, but in a m/h you don't get woken up in the wee small hours by the noise of the anchor chain dragging through 180 deg across the bottom as the tide turns.
Or for the anxious skipper: Lying awake in the wee small hours waiting to hear the noise of the anchor chain dragging through 180 deg across the bottom as the tide turns .

Yes, I agree.
When an anchoring novice, when we had nowhere close to the amount and weight of chain we needed, we anchored in The Dandy Hole on the river Lynher , Plymouth.
Woke up at about 5am 200 yds from where we should have been.

 

[David and Sally]

Yep. Agree.
Mainly used marinas but the occasional anchoring in a river or creek. Very peaceful.

 

[Brains]

Or one memorable anchoring on the Swale.

At midnight the tide went out, our bilge keel touched bottom, on one side, and we slowly leant over....and over...
Ended up at about 70 degrees!
One keel was on a sold surface, the other a meter deep in the mud.

We then put every inflatable thing we could find on the low side so that when the tide came in we would not flood
Luckily when the tide came in there was no swell.

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[Jake Royd]

Yes, things go wrong on boats slowly and there's no real equivalent in the motorhoming world.
I think driving into a location you don't know is roughly the same as coming into a harbour you only know from the chart.

 

[Burgo]

Do you agree?

Yes. Refuelling and filling with water, gas & stores is very similar and setting off after all the checks is very much like casting off, then slowly motoring out of a mooring / harbour before setting the sails and heading off. No tides to worry about, though low bridges and Spanish village road widths have taken the place of depth under the keel checks. Coiling up the hookup cable, running line for the dog's leads, etc has taken the place of coiling the mooring lines.
Just need to work out how to get red diesel though....

 

[Garratt]

Yes, I agree, although pitching up on a wild camping spot can’t match the tension of arriving at Lundy in the dark and spending the night at anchor wondering whether it will hold.

 

[The Wino]

Were just heading the other way. We've done a few flotilla holidays but my ICC license has expired just about to do day skipper and get a boat thinking about a sigma 33 any comments?

 

[Eggs]

I'm guessing dropping mud weights at Tixall Wide on the Staffs and Worcs canal doesn't count?

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[Spriddler]

Yes, things go wrong on boats slowly and there's no real equivalent in the motorhoming world.
I think driving into a location you don't know is roughly the same as coming into a harbour you only know from the chart.

But it's the same as far as you seem to only cock it up when there are people watching (aka the 'curtain twitchers').

 

[Jake Royd]

Were just heading the other way. We've done a few flotilla holidays but my ICC license has expired just about to do day skipper and get a boat thinking about a sigma 33 any comments?

From memory Sigma 33's are quite powerful cruiser/racers , probably getting cheap now ( only joking , nothing in the sailing world is cheap). They are quite a handful in a blow and can round up if over canvassed).
It's similar to a motorhome in the sense of what do you want it for?
Do you need twin keels to take the ground etc?
Do not underestimate mooring and maintenance costs.
Also have a plan for over winter. Ect, ect , ect.

 

[Spriddler]

Spanish village road widths have taken the place of depth under the keel checks.

I used to sail s/handed well offshore (to the Canaries, Azores....) on passage for several days at a time. Chatting with my very elderly aunt she said she just couldn't bear the thought of all that water underneath her. She had difficulty understanding that as far as I was concerned the more there was the safer I felt.

 

[Kannon Fodda]

On a motorhome, once you stop and put the handbrake on (ignoring risk of failure) you stay where you are. However if you choose somewhere unsuitable, the local yoblets could create some disturbance. Only if very windy will your van be a rockin.

On a boat, the ground under you is going to keep moving, sometimes quite rapidly. Things go up and down as well as side to side with wind and waves, even the delayed wake from something that went past 1/4 mile away. You can't simply open a door for a quick walk to stretch your legs. Having said that if I had access to a boat I think I'd much prefer being at anchor to the average wildcamp. Somehow I've just never been able to relax, even if I have found something I thought was secluded.

 

[Spriddler]

....if I had access to a boat I think I'd much prefer being at anchor to the average wildcamp.

The violent rolling from a near gale was so bad when I was on a visitors buoy in Braye Harbour Alderney one evening that I rowed my elderly rubber dinghy 'Hissing Sid' to the quay, hauled it twenty feet up the harbour wall, turned it upside down and 'wild camped' the night on it under the stars. Bliss.

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[David and Sally]

The violent rolling from a near gale was so bad when I was on a visitors buoy in Braye Harbour Alderney one evening that I rowed my elderly rubber dinghy 'Hissing Sid' to the quay, hauled it twenty feet up the harbour wall, turned it upside down and 'wild camped' the night on it under the stars. Bliss.

Have been in Braye in a blow too. Not funny Approach was calm but thick fog. In the days before gps. Had to stand off the harbour entrance as all we could hear was the waves on the breakwater. The harbour master tried to talk us in using RDF but in the end a trawler led us in. Hell of a swell in the harbour.

Bumped into the HM in the chip shop so I bought his dinner for him

 

[vzac]

Your all mad, if you had come to me 1st. GET A NARROW BOAT. No worry about drifting of and dragging anchors waking up on an outgoing tide miles from where you though you were. Just stop Moor up on the tow path and wait for gongoozlers to come and any you e.g try to nick anything not tied down, just come onto you boat, start at you through the windows, have fisherpeople throw bait and other goodies at you, cast you adrift and wake up on the other side of the canal ( about 10ft away), watching hire boaters wonder how locks work, and waiting for some one to do them for them. Oh the romance.

 

[Nyvern]

The cost of owning a boat, even if you don't use it, will be lots more than a motorhome, but when cruising, it's always an adventure compared to driving a motorhome.

 

[Jamesh]

Pounding to windward in a 45ft cruiser in a F8 gale. Nothing beats it.

Taking same yacht into Cowes as the engine fails and the skipper pops down below to fix!

Coming to a stop on an unidentified rock in same boat ouch!

Happy days

Cheers James

 

[Burgo]

Braye Harbour Alderney

Rita's First and last!

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[John Barrett]

Your all mad, if you had come to me 1st. GET A NARROW BOAT. No worry about drifting of and dragging anchors waking up on an outgoing tide miles from where you though you were. Just stop Moor up on the tow path and wait for gongoozlers to come and any you e.g try to nick anything not tied down, just come onto you boat, start at you through the windows, have fisherpeople throw bait and other goodies at you, cast you adrift and wake up on the other side of the canal ( about 10ft away), watching hire boaters wonder how locks work, and waiting for some one to do them for them. Oh the romance.

I suppose they are alright if you like living in a pencil case...

 

[David and Sally]

Your all mad, if you had come to me 1st. GET A NARROW BOAT. No worry about drifting of and dragging anchors waking up on an outgoing tide miles from where you though you were. Just stop Moor up on the tow path and wait for gongoozlers to come and any you e.g try to nick anything not tied down, just come onto you boat, start at you through the windows, have fisherpeople throw bait and other goodies at you, cast you adrift and wake up on the other side of the canal ( about 10ft away), watching hire boaters wonder how locks work, and waiting for some one to do them for them. Oh the romance.

Which way shall we go today? Left or right? Let’s go back to where we came from yesterday

 

[mitzimad]

ive always wanted to spend a night on a boat sitting out on a mud flat i cant think of anything so isolating as any where else people could reach you even middle of a rain forest or desert

 

[Jake Royd]

This is one for the sailors (responsible for my own thread drift)
We were coming into Plymouth sound with no foresail and one reef in the main. But still too much sail up.
We were running with the wind right behind.
The correct thing to do is bring the boat up into the wind , Reef again and then turn back onto course.
However, the troughs were big compared to the boat and I felt if I turned we would be at some point parallel to the waves and could get rolled right over.
So we continued to career wildly into the Sound until the waves died and we than had some measure of control.
Maybe that was the right course of action?
Or would it to have tried to reef downwind , which is possible but not easy.

 

[David and Sally]

Broaching side on to large waves is nerve-wracking. I would have hesitated too.
One option might have been to haul in the main a bit to present less sail to the wind? But you ran into the Sound and calmer weather so all ended well.

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[John Barrett]

Broaching side on to large waves is nerve-wracking. I would have hesitated too.
One option might have been to haul in the main a bit to present less sail to the wind? But you ran into the Sound and calmer weather so all ended well.

Our first time out of Alderney I turned LEFT into the Swinge to meet wind over tide...

 

[MR BLO]

I was lucky enough to spend many a holiday on parents boat.
motor boating was far more rewarding but motor homing is more relaxing.
The highways agency has never called to ask what colour the bottom of my van is. It was a regular occurrence from the old Swansea coastguard.

 

[Madcaravanner]

You lot make me laugh

I'm just about to start my Skippers Course for narrow boats and small craft as a trip boat skipper once qualified
I'm hoping they don't send us on the Trent too

 

[David and Sally]

Our first time out of Alderney I turned LEFT into the Swinge to meet wind over tide...

We used to do Needles to Alderney a lot. Those Channel Island waters were not to be underestimated.

 

[John Barrett]

We used to do Needles to Alderney a lot. Those Channel Island waters were not to be underestimated.

I kept my old SHE36 in Cherbourg for two years. I learnt quickly!

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