Around Britain-top ten tips

Premier Sailing’s Robert Stracey shares his experience of what he says is, for most, a totally achievable cruise

- Robert Stracey

Sailing around Britain offers magnificently varied cruising – but it does take a bit of planning. Fortunately, we have some expert advisors on hand to help you plan your trip.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. A journey of 1,400 miles begins with a cup of tea, usually consumed on a winter’s evening, surrounded by a pile of charts and pilot books. In general, that’s what many of us do over the winter; we plan the things we will do once our pride and joy is reunited with saltwater; we dream, and we plan. For many of us our dream is the ultimate cruise, the global circumnavigation, taunting us from within our own minds as we work hard to make everything right: the right boat, the right equipment and the right experience. We chase the world-girdling dream with all the tenacity of Ahab in pursuit of his great white whale. But often we never achieve our dream, as life has a habit of getting in the way of such grand adventures. Having crossed many oceans, you can take it from me, it’s no great loss. Ocean voyaging is many weeks of looking at the same view, with just the weather for a bit of variety. Occasionally ships, cetaceans and the occasional albatross will pop up for company. On one long ocean passage we even resorted to placing bets on whose watch it would be when we reached the alteration of course position, which was several hundred miles away.

So why not find a new dream? Working on the principle that the perfect boat is probably the one you have, why not find an ultimate cruise that is within the capabilities of you and your boat, one with better views, that won’t require you to be written out of family life and, most importantly, has opportunities for outside catering?

.First hand experience