Chasing boats across France
Half the enjoyment in buying a new boat is the journey to ownership – and in some cases buyers go to extreme lengths to boost the fun quotient.
Buying a boat to cruise the French canals? Look in France.
My mate Neil accidently bought a boat in France.
We were mucking around with his yacht Sea Monkey at Seaview Marina, when he casually remarked that he had put in a ‘cheeky offer’ for a 2001 ‘Aquanaut Beauty 1050’ Dutch river cruiser, which was rated for coastal and inland waterways, and would be ideal for the French canals.
Looking at the advert online I had to admit it was a pretty vessel: 35’ long, steel, nice condition and layout, with a useful Yanmar 130hp engine. Nice name too – Moderato is a musical term meaning ‘without haste’, entirely appropriate for a boat on the French canals. He also mentioned he had ‘no chance of buying it’. Of course, he did end up owning it after some negotiation back and forth – with a few more Euros thrown in.
Interestingly, the entire negotiation process was done by internet and phone calls. One of the keys to success in buying a boat in France, is an English-speaking broker. In Neil’s case the broker was a Brit living in southern France. He spoke fluent French and was able to negotiate with the owner and arrange a number of English-speaking yacht surveyors for Neil to choose from.
At the same time, I was looking for a yacht in France, and quickly learnt that responding to private adverts was a waste of time (they
never responded to the emailed enquiry), and that it was necessary to establish relationships with English- speaking brokers. Even then it was a struggle to get them to take me seriously until I was actually in France.
We quickly hatched a cunning plan to travel to France, complete the purchase of Neil’s boat in St Crypien on the French Mediterranean coast, and take her up into the Canal du Midi to find a suitable spot to haul her out for winter, so that Neil and his wife could return for an extended canal cruise in 2018. Once Moderato was put to bed for the winter we would travel to Cherbourg in the North and La Rochelle in the Bay of Biscay, to look at two yachts I was interested in. A boy’s own adventure.
Once we had survived the glamour of international travel, involving several connecting flights, train then taxi, we set up headquarters in an apartment in the pretty seaside town of St Crypien to complete the purchase of Moderato.
When we went to look at her on the hard, in a boat yard a couple of blocks back from the sea, Moderato proved to be as good as the photographs promised. But some of the cosmetic remedial work agreed to as a result of the survey was a wee bit agricultural, and the recent service used an oil rated for both petrol and diesel engines – an oxymoron to me. Neither of these
issues was a show-stopper, so the sale was completed and Neil was the proud new owner.
An interesting aspect of the sale was that every domestic item had been removed, so the broker took Neil to a giant Carrefour store and they returned with a van load of galley equipment, bedding and tools.
Suitably supplied, we headed off down the coast for 25nm before entering Canal de la Robine at Port la Nouvelle. From this point on the living was easy. After paying a modest fee to the VNF, the French Waterways Authority, use of the French canal system was free, including the locks, aqueducts, and mooring on the canal path. The cost is €118 (NZ$197) for a month or €285 (NZ$475) for a year.
We then spent a very pleasant two weeks cruising up the Canal de la Robine, mooring in the picturesque medieval town of Narbonne, then joining the Canal du Midi travelling through 140 locks and approximately 300km to Castelssarasin, via beautiful countryside and historic towns such as Carcassone, Castelnaudary and Toulouse, then onto the Canal de Garonne.
The French canals are a superb way to enjoy the
...Suitably supplied we headed off down the coast for 25nm before entering Canal de la Robine at Port la Nouvelle.
beauty, history and culture of France, and while this trip was necessarily quick because it was a delivery, you could spend months exploring this area. The ability to moor on the tow path is a huge plus, because you can sidle up to the towpath, drive a couple of stakes into the ground and moor there for the night, enjoying the countryside while sipping a tasty Bordeaux wine on the aft deck.
The only things spoiling this bucolic picture are the chartered canal boats, of which there are many in the Canal du Midi. While the skipper of a private vessel on the canals is required to hold an ICC certificate endorsed for inland waters, this does not apply to the chartered vessels, which are called ‘bumper boats’ for obvious reasons.
As far as I can tell, the instructions to those renting the boats is, ‘this is the throttle and the pointy end goes
forwards’. The result, on occasion, is chaos. With one of these vessels approaching, veering between canal banks, both Neil and I would be at the helm discussing whether it was going to zig or zag at the critical passing moment. Some of the manoeuvres the charter boats achieved in the locks is beyond my powers of description.
With Moderato hauled out of the water in Castelssarasin and ‘winterised’ by opening all seacocks and taps, and running pure glycol through the engine salt water system to prevent freezing, it was time to embark on the second part of our adventure – buying a yacht for me, with the intention of keeping it in the northern hemisphere.
Having circumnavigated in Beyond, a steel Departure 35 masthead sloop, I learned two things: rust never sleeps and, if I had a shoal draft vessel I could have accessed much better anchorages on occasion and been able to access canals and inland waterways more easily.
With Beyond we had dropped the mast in southern France and travelled the length of the country by canal and river eventually arriving in Calais on the English Channel, and with a 1.7m draft we were right on the limit, and yes, we did get stuck in the mud a few times.
With this in mind, I had settled on the requirement of an aluminium centreboard masthead sloop, and France is the home of this design of vessel.
Again, an extensive amount of internet searching, and Neil’s ability to do searches in French which turned up results I could not achieve in English, had narrowed the task to two boats.
Both were 80s bluewater cruisers, which had been refitted in recent times so had relatively new sails, rigging, engine, electronic self-steering and instrumentation.
We travelled to La Rochelle on the Bay of Biscay, reputedly the home of Europe’s largest marina at 5,000 berths, utilising France’s impressive rail network and had a look at a Philippe Harle’ designed Carambola 38.
While this was more boat than I needed (being solo), it was a ‘go-anywhere’ vessel, having been refitted in 2009/10 for a voyage to Patagonia after which the owner had fulfilled his cruising ambitions. The broker, who spoke excellent English, having worked in Australia, was very knowledgeable on the vessel’s equipment and history.
The Carambola had a couple of design features I was not that comfortable with; a sail-drive because it is complicated and exposed to damage under the vessel,
and a spade rudder because unlike a skeg-hung rudder, which has two pivot points and the skeg protects the rudder, a spade rudder is prone to damage from underwater debris.
But on the basis that this design had a good reputation, and that all yachts are a compromise, I remained interested.
The next mission was nine hours of train travel to Cherbourg on the English Channel to view an Alubat Ovni 35. Again, this was a go-anywhere vessel and her size better suited my requirements. But it was clear the Carambola 38 was a lot more boat for the money, so we travelled another nine hours back to La Rochelle to have another good look at the Carambola.
We had to head for home before the offer could be negotiated, but over time my original offer was accepted, an English-speaking surveyor engaged who fulfilled my requirement for a more detailed survey report than is usual, which included checking that all equipment was in ‘good working order’, because I would not be there to do the acceptance trial before payment.
And yes, I converted my New Zealand dollars to Euros at exactly the wrong moment.