Paul Heiney Planning your summer cruise has taken on a slightly more complicated aspect since Covid and Brexit made a cross channel dash something of a logistical headache
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t’s time to get the summer sorted. Now, where shall we go? France is always a favourite, isn’t it? A quick dash across the Channel, for a mouth full of crusty baguette that leaves your mouth feeling sandpapered. Then ashore for an evening’s indulgence of steak and frites swilled down with a pichet or two of rough red wine. That’s the life. There was a time, now seemingly long, long ago, when all we had to do when we tied up in France, was go ashore and hit the bars and cafes. The capitainerie might want a few details, but no more than that. Hardly an inconvenience. But times have changed, and because Covid has largely kept us at home for the last couple of sailing seasons, we have yet to fully come to terms with how much delayed that first croissant could now be. We are no longer part of the EU, everyone knows that, but what happens next is less certain. For example, can you be sure of the new entry requirements for sailing to France? Various organisations have done sterling work in trying to pin down the actual rules, but from my reading they all seem to have come to different conclusions. This is possibly because governments on both sides of the Channel don’t know what the rules are either, or don’t care. When these things are left to rumour and anecdote, that’s when we should start to worry. I have read on various internet forums (usually as reliable as asking a confirmed liar for the time of day, I know) that the French aren’t making any fuss so don’t bother doing anything. Then there’s story of a friend’s friend fined 500 Euros for nipping ashore for a quick pint. Or is there an online entry form, but which still requires you to use an official, possibly dreary, port of entry? One of the great pleasures, for me, has always been those quiet anchorages to be found along the Brittany coast, far from the obese marinas which have appeared in recent years. But I’m guessing that any official is not going to be overjoyed at being called out in the middle of the night with the offer of a row out to a rolling boat, thirty miles from their office, with the promise of a soggy trip in an Avon dinghy with a slow leak. And now the latest rumour - they’re going to do it all
with fingerprints from next year. To be honest, after a few hours on a cold tiller I don’t have any fingerprints left, so the best of luck with that one. I’m afraid this is all beginning to take me back to my voyage in the south Atlantic where dealing with officials verges on a full time job. For example, on arrival in a port in, say, Brazil, you must first find an immigration officer to stamp your passport, then customs clearance, and finally a permission from the harbour authority. Cruising is largely unheard of there, and so the procedures are exactly the same as if you were a fully-laden oil tanker, and about as ponderous. Just to make life interesting, the offices are often spread around town; or worse, down dark and doomy docksides where threat lurks - mugging here is almost a national sport. I remember a hot and steamy tramp round the back streets of Salvador hunting down the customs man. I eventually found his smoke filled office, complete with aged computer installed before Bill Gates was born, over which he laboured in a confused kind of way. I presented him with my papers. He immediately swung his legs on the desk, stroked his moustache, lit a cigarette, and then flicked through them with the disdain of your English teacher reading your rubbish essay. After about five minutes, he slammed the papers down and declared, ‘Come back tomorrow. I am tired’. No kidding! To make cruising life even more pleasant you have to reverse the procedure when you leave port, and go through it all again at the next harbour, even though they’re in the same country. To appreciate the full inconvenience that can cause, imagine a sail from Cowes to Lymington requiring the official stamp of no less that six government officers. Surely, it can never get as bad as that here, can it? Possibly it might - the complications and permutations keep on coming. I am going up to Scotland this year, probably calling in the Republic of Ireland, then Northern Ireland as I make my way up the Irish Sea. Despite there being no land border between the two, it seems yachts won’t have the same privilege. And so it begins. At least when I round the Mull of Kintyre and enter Scotland, there’s no prospect of a border crossing there, is there?
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JUNE 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
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ILLUSTRATION CLAIRE WOOD
‘Imagine a sail from Cowes to Lymington requiring the official stamp of no less that six government officers?’
