Met Michael Bryant a couple of years ago when sailing from La Rochelle to Porto and am again on the startline from Holland to Gibraltar. Found just Michael´s channel and remember the evening I met him. Very nice guy and thanks for this wonderful video. Nice, informative and very helpflull,
Thanks Michael for your explanations and pictures. I watched and listened to nearly all your contributions during the windy and snowy Easter sunday and it was a very entertaining and instructive story.
Boulogne looks like an interesting destination to explore with plenty of history. I wasn’t aware of its past association with Charles Dickens. Great sailing video.
Hi Michael, we were in August in Boulogne. Thanks for the instructions everything went well and the harbor experience was a bit crowdy, we had to squeeze our 38 ft between others but everything went well:).The Old town was very nice !!
Interesting and very enjoyable. Great to see a little of boulogne sur mer. I spent a bit of time working in Dover area. Made many trips over to Calais. Only once drove to boulogne. Looked nice. The draw was always towards Belgium to Brugge direction. Otherwise down to Thiepval to visit Somme memorial and surrounding ww1 landmarks. I enjoy your descriptions. I know nothing about sailing boats but I have travelled on a lot of boats crossing from Ireland to Wales or Larne to cairnryan then Dover Calais and driving down France to tip of Spain Tarifa many times in Gib. A few good boat trips over to Tangier Med or Ceuta. Travel is such fun. I miss it so much. I guess I enjoy your sailing travel as it is the exact opposite to what I do on land. Maybe I should learn to sail. I could start in lough Erne in Fermanagh. But at 56 my wife might think I’m mad. She hates boats so I’ve always had to bribe her with great shopping once we get there. I met a man one time in Puerto Duquesa Spain one time. He got off a boat not unlike yours with a black and white collie sheepdog. I had a great conversation with him. He told me how he had sailed many places including back and forward between South Africa and Argentina. He took on Argentinian crew which helped him learn Spanish. The joys of travel. Thanks for the video.
Dear Foster, How interesting - Yes you do seem to be a land edition of me - travel - voyaging is in our DNA I think. I really do not think 56 is too old to take up sailing - I set off on my circumnavigation when I was 51 - it is not an outward bound course and is a wonderful way to see/find new places...
Thank you for watching - I enjoyed browsing your channel - used to live in a woonboot in Amsterdam and sail in the Ijsselmeer - Well done getting over 100 subscribers - I found that harder than the first 1,000
@@SCCFORUM Back in the day when I was a telly director film stock was very expensive plus processing costs so a shooting ratio of 10-1 Ten minutes of exposed film for one minute screen time was the maximum allowable .... I now have 4 digital sports cameras recording onto chips and because I am single handing I need to switch them on before I start getting the sails in and the fenders and warps out so I end up with a vast amount of footage and am only able to use a few seconds of it... I think 1000-1 might be more accurate and I am going to have to buy another external hard drive to store it all on!! best Michael
I like your videos ! Very enjoyable and addicting. Thank you so much for sharing your great extent of knowledge of which I'm particularly interested in. Cheers
great video channel just found it. thanks for the informative content, nice to see a youtube sailing channel about how to sail into unknown to me ports of call keep it up. from SF bay area
@@SailingGently thx for the reply. i understand you live in france, where about? i have only been to Marseille, but i'm interested in coming back to check out port towns with nice marinas. we are planning to an apt./house either go to spain, getafe area or france? thanks again for your content.
@@svcrucible8303 Hi, I am in Northern France - Boulogne sur mer but before that lived in La Rochelle which has one of the biggest marinas in Europe and is a very beautiful town - full of history. Then we moved to Spain and I kept the boat in Gibraltar - frankly because it was cheaper than a Spanish marina.. Nice place to cruise from with lots of places to sail to. For a couple of years we kept the boat near Barcelona which is a super city and makes Greek islands more easily accessible than from Gib
@@SailingGently Just about sailing and Sailing Gently two of my favourite channels. I hope you both meet up one day, that would make a great video.👍🏻 Regards, Paul.
@@verynearlyaboutsailing8114 Your site is so interesting and your ability to fix things is amazing... And fixing things is the basic essential tool of sailing...
Yes, more of this type harbor entrances. Patrick Laine does a similar thing when he is solo sailing around, except for his own country, France. Which I think would add great content as you do now to your channel.
If Covid permits I will do some English ones - but oddly these harbour videos are not that popular - and I thought they would be... Possibly just the potential audience for a niche subject??
@@SailingGently If you feel it is to much of a niche or does not attract new views (when your YT channel is so young), then maybe continue down south for more french ports. But that is just my take on it. Do you want a small but loyal or a larger, come and go, subscriber base? Drake Paragon has "only" 35K subscribers and 450 videos, after years, and years sailing to fantastic places. There story telling style is special, very much just let camera roll. I love it, I can not find any other channel that actually place yourself into there boat. There subscribers are there with them. But this is not great for all viewers. There are lot and lots of "yet another Med/Caribian pair/family" channels - to many, without much to tell, just "me to". Conclusion, YT has a channel for every taste and quality content does not always pay off. Cheers.
@@Cptnbond I really started the channel to find a home for my round the world videos from back in 2000 ish and now that VHS then DVD sales had stopped I wanted to not let them just vanish and RUclips allowed that - then later I thought that the sort of pilotage videos might be interesting and in the covid gap did a little voyage along the French Coast shooting in and out of places which I then edited in lockdown and published = then ran out of material and started finding other boaty adventures to make videos about - i think this a bit of a bubble which will inevitably burst but for the moment it's fun and appears to be giving pleasure so - That's lovely
So glad its useful.. Still assessing the in boom reefing.. Had an interesting hour or two in the dark off Le Havre un jamming it! But my fault for reefing it incorrectly in too much wind...
Hi Michael watched this many times - but do you also have any video and anecdotes/information for a video further up the north coast past Calais, especially Dunkirk and beyond - I maybe coast hopping back down in the spring to Boulogne sur Mer and then tackle the 66NM to Brighton. Your way of describing all this is really informative; plus have you decided where you will base Golden Haze this summer? Johnny
Johnny hello, Yes I did think about doing Boulogne to Amsterdam but I think I need to sail it again to make it interesting and I'm probably going to take Golden Haze down La Rochelle this summer and maybe keep her there for a year or so
My chart shows 5-7 metres in the main port and Basin Napoleon and the same or more in the approaches from the outer breakwater. Check with the capitainary contact@boulogne-marina.fr Yohann speaks perfect english
Excellent as ever, we have concerns about Bologne and Calais having had rather unpleasant experiences during the worst of the immigrant crisis when they were being very forceful in their efforts to reach the UK by any means, is this still an issue??
Here in Boulogne where I live there is zero immigrant problem partly perhaps because there is no ferry running. When I go to Calais there are lots of big fences around the port area and marina so sailing in is not a problem I think - around the marina area it seems OK. I think it's still a problem around the camps but I am not sure where they are - I reckon visiting either town by boat is not a problem.
You are absolutely right and I was wrong! I should have looked... Just assumed it was the same direction at Dover as further west - Ebb tide goes west... Thank you for pointing it out. Interesting how complicated the tides are in the Pas de Calais area... Michael
@@SailingGently Well I was going to turn right along the french coast this year,instead of left,so getting across the east/west ebb divide loomed large.The Cherbourg pilot was of particular interest,thank you,as will be the points in between.
took a while but I have managed to edit the high bit out... Silly me - should have looked at my tidal atlas.. Thank you again for pointing out the error...
@@swalemouth The tides are amazing and the tidal atlas of some sort really useful. last week I managed to carry a fair tide from Dieppe to Boulogne all the way for over 8 hours knocking almost 2 hours off the passage time... Did the same in the opposite direction at the start of September!
Despite my implying in another video about planning, that I did the passage to Boulogne from Le Treport in reality I left Dieppe at dawn and carried a fair tide all the way just like you.. Better than the tidal atlas implied or maybe because I motor-sailed hard for the first few hours and got further north than anticipated in my planning...
Hello - a question concerning your stay in the Boulogne marina. Do they have winter places on land or is it common to keep the boat in sea? Thanks for very informative films.
Hello, In Boulogne there are two travel lifts and a haul out area which is in the process of being improved and enlarged. Only space at the moment for 20 odd boats to haul for the winter, Because all the permanent berths are locked inside the Basin Napoleon it is a very smooth, wave -less environment. Very secure. I have kept Golden Haze in the water this year but I am 5 minutes drive from the marina... Glad you find the videos interesting Michael
Met Michael Bryant a couple of years ago when sailing from La Rochelle to Porto and am again on the startline from Holland to Gibraltar. Found just Michael´s channel and remember the evening I met him. Very nice guy and thanks for this wonderful video. Nice, informative and very helpflull,
Juan hello, It was good meeting you - thank you for remembering - Glad you enjoyed the video as well
Thanks Michael for your explanations and pictures. I watched and listened to nearly all your contributions during the windy and snowy Easter sunday and it was a very entertaining and instructive story.
Mark that is so good to hear... I made them with pleasure and it is terrific to hear you find them entertaining - thank you
Boulogne looks like an interesting destination to explore with plenty of history. I wasn’t aware of its past association with Charles Dickens. Great sailing video.
Yes it was news to me before I moved there... Makes a Tale of Two Cities even more interesting - fascinating man!
Hi Michael, we were in August in Boulogne. Thanks for the instructions everything went well and the harbor experience was a bit crowdy, we had to squeeze our 38 ft between others but everything went well:).The Old town was very nice !!
Glad you enjoyed it Carlo - yes it gets busy in high summer like a lot of places - glad you enjoyed the old town - that's where I live!
Interesting and very enjoyable. Great to see a little of boulogne sur mer. I spent a bit of time working in Dover area. Made many trips over to Calais. Only once drove to boulogne. Looked nice. The draw was always towards Belgium to Brugge direction. Otherwise down to Thiepval to visit Somme memorial and surrounding ww1 landmarks. I enjoy your descriptions. I know nothing about sailing boats but I have travelled on a lot of boats crossing from Ireland to Wales or Larne to cairnryan then Dover Calais and driving down France to tip of Spain Tarifa many times in Gib. A few good boat trips over to Tangier Med or Ceuta. Travel is such fun. I miss it so much.
I guess I enjoy your sailing travel as it is the exact opposite to what I do on land. Maybe I should learn to sail. I could start in lough Erne in Fermanagh. But at 56 my wife might think I’m mad. She hates boats so I’ve always had to bribe her with great shopping once we get there.
I met a man one time in Puerto Duquesa Spain one time. He got off a boat not unlike yours with a black and white collie sheepdog. I had a great conversation with him. He
told me how he had sailed many places including back and forward between South Africa and Argentina. He took on Argentinian crew which helped him learn Spanish. The joys of travel.
Thanks for the video.
Dear Foster,
How interesting - Yes you do seem to be a land edition of me - travel - voyaging is in our DNA I think. I really do not think 56 is too old to take up sailing - I set off on my circumnavigation when I was 51 - it is not an outward bound course and is a wonderful way to see/find new places...
Love these guides
So pleased you think they are useful
Thank you for sharing!
Thank you for watching - I enjoyed browsing your channel - used to live in a woonboot in Amsterdam and sail in the Ijsselmeer - Well done getting over 100 subscribers - I found that harder than the first 1,000
great. thank you
You are welcome!
I don’t even have a boat at the mo and I’m enjoying this...thanks!
I am so glad - it was a fun if cold sail
Hi Michael,
Good to see another video from you. I am looking forward to this series of the Northern ports.
All the best,
Paul.
Thank you Paul, lots of footage but a shooting ratio of 500-1 sadly
@@SailingGently Hi Michael,
What do you mean by 500-1 shooting ratio?
Regards,
Paul.
@@SCCFORUM Back in the day when I was a telly director film stock was very expensive plus processing costs so a shooting ratio of 10-1 Ten minutes of exposed film for one minute screen time was the maximum allowable .... I now have 4 digital sports cameras recording onto chips and because I am single handing I need to switch them on before I start getting the sails in and the fenders and warps out so I end up with a vast amount of footage and am only able to use a few seconds of it... I think 1000-1 might be more accurate and I am going to have to buy another external hard drive to store it all on!!
best
Michael
@@SailingGently Thanks Michael for explaining that.
@@SCCFORUM de nada!
I like your videos ! Very enjoyable and addicting. Thank you so much for sharing your great extent of knowledge of which I'm particularly interested in. Cheers
Robert thank you for watching... I was not sure how interesting the 'pilotage' videos would be so it's good to hear from you
Excellent!
Thank you.... So glad it is useful
great video channel just found it. thanks for the informative content, nice to see a youtube sailing channel about how to sail into unknown to me ports of call keep it up. from SF bay area
Thanks for watching JB - you have a lovely cruising area but do try these French ports sometime - they are really interesting!
@@SailingGently thx for the reply. i understand you live in france, where about? i have only been to Marseille, but i'm interested in coming back to check out port towns with nice marinas. we are planning to an apt./house either go to spain, getafe area or france? thanks again for your content.
@@svcrucible8303 Hi, I am in Northern France - Boulogne sur mer but before that lived in La Rochelle which has one of the biggest marinas in Europe and is a very beautiful town - full of history. Then we moved to Spain and I kept the boat in Gibraltar - frankly because it was cheaper than a Spanish marina.. Nice place to cruise from with lots of places to sail to. For a couple of years we kept the boat near Barcelona which is a super city and makes Greek islands more easily accessible than from Gib
@@SailingGently thx for the reply. I watch the Atlantic video the most as that is the way I’ll get to Europe. Keep the videos coming!
@@svcrucible8303 So pleased it was useful - thank you
Thanks. That was a really useful video with exactly the right amount of detail.
How kind to message me. It was your brilliant Just About Sailing channel that motivated me to start mine.... You have set a very high bar!
@@SailingGently Just about sailing and Sailing Gently two of my favourite channels.
I hope you both meet up one day, that would make a great video.👍🏻
Regards,
Paul.
@@SailingGently I have to set the bar high - so I can comfortably walk right under it ;)
@@verynearlyaboutsailing8114 Your site is so interesting and your ability to fix things is amazing... And fixing things is the basic essential tool of sailing...
Very informative, hope to use your info next year,! Looking forward to next video. Thank you
Thanks Ms Gray... I think you will enjoy sailing your lovely Dragon Seeker into Boulogne! :-)
Very useful for our next trip :)thanks a lot
Its a nice town... walk up the hill Carlo to the old town where there are antique shops and restaurants.
Yes, more of this type harbor entrances. Patrick Laine does a similar thing when he is solo sailing around, except for his own country, France. Which I think would add great content as you do now to your channel.
If Covid permits I will do some English ones - but oddly these harbour videos are not that popular - and I thought they would be... Possibly just the potential audience for a niche subject??
@@SailingGently If you feel it is to much of a niche or does not attract new views (when your YT channel is so young), then maybe continue down south for more french ports. But that is just my take on it. Do you want a small but loyal or a larger, come and go, subscriber base?
Drake Paragon has "only" 35K subscribers and 450 videos, after years, and years sailing to fantastic places. There story telling style is special, very much just let camera roll. I love it, I can not find any other channel that actually place yourself into there boat. There subscribers are there with them. But this is not great for all viewers. There are lot and lots of "yet another Med/Caribian pair/family" channels - to many, without much to tell, just "me to". Conclusion, YT has a channel for every taste and quality content does not always pay off.
Cheers.
@@Cptnbond I really started the channel to find a home for my round the world videos from back in 2000 ish and now that VHS then DVD sales had stopped I wanted to not let them just vanish and RUclips allowed that - then later I thought that the sort of pilotage videos might be interesting and in the covid gap did a little voyage along the French Coast shooting in and out of places which I then edited in lockdown and published = then ran out of material and started finding other boaty adventures to make videos about -
i think this a bit of a bubble which will inevitably burst but for the moment it's fun and appears to be giving pleasure so - That's lovely
Enjoying the videos , nice one!! 😎
Really pleased you liked it - thank you
Another interesting and informative video and thank you for your feedback on your main sail reefing 👍
So glad its useful.. Still assessing the in boom reefing.. Had an interesting hour or two in the dark off Le Havre un jamming it! But my fault for reefing it incorrectly in too much wind...
Perfect!! Really helpful as we will be crawling down the French coast next season - thank you (please can you do Fecamp and Le Harve)
Fecamp is now up on the site... Hope you like it!
@@SailingGently You Sir are super star.... just watched it with the Mrs! We really liked it.... really really helpful
Nice to see a vlog without the hipe accociated...pleasant
It just makes me happy to be around boats...
Hi Michael watched this many times - but do you also have any video and anecdotes/information for a video further up the north coast past Calais, especially Dunkirk and beyond - I maybe coast hopping back down in the spring to Boulogne sur Mer and then tackle the 66NM to Brighton. Your way of describing all this is really informative; plus have you decided where you will base Golden Haze this summer? Johnny
Johnny hello,
Yes I did think about doing Boulogne to Amsterdam but I think I need to sail it again to make it interesting and I'm probably going to take Golden Haze down La Rochelle this summer and maybe keep her there for a year or so
Thanks for the video Michael very useful. Can you advise if there is enough water for a boat of 2.6m draft?
My chart shows 5-7 metres in the main port and Basin Napoleon and the same or more in the approaches from the outer breakwater. Check with the capitainary contact@boulogne-marina.fr
Yohann speaks perfect english
Excellent as ever, we have concerns about Bologne and Calais having had rather unpleasant experiences during the worst of the immigrant crisis when they were being very forceful in their efforts to reach the UK by any means, is this still an issue??
Here in Boulogne where I live there is zero immigrant problem partly perhaps because there is no ferry running. When I go to Calais there are lots of big fences around the port area and marina so sailing in is not a problem I think - around the marina area it seems OK. I think it's still a problem around the camps but I am not sure where they are - I reckon visiting either town by boat is not a problem.
Err,in my atlas the tidal stream will be setting you north if you leave Dover towards HW
You are absolutely right and I was wrong! I should have looked... Just assumed it was the same direction at Dover as further west - Ebb tide goes west... Thank you for pointing it out. Interesting how complicated the tides are in the Pas de Calais area...
Michael
@@SailingGently Well I was going to turn right along the french coast this year,instead of left,so getting across the east/west ebb divide loomed large.The Cherbourg pilot was of particular interest,thank you,as will be the points in between.
took a while but I have managed to edit the high bit out... Silly me - should have looked at my tidal atlas.. Thank you again for pointing out the error...
@@swalemouth The tides are amazing and the tidal atlas of some sort really useful. last week I managed to carry a fair tide from Dieppe to Boulogne all the way for over 8 hours knocking almost 2 hours off the passage time... Did the same in the opposite direction at the start of September!
Despite my implying in another video about planning, that I did the passage to Boulogne from Le Treport in reality I left Dieppe at dawn and carried a fair tide all the way just like you.. Better than the tidal atlas implied or maybe because I motor-sailed hard for the first few hours and got further north than anticipated in my planning...
Great content, very useful. Hope you get a better microphone for the talkie-bits in your armchair?
Thank you Roderick - Yes the audio was awful but despite the learning curve it's better in later videos I think!
Hello - a question concerning your stay in the Boulogne marina. Do they have winter places on land or is it common to keep the boat in sea? Thanks for very informative films.
Hello,
In Boulogne there are two travel lifts and a haul out area which is in the process of being improved and enlarged. Only space at the moment for 20 odd boats to haul for the winter,
Because all the permanent berths are locked inside the Basin Napoleon it is a very smooth, wave -less environment. Very secure. I have kept Golden Haze in the water this year but I am 5 minutes drive from the marina... Glad you find the videos interesting
Michael