Nick Bamford needed to bring his Sigma 362 Such Stuff back from Greece to the UK. He took the scenic route via the French canals and rivers
It was 18h30 and we were ploughing through a thick blanket of weed at the end of our first day on our first French canal, using full revs to achieve no more than 3kts. The echo-sounder was reading 0.8m. We bottom out at 1.3m even without the mast. A VNF (Voies Navigables de France) van pulled up alongside and the driver pointed out we should have stopped by 1800 as that’s when the locks closed, then asked where we proposed to moor as the only available space this side of the next lock was occupied. We didn’t have an answer, so he left us to it.
In the end we managed to reverse to some railings under a bridge, plough the keel into the mud and get lines round the railings. But we wondered what on earth we thought we were doing, and how we would ever get out of this mess.
It had all begun in 2021 when Such Stuff was residing at Cleopatra Marina in Preveza, Greece and we were learning just what a hassle keeping her there after Brexit was going to be. We’d need to maintain a Transit Log – reporting to the Port Police every time we entered or left a harbour and take her out of the EU at least once every 18 months. That meant Albania – not a particularly attractive prospect – or Turkey, or Montenegro – both a considerable sail away.
Add to that, the boat was 32 years old and, having been in the Mediterranean for 16 years, was in need of some serious tlc. Being 1,500 miles away she was just antifouled and bunged back in every year. Now we live in Cornwall – one of the finest cruising areas in the UK – the only thing that made sense was to bring her home.
Going round the outside, as we had in 2006 on the way out there, would involve flogging against headwinds past the Iberian peninsular while trying to dodge rudder-hungry orcas. Somehow that didn’t seem an attractive prospect. We could have had her low-loaded, but that was seriously expensive.
Brexit headache
To complicate matters there was the issue of Returned Goods Relief (RGR). Following Brexit there was the threat that owners of any boats that had been outside UK waters for more than three years would face paying VAT again if they were not back by 30 June 2022. A big thanks to the RYA for seeing off that bit of nonsense.
The only other option was the French canals. But the Sigma 362 draws 1.8m – right on the limit for any of the available routes. A great deal of research followed, using online forums and the helpful folk at the French Water
