Sailing holidays

[TitanicWasAGreatMovie]

Hi, have any non-sailors among you taken a sailing holiday?

This would be the type where you go with other a small group of other holiday makers and stay on a smallish boat. It would be everyone pitching in with cooking and cleaning up, but the boat has a pilot to sail around an area for 5 days.

Husband wants to go on one, I don't know if I'd like it, so I'd love to hear experiences!!

My DH is the sailor so we’ve done a few flotilla holidays with him directing the rest of us. The biggest yacht we’ve had has been a 3 berth (for 4 of us) and if we had a pilot on board you’d be more squashed and the cost would rocket. Tbh I love my family but a boat is a small place and there’s only so long I’d want to be there with them! A week is good.

i do know people have had pilots on board as part of a teaching opportunity - getting day skipper etc. I honestly wouldn’t do it unless you’re thinking along those lines. We eat in restaurants every evening and have snacks lunches, so not much catering to be done on board.

Thanks for your advice!

No, I dont think we would be learning to sail on this one.

I was worried about the small space, especially since I won't know the other people (it would be a friends of friends situation). Also, having to cook/clean up if we don't stop at a restaurant.

On the plus side, it looks like a super way of seeing a few different islands and something very new for me and DH (sailing and boats).

I did loads of flotilla holiday as a kid in Greece. Here you hire a boat for two weeks and sail round the Greek islands with a flotilla of about 8 other boats. The flotilla is lead by a boat that has a captain, engineer and hostess on board. They tell you where which port you are going to sail to each day. These were great, discovering beautiful little coves, sunbathing on deck, jumping off the back of the boat straight into the sea and having gorgeous picnic lunches.

Having gone sailing with a bunch of strangers when I was 18, I am not sure I would do it now, aged 42. It’s a bit like sharing a caravan with a bunch of strangers. Depending on the boat the partition between toilet and bedroom can be a bit of ply wood.

The typical entry into flotilla sailing is learning the basics of sailing in a dinghy and then doing your day skipper qualification as an evening course. If you have not got the time for that then then I remember that some of the big tour operator (Neilson)used to offer a week of learning how to sail and a then a week of flotilla sailing. They call it stay and sail.

Also there is little wind in the middle of summer, you need some otherwise it's boring. so you might want to go in May/June or then September.

Sorry sounds like my idea of hell 👹

I've been on sail boats with strangers as part of day excursions in Greece, but wouldn't want to be trapped with them in a tiny space for a whole week.

If you want to see many different places by boat why not go on a more traditional cruise?

Funnily enough I was going to use the caravan analogy. Sail boats are like floating caravans!

We’ve hired crewed boats as a a family and sailed with good friends on larger chartered boats and love it, but you need to all pitch in and the captain is in charge. crewed is easier but very costly. If you want space, extremely costly.

Next time we will have an 8 berth for the 4 of us as the confined space drives me mad. We will
have to have crew as we are not qualified.

Look at Gulet holidays in Turkey. You don't even need to cook and clean as the crew do that for you.

I haven't done it but a friend does this sort of holiday every year and raves about it. I've been on scuba diving liveaboards, which are a similar set up.

I went on one to Greece it was hell, my DH and another man are yacht masters, l don’t sail, it was a 50 boat that slept 10, 8 people on it. You can’t get moored up because of the flotilla lot, they get in early and nab the berths. Despite the vessel being only one year old it kept breaking down, no maintenance done they just hammer the hell out of them and hope for the best.

I went on one some years ago now for a 5 day sailing course with a friend. 5 days was plenty. I enjoyed it but the husband of one couple was a bit of a pain, nothing awful but became more irritating as the week went on and I was quite pissed off with him by the end as by then he only had to breathe and my hackles went up. But overall I did enjoy it and it reignited my love for fray bentos pies

Thanks for sharing your experiences. You've given me lot to think about before I agree to this trip, inc the caravan analogy !

Have you ever sailed @TitanicWasAGreatMovie?Do you know for certain that you (plural) won’t get seasick?

No, the closest I've been to sailing is the ferry across to Calais!

What about a beach based holiday, where you’re based in a hotel, and can do sailing (and other activities?).

Other companies include Nielsen and Sunsail.

www.markwarner.co.uk

I’d have a go at being a passenger on a small boat before committing to a sailing holiday. It could be a very expensive and miserable mistake otherwise.

My FIL and friends chartered a crewed catamaran round the Caribbean, and the other chap was sick as a dog for the MONTH (!) they were on it.

I had somehow not considered the possibility of being seasick (I was more concerned about being in a tight space with people I didn't know).

I think I might give this one a swerve. And, its pretty expensive compared to our usual package deal type hols.

I’ve done flotilla holidays in Greece, Turkey and the Bahamas. The first time we went (Greece), we learnt to sail during the first week (stayed in a hotel and sailed by day and there were a few of us on the boat learning at the same time). Then you were allowed to take out your own boat (about 32’) that you lived in for the following week while you sailed by yourself. Every morning you would turn up to the morning briefing where wind conditions, best lunch stops and your evening destination were discussed. It gave the best of both worlds that you were sailing by yourself and could stop in a completely isolated bay and have it all to yourself, but had the security of back up if anything went wrong.
We went with the same company to Turkey (Sunsail) and we just hired the boat straight off as they knew we had prior experience.
For the Bahamas we had to take a day skippers course (evening classes and a weekend sailing in the Solent) to be allowed to take an unskippered boat out. Again we had the flotilla experience in case we ran into difficulties. I really recommend it as a holiday, it was such fun and you had the best of both worlds - enough to do but plenty of time for relaxing as well).
i wouldn’t however want to share a smallish boat with relative strangers. I can’t imagine that would be relaxing at all.