When we arrive in France I will make arrangements for Sarah's masts to be un-stepped to allow us to pass under the fixed bridges of the waterways.  The conventional approach is to have the masts lashed on deck for the waterway transit.  I will attempt to have the masts shipped to our destination on the med so we don't have to contend with the rigging during the waterway cruise

No matter which port of entry into France we use our initial destination will be Paris.  We will either transit the Canals of the North and Pas de Calais (Calais/Dunkirk entry) or the River Seine (le Havre entry) to Paris.  I plan to spend one month in Paris before heading down the Seine toward the Med.  It is possible that I might elect to spend the entire winter in the vicinity of Paris.

 

 From the Seine there are three possible routes to the River Saone, the Rhone and then the Med.
  1. The River Marne and its canals is the most eastern of the routes and possibly the most appealing.  However the canals on this route are probably not as well maintained as the other options.  Also this route is more subject to shoaling and reduced draught, especially during a drought.
  2. The Canal de Bourgogne is the middle choice combining equal appeal of the Marne with greater navigational ease.
  3. . The canals of the center provide the major commercial waterway from Paris to the Saone.  This route is the best maintained due to large amount of commercial traffic.  It is also probably the least appealing esthetically and the commercial traffic can make the transit a little more demanding.  However, this route would be the fastest.

All things being equal we will probably opt for the Canal de Bourgogne, but that decision will not be made until we depart Paris.

 

Le Havre to the Med

Although I have not decided which of the French ports on the English channel I will use as my port of entry, most likely it will be Le Havre.  Therefore this plan for transiting from the channel to Paris assumes Le Havre as the start in France.  Nor have I determined our final destination at the other end of the waterway on the Med.  Most likely it will be one of the large marinas in the vicinity of the Grau du Roi.  Our probable route is traced in red on the map to the right.

 

  

 

This chart shows the passage from Le Havre (at the bottom) to Paris (at the top).  The trip from le Havre to Paris covers a distance of approximately 370 km and requires the transit of 6 locks or ecluse.  Upon entry into the harbor we will make arrangements to clear French customs, complete all of the required documents for a foreign flagged vessel to transit the waterways.  After all entry actions are complete we will start our trip up the Seine to Paris.  The initial portion of the trip (168 km) will be on the tidal Seine to the port city of Rouen.  At Rouen we will un-step Sarah's masts and rigging.  The masts and rigging will be put into storage and shipped by truck to our planned destination on the Med.  About 40 km upstream from Rouen we will encounter our first lock (Bas de Poses) on le Seine above Elbeuf.  From there to Paris (202 km) we will be transiting the non-tidal extent of le Seine.

I expect this portion of the trip to take a minimum of one week, but more likely two weeks.

  
Our stay in Paris will be determined to a large extent by the availability of a quality berth and the condition of the waterways at the time of our arrival.  At a minimum I would expect stay for 2 weeks, hopefully at the Paris Arsenal Port de Plaisance.  Our arrival should be in late fall (November) and the water depth in the canals may be reduced if there has been any sort of a drought.  In which case (and if I can afford it) I may elect to spend the winter in Paris, departing in the spring when the reservoirs should be full from the snow melt and spring rains.  It would be preferable to get to the Med before the onset of winter, but if I have to tough out a cold winter doing so in Paris takes a lot of the tough out of it.  
Departing Paris (whenever) we will resume our passage upstream on l'Seine until it is joined by the l'Yonne near Montereau.  We will then turn into the l'Yonne heading upstream for the entrance to the Canal du Bourgogne.

 

 

  
     

We will continue upstream (top to bottom on the chart) on l'Yonne for approximately 56 km until we enter the Canal de Bourgogne a few kilometers past Joigny.  This is the area I and friends explored in a self-drive barge in 1995.  On that trip we remained on l'Yonne and entered the Canal du Nivernais at Auxerre. 

I have just noticed (Oct 18, 2002) that earlier this year the VNF, which administers the waterways, dropped the working depth for the Canal du Bourgogne from 1.8m to 1.4m.  If this restriction remains in place in 2004/2005 the Burgundy canal will be out as Sarah draws 1.6m (5' 3").  That will leave the Bourbonnais route (Canal du Centre) or the Marne as the viable routes.  I'll leave the web page pointed to the Bourgogne for the time being until the situation becomes more clear.

The situation was verified by a correspondent to the Cruising Association in the UK.

  
The Canal du Bourgogne connects l'Yonne to l'Soane.  The initial 154 km will be upstream until we reach the summit at Pouilly en Auxois.  There we will pass through the 3 km tunnel and start downstream on the other side.  We could easily transit the canal in less than two weeks, but I may wish to extend our time on this canal to three weeks or more.  
At St Jean de Losne we will depart the Canal de Bourgogne and enter the River Saone, heading down stream.  Now we will be back on one of the major rivers of France and water depth should no longer be a major concern, except when we want to find a suitable halt for the evening.  The ecluse will also be much less frequent with only five locks between St. Jean de Losne and Lyon, where we will enter the Rhone.  However these locks will be the large commercial locks which will require more active boat handling during the lock passage than on the canal.

 

  

At Lyon the Saone merges into the Rhone and the remainder of the journey to the Med will be on the River Rhone.  This is largest waterway in France, the equivalent to France of the Mississippi to the United States.  The locks on the Rhone are monstrous, some will drop us 80 feet in a single lock.  However, because these locks support the major commercial waterway in France they are well maintained and reportedly the transit is actually smoother than the transit of comparatively puny canal locks.  We shall see.

  
I have not determined our departure point from the French Waterways, but it will most likely be one of the large and well equipped marinas between the Grau du Roi and Sete.  When I did a barge tour on the Canal du Midi, just NW of this area, I had the opportunity to tour this portion of France's Mediterranean coast.  I was amazed at the number and the size of the Marinas in this area.  We should have no trouble finding one that can re-step Sarah's rigging and perform any repairs that may be necessary after several months of inland cruising.

From this point Sarah's Mediterranean cruise will begin.

 

  

The www.svsarah website has been republished in a new format.  All of the old pages have been copied to the new format.  I've started to provide re-direct links from the old pages to the new ones.