sailing in winter

[dnab]

I have a friend of mine who is almost ready to get his 48 foot refurbished yacht from Inverness to Essex. He is not a particularly experienced sailor but has access to people who are. As the weather is probably going to start getting a tad worse and more difficult to sail in, I was hoping that someone here might have some experience of sailing around in the North Sea in the winter months..what windows of opportunity are there? and what do think of attempting to do this? Thanks for any advice in advance.

[Silkie]

Apologies to all and especially dnab as I seem to have made a right erse of moving this topic to Passages and Places and have deleted posts by Mark, myself and Rowana.

I responded to the question of windows of opportunity with this link:

http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/singularities.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I promise not to do it again if you gentlemen would care to repost on the Passages and Places version.

[Gardenshed]

surely going from Inverness to Englandshire is "around the scottish coast" or at least around a good bit of it

[Silkie]

AROUND THE SCOTTISH COAST
Post any interesting Scottish sailing news here . . .

[claymore]

That particular forum is a complete load of cobblers
duplicates and dilutes shooting the breeze and passages and places

Personally I think the architect of this mess should have a breeze shot up his passage

its even reduced the Silken one to a babbling sycophant.

Harrumph

[Rowana]

. . . if you gentlemen would care to repost on the Passages and Places version.

Can't remember what I said exactly, but I have sailed from Inverness to Dover on a 40ft cat an the end of October/beginning of November. There were three of us on board - Skipper, one other experienced crew and me. We did it in one go, and had very little wind which resulted in burning a fair bit of diesel.

Wrap up well, watch the forecast, and it should be fine.


(I think that was the gist of my post)

[marisca]

Next week should be a dawdle - high pressure and nae wind. I was supposed to be finishing my annual pilgrimage frae the west to Port Edgar in time for this weekend's regatta but the threat/promise of 5m+ cross seas and a wee tad of wind has the good ship Marisca loitering in Muirtown basin until Sunday when the seas should flatten and the wind fade to nought. Can't say I fancy the donk noise for 36 hours but needs must.