Passage planning

We usually have a broad plan for the season. This year we hope to sail to the north end of the Gulf of Bothnia, then take a trip inland into the Arctic Circle. There and back will be about 2500 nautical miles.

Then we have a rough plan for about a week ahead, with possible harbours or anchorages, distances and sailing time for each day, with a look ahead at what the weather might be, which can affect our decisions.

Finally the night before, we get out the charts, update the weather outlook with a more accurate forecast and decide where to go. At that point we look at hazards and points of note along the way, and what we expect in the harbour we are aiming to visit – where can visitors tie up, and what type of mooring is used – alongside, on a pontoon berth, tied onto poles or a stern buoy, and often most importantly, which berths give the cockpit both shelter from the wind and a sunny evening to enjoy some R&R time. Sometimes we get it right!

This year, after a wait of over a year, we had an additional passage to plan. Karen’s new electric car finally arrived, and we decided to drive it 1200 miles to our base in Denmark. This was a big test with lots of ‘range anxiety’.

The car has a theoretical range of 250 miles, but realistically, most people would want to recharge after 200 miles or so. No-one wants to run out of power.

We charged the car fully on solar energy at Fahan the day before we left for Dublin. On the ferry to Cherbourg, we were able to charge overnight at a fixed fee of €15. We found that there was no problem on the major motorways finding service stations with fast chargers that took about 20 minutes to charge up again, so that really wasn’t a problem. Just enough time for a coffee beak or a sandwich. But some of them were expensive (around the same as diesel). We have now discovered how to keep the costs to about half the price of diesel by subscribing to dedicated electric car rechargers in preference to those supplied by the old oil companies…not that I’m suggesting anything there …

The trip cost about €108 in charging – about €0.09 per mile – not bad, with no problems finding and using fast charging. And it was so quiet, and smooth, and fast. What’s not to like!