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A typical day out between the islands crossing The Falls of Warness in Orkney

Yes, but I don't know how much finds its way to UKHO as there are also concerns about commercial confidentiality. The data belongs to the businesses that pay for it. However, its many years since I did any hydrographic work as I moved on into education and retired a while back. Met data, wave...

In order to give live tidal streams you need to deploy current meters with a live data feed. That's a lot of hardware to source and maintain to meet the OP's requirements. Tidal diamonds and other stream data were at best obtained by deploying a string of self recording instruments over a month...

An improvement on the shorter suggestions, its length will help it get over the waves better. I remember a day sailing on a friend's Vertue. A very nice boat that sailed well in calmer water but I could not help thinking that it needed a few feet more in length to help it along when we got in a...

Sorry no recent experience of Wick. The last time I was there all berths were against the harbour wall. Once I moved to Stromness if going east I would spend a night on a mooring at the east end of Scapa Flow so as to time the tide right to cross the Pentland Firth then head off south past Wick...

Depends how quickly you want to do it. If time is no constraint then wait somewhere comfortable for suitable winds. Also, does it have to be completed in one season, especially given the OP's expected size/speed of boat? For comparison the full Round Britain will give most, if not all, of the...

On my last boat I put an electric fuel pump with its own switch in the line before the engine. Under normal circumstances and to bleed the primary filters it is not needed, but it helps with bleeding the engine filter (and injectors if required). This was after the manual pump on the engine...

As I have already admitted, I have never set out to sail "Round Britain". I have however bought a number of boats in the south of England and sailed them home to either Shetland or Orkney, along with similar passages in either direction made for other reasons. The passages were made both with...

I hope that you are still with us and that somewhere amongst all our ramblings and diversions you can find some encouragement. Go for it in your own way, as we have all done. There is no one "right answer", we all find our own.

The prep for my last boat took a month in Plymouth and included: Sanding of hull after soda blasting then apply three coats of epoxy and Coppercoat. Replace all standing rigging (mast up) including 2 new roller reefing gears on larger diameter forestays - double spreader cutter rig. Transfer...

Every cruising boat I have bought, and charter yacht I have been paid to skipper, has been "unknown" until I took it over and checked it out. Start at the bow and methodically work aft. I would spend three or four weeks plus checking and working on the boats I bought before heading out to sea.

The first boat I regularly sailed belonged to a friend, it was a 30ft gaff ketch with a Stuart non-Turner. I only saw that engine run once, at the beginning of the season from yard to mooring, but day sailed it single handed most weekends for a summer.

It would be my choice, or something very similar like my old Trintella 29. In fact the Trintella would probably have enough headroom in the main cabin to suit the OP. These boats may lack the internal volume and be a bit slower than more modern boats but they have load carrying ability for...

As I hinted earlier, self steering can be a problem. It is not just batteries. When in Orkney I helped a guy who had set out to sail around Britain singlehanded and none-stop. He set off with two Raymarine tiller pilots that were well within spec for his boat - according to their sales blurb...

Wasn't there a guy who decided to sail single handed around the world but could not get a sponsor to build a suitable boat. Not to miss out he went in the boat he already had? Robin-Knox-Johnston and Suhaili.

Indeed, and once he gets further north there is always the option of settling for a circumnavigation of England and Wales via the Caledonian Canal.

I remember being inspired as a student by an article in YM. A guy built a boat using materials salvaged from demolition sites. It had a simple dory type hull plus keel and junk rig. He then sailed it across the Atlantic. I think the boat was called "Eric the Red". Anyway, from the info in the...

Well that's pretty well what I did long before becoming a YM Instructor, (see post#43) though 3K in 1974 will equate to more than 5K now, but it was the cheapest boat in reasonable condition that I could find at the time that had the potential to live on.

I agree, though if I aggregate my UK passage making then I have been around all of Britain except for the Channel between IOW and Torbay. Having been up and down the channel on survey vessels I don't think I have missed anything significant regarding sailing experience. Sailing around the St...

I am at the end of almost 50 years continuous yacht ownership. While agreeing with Concerto based on that experience I think it only fair to make a counter argument. In late 1974 I bought my first cruising boat, a 26ft, professionally built, plywood catamaran. We launched it at the head of...