On 26 Feb, 21:02, pantagruel wrote:
Hi,

I've done some day sailing before but not really cruising, and not
anything difficult, I was thinking of buying a new houseboat and
cruising Europe with it, the boats I've got my eye on aren't really
suited to long journeys (most houseboats aren't although these
certainly function fine for short jaunts or going on rivers, lakes and
so forth, there's one I'm looking at that is but my girlfriend is also
casting a vote and she might negate that one) - for example going
directly from Denmark to England would be pretty risky (even waiting
clear weather) so I was thinking about basically doing fairly short
trips along the coasts on the supposition that I won't get into
conditions I can't handle, but obviously this is still somewhat risky,
even a day out can turn bad.
This would of course make a trip between various parts of europe
loooong (main parts that I am thinking of - (Norway, Denmark,
Amsterdam, Belgium, England, Portugal, Italy) as I have connections to
these. Obviously to do it the way I am thinking of would also
basically mean hitting every country in between for stopovers if
conditions were not good.

Obviously I realize I will have to do quite a lot of preparation to do
this. The question is whether I should nix the plan because it is just
too dangerous, I'm personally rating it not exactly dangerous but not
clever either, just a compromise between choices.

Any advice, including of course just buy the good boat, I could use
that to help convince my girlfriend of it.

First define what you mean by houseboat. The english narrowbats are
intended for 7 ft wide canals and although some 'nutters' take them
accross to France this is not advisable and insurance is impossible
for crossing an open seaway.
Classic dutch barges are capable of crossing seaways but are mainly
designed for cannal river and inland seas which can be very rough. If
you buy a sailing barge you will hav a lot of fun the old hulls are
that kind to the water they hardly leave a wake unlike any modern
motor boats.
Europe has many wide cannals from the Canal du Middi up to Holland if
you intend to go round the coast of Portugal Spain and Italy you will
need a proper sea boat which will reduce the 'house boat' option.
Several wide barges have crossed the North sea from the Humber to
Holland but on the return trip at least one was craned onto a lorry. A
few books have been written on taking barges (ie 14ft wide) and
narrowbaots from England to France and Holland. We looked at doing
this and had a few days on a skippered barge in preperation for the
French canal's ' driving licence'. One site to look at is blue flag
which is the magazine of the dutch barge group.