Cruising a 50-60' boat in Europe

We are in the process of looking for a ocean going trawler that we would like to use to tour Europe.* How easy is it to navigate around the Med and the costs involved? * We would also be interested in using the boat to navigate around Great Britain and Ireland so does anyone have input on that area as well?* Are their any rivers that a boat that size would be able to navigate from the English Channel or Baltic Sea to the Med?*

You might find the following of interest. We had a friend accompany Tony partway to Iceland, she had great time.

http://www.flemingyachts.com/venture2/index.html

There are several canals from the English Channel to the western Med. None of these will take a motor boat of any size. Air draft will be a problems as bridges are as low as 3 meter / 10 feet.

The only alternative I could think of would be to enter a canal system in*Baltic*Germany or Poland and from there connect to the Donau. The Donau flows into the Black Sea. Heading west, the distance from Romenia to the Gib is 2000+ nautical miles.

I have a c and l searanger 51 and we cruise the greek islands. We are based in gouvia marina corfu island. Ionian sea. The greek gov. have introduced a cruising tax from Jan. 1 2014 €100 per metre per year over 12 metres.
Still its a great place to cruise.
Ivor

That cruising ground is hard to beat. I suppose the Greeks are going to be collecting money wherever they can find an excuse to. No big deal if you're 13 metres or so, but the last time I was in the Islands, there were gobs of 30 metre plus yachts in Greek harbors. Come to think of it, I suppose most of those belong to boaters that couldn't care less about another 5 grand or so in taxes.

r-rossow said:

There are several canals from the English Channel to the western Med. None of these will take a motor boat of any size. Air draft will be a problems as bridges are as low as 3 meter / 10 feet.
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r-rossow said:

The only alternative I could think of would be to enter a canal system in*Baltic*Germany or Poland and from there connect to the Donau. The Donau flows into the Black Sea. Heading west, the distance from Romenia to the Gib is 2000+ nautical miles.

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But you will be safe - a version of the EU inside passage.

healhustler said:

That cruising ground is hard to beat. I suppose the Greeks are going to be collecting money wherever they can find an excuse to. No big deal if you're 13 metres or so, but the last time I was in the Islands, there were gobs of 30 metre plus yachts in Greek harbors. Come to think of it, I suppose most of those belong to boaters that couldn't care less about another 5 grand or so in taxes.

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Not gonna pay if I don't anchor or buy fuel there.

These people took 50ft diesel duck across Europe through rivers/canals all the way to Turkey. I think they had to take the mast off but apart from that they managed to get under everything. http://www.mydoramac.com