PBO round Britain

For guidance, inspiration or just a good read, PBO highlights some of the best round-Britain websites and blogs from solo sailors, couples and families who have made the journey

Roger Oliver book cover

More people sail round Britain than you might think, and these days they’re likely to take inspiration and practical advice from Roger Oliver‘s popular book, Practical Boat Owner’s Guide to Sailing Around the UK and Ireland.

Roger has circumnavigated the UK twice, solo, in his Sadler 25 Jalina, and wrote the book after his PBO articles about his ‘Grown Up Gap Year’ were a hit with readers. Find out more about Practical Boat Owner’s Guide to Sailing Around the UK and Ireland here.

In a recent edition of PBO we featured Dylan Winter‘s adventure Keep Turning Left. Having fallen in love with tidal Britain, his aim is to sail round the ‘shoal-water’ way, by exploring every river, creek and bay… slowly. His article is a fascinating read, so why not take a look at his website www.keepturningleft.co.uk – and enjoy a sneak preview with the atmospheric video below?

In her PBO editor’s column, Waiting for the tide, Sarah Norbury highlights notable round-Britain voyages of 2011, some of them done with razzmatazz to raise money for good causes, others by modest folk who don’t want to shout about it, but whose websites and blogs are crying out to be read by anyone who loves to cruise.

Now we’re compiling a web resource on round-Britain sailing. If you have sailed all round our coastline, please let us know by emailing pbo@timeinc.com

Some of our other favourite websites and blogs about circumnavigations are:

  • Another slow circuit (still ongoing), this one by the Moody 33 mk1 Dignity Too of Edinburgh, brought to you by Trevor and Becky Martin.
  • David Goldhill tells of sailing round Britain in summer 2011 with his wife on their Hanse 350 Oblivion. Starting from Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex they journeyed anticlockwise via the Caledonian Canal.
  • Dutch PBO reader Joost Overmars ‘really loves to sail in your beautiful country!’ The blog is full of photos of the British harbours visited on a trip around England, Wales and part of Scotland in 2008.
  • Malcolm Palmer did the trip solo in 2007 in aid of three charities. He says, ‘A number of folk doing the same trip have stumbled across my website and contacted me to help plan their ventures.’
  • Find out about Malcolm and Joanna Stuart’s 2010 circumnavigation from their home in Whitby, in their day by day account with lots of photos.
  • Graeme Hall published his website log of his Round Britain trip, ‘primarily because I found it frustrating that there was so little information available when I was planning.’ He made the voyage in 2008 with his family in a Hallberg-Rassy 352. ‘The site still gets several hundred unique visitors each month,’ he says, ‘I hope it helps anyone thinking of doing the trip.’
  • Dick Houghton‘s log of a clockwise sail round Britain
  • Mike and Louise Dellar in their Sigma 33, via the Orkneys
  • Paul Hardaker‘s journey round with his African Grey parrot Finlay
  • Teenager Tom Webb‘s Round Britain solo in a 21ft Beneteau
  • Leukaemia survivor Oliver Rofix‘s voyage to raise awareness of the need for bone-marrow donors
  • Round Britain Experience blog written by Jill Beckett, one of the crew of July 2011’s trip.