RIB cruise to the Baltic

[Andre]

Rib cruise to the Baltic

Well with RIBEX and SEAWORK now well behind us it is now time to plan the return of our Parker 900 Baltic cabin rib back to Poland. From day one I had in mind that the return would be under its own “steam” and now I can confirm that the planning in nicely coming together. The rib is now on dry land and is being attended by a Mercruiser service dealer to ensure that it will be in top form for the voyage ahead.

There will be four of us on this trip three from the UK ie; David B, Dog Phillips, myself and Chris from Poland (Chris joined me on the St.Malo cruise in 2002 and is an experienced ribster)
David B is responsible for the route planning and hopefully he will contribute to this thread. Subject to weather conditions we hope to depart from Sheerness on the early morning of Monday 19th July and head straight for Amsterdam where we plan to refuel and stay the night. Then up the Dutch and German coast to the Kiel Canal. Our first plan was to go around Denmark but the time factor is unfortunately against us. Leaving the Kiel Canal we will head for the Baltic Sea towards the Polish Port of Swinoujscie . We will then make a short visit to Szczecin and return to Swinoujscie to complete the final leg to the Port of Gdansk hopefully in time for the Big Powerboat Picnic which has been organized for 24/25 July by the Polish Powerboat Magazine “Przeglad Motorowodny” (www.motorowodny.com.pl)

This timetable is subject to weather conditions and availability of a certain part which is required to complete the service of the engines

I will be sending daily reports to Kevin (AY) so he can post our progress.

[Daniel TD5]

andre

i would have though you would have sold it at one of the shows

its one of the best looking cabin ribs i have ever seen

shame it has to be returned

dan

[Andre]

Originally Posted by Daniel TD5

andre

i would have though you would have sold it at one of the shows

its one of the best looking cabin ribs i have ever seen

shame it has to be returned

dan

Thanks Dan. Well we had two very good shows and the rib has been very well received and performed first class specially during SEAWORK when David and Paul had to cross the Solent to Cowes twice daily and you may recall that 80 mile/h winds were then around with very deep seas
Taking it back to Poland by sea will confirm its sea capability and no doubt sooner or later a buyer will come along. This is also a good test for our new Baltic hull which so far has come thumbs up

[Louise]

Looking forward to reading the progress reports of your trip, Andre. Good luck!

[Andre]

Well we had planned to depart on Monday 19th but the part which is required to complete the engine service has still not arrived so unfortunately the departure has been postponed
Will advise of new date once the part is fitted (the part in question is the heat exchanger support bracket on the port engine)
I understand that this is not a ready available component hence the delay.

very annoying cos will now miss the powerboat weekend in Gdansk on 24/25 July

[David B]

Sorry for the late arrival at this thread. Have been rather busy delivering various Boats etc.

I hope to have some data on the proposed route and will post here in the near future. The craft is fitted with the latest electronics from Raymarine with a combined Radar , plotter , sounder etc all to one screen, Its a very complex piece of equipment but however once mastered one wonders how you can go without !

As Andre has already said this will give us a chance to fully evalutate the sea keeping qualitys of the craft , but form a personal point of View in the conditions we had at the sea work show commuting to Cowes each evening we were hit by quite heavey weather ( storm force ) and she coped extremely well which is more than we can say for the Red funnel ferry ! who had to run up the solent to come back down as she could not take the beam seas !!!!!!!!

Posting coming soon

David B

[batfalcon]

WE ALL WILL BE LOOKING FORWARD TO READ THE PROGRESS POSTS

[Andre]

Just been advised that the long awaited part will be with our service man on Friday so the work should be completed by Monday 19th.

We will now be aiming for departure Monday 26th - pending weather of course cos like I said earlier this is to be a pleasant trip a nice relaxing cruise (wishfull thinking and not a body punishing sea voyage

As a matter of interest the toll for the Kiel Canal is only 12 Euro

[jwalker]

Originally Posted by Louise

Looking forward to reading the progress reports of your trip, Andre. Good luck!

Yes, same here.

[Andre]

Well another departure date change and this time probably the last one. We are now aiming to depart from Sheerness on Friday 30 July in the early hours of the morning heading for Amsterdam (weather permitting) This change is now due to the fact that the dates ie a week from home had to suite all involved so plans had to be changed accordingly

the route from Amsterdam should take us up along the coast of Holland and Germany to the Kiel Canal. Here we would appreciate any local knowledge from forum members who are from that region, fuelling , accomodation, what to lookout for, ect
From the Kiel Kanal we will head towards the batic and make our way down to the Polish Port of Swinoujscie

David and I will make a trial run by taking the SPIRIT OF POLAND from Littlehampton to Sheerness on Tuesday 21 July. This will give us a better idea as to the fuel consumption ect.
Today I took delivery of a liferaft a 6 man RFD Seasava plus and hopefully we will never have to use it but better safe then sorry.