Anybody got any experience of flotilla holidays - good places/companies to go with etc. ?

I have good sailing experience but the wife has none.



Advice appreciated - Bert

I went on a yacht in Kos about 3 years ago, having never set foot on anything other than a cross channel ferry (and my trusty misrtal of course!) - the first 30 mins were lovely until the wind picked up to force 8+ with waves that washed right over the top of the boat. This lasted 3 days, during which time I was as sick as a dog and petrified the whole time.... The rest of the trip was idyllic fortunately with plenty of islands to go cruising around and glorious weather and nice sensible 10 mph winds... it was with sunsail and I couldn't really fault them.



A few of my chums appear obsessed with sailing around the millions of islands around croatia and say it's fantabulous.

Turkey's a great cruising area! Off the Bodrum Pennisula!



Try www.just-yachting.com



They're good friends of mine who own a 7 year old Beneteau 321 Oceanis 32 Foot, 6 berth with furling sails. Really easy to sail.



Just Yachting



0090 252 3637729



Let me know if you want any more info...



They are 10 times a good as any large flotilla company offering the personnel touch and will either sail for you or teach as much as you can take!

Hi Bert,



I went with a few friends last year on a Villa Flottila (basically you combine a learning to a week long sail/windsurf course or just practice windyjamming with a weeks flottila holiday... i.e. you do one week of learning/practicing then another of flottilaring).



We had Nidri on Lefxas as our base (but you could probably do Vassiliki on same island if you wanted) and then sailed around the Northern Ionian for a week. Absolutely fantastic and I think we were pretty lucky with the wind with farely consistent force 3/4/5 (occasional 6) winds for the week. Loads of good places to visit, eat (such as Vass/Kefalonia) and of course drink.



We went with Neilson who seemed to be one of the cheapest (not that it's mega cheap two weeks cost 700 each, but then you don't spend much while you're there).



M

Dear Bert,



I went on a two week flotilla holiday about seven years ago, in the Ionian Islands in Grece, with my wife's family and had a great time visiting all the little ports and chilling out. Since then they go every year, so they can be addictive. We went with "Sailing Holidays" which were quite cheap and relaxed. We had to meet in different ports almost every day but, had a few days to do and go were we wanted. Vassiliki was one of the ports we visited, and it was windy there too, so you may be able to spend a few days windsurfing. Maybe you ought to take your gear with you.

Hope you had a good time!



Jose

Bert,

depending on how much you want to spend and if you have to go during school holidays I would suggest a week or 2 at Club Sunsail Javelin. If your wife has no sailing experience then she can sample the full range of water craft from Oppies through Topaz/Pico, lasser 1 then on to the assimetrics in the monohulls, or Hobbie 16's in the cats (fantastic for f3/f4 fun ) and a decent range of windsurfing kit (no waves tho' ) plus 8 day yachts. If you've got good sailing experience then getting a skippers ticket (basically if you can back the boat up to the jetty to moor it after a 1 hour refresher brief ,should be dead easy ) then you can take the day yachts out any time you like providing you get them back by 5.30 p.m. There are always plenty of yacht day sails organized most days so if your wife wasn't too keen on the yachting you could go/not go as you pleased. If she was keen then you can also get some proper RYA training with a certificate etc at the end and then the flotilla holiday would be a nice step (in fact RYA training is available for any of the watercraft they have on site).

There are also kids clubs from 2 - 16 years old.

The staff are fantastic, the Turks are just the most friendly people you will ever meet and the mix of people at the club is from well healed scallies through to the chairman of B.P. (last year, joined in well but dont remember him getting quite as bladdered as the rest of us)

Javelin is the windiest of the Sunsail clubs so the are a quite a few windsurfers but mostly I used 6m or 7m sails well powered up as the bay is big and fairly flat. If the forcast is good then the best place off site is Fenner beach where you can hire smaller stuff for the day - last year one day overpowered on 3.7m with Bic tribal wave board, and wind blown 5' chop.

At the end of the week there is a reggatta organized - great fun, although the yacht race is very closely contested as is the catermaran race (which me and my wife managed to win even though we had been sitting in the jetty bar most of the afternoon having been knocked out of the first heat.) We were allowed into the final because we were the fastest runners up in the heats and despite several pints of the local brew and my wife putting her bouancy aid on back to front we managed to secure a convincing victory for windsurfurs over the dinghy sailers even though we were going round for a third lap because no-one had bothered to tell us the final was only over 2 laps due to the increasing wind

All in all an excellent water based holiday - but not cheap especially if you have to go during school holidays.