{"id":19874,"date":"2014-04-16T11:10:43","date_gmt":"2014-04-16T11:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/718-an-expert-on-canal-cruising-advises-beginners\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T21:03:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T21:03:29","slug":"718-an-expert-on-canal-cruising-advises-beginners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/blog\/718-an-expert-on-canal-cruising-advises-beginners\/","title":{"rendered":"An expert on canal cruising advises beginners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It was back in 1996 that Denis Ravy discovered Locaboat and\u00a0<strong>canal cruises<\/strong>\u00a0along the\u00a0<a title=\"Canal du midi on a boat\" href=\"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/boating-holidays\/france\/canal-du-midi\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Canal du Midi.<\/a>\u00a0Every year for almost 20 years, this company boss has faithfully returned to his post at the wheel of a Locaboat. Here he gives us the benefit of his expert tips for a first experience of\u00a0<strong>self-drive boat hire &#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If there was one piece of advice I would give to a new skipper, it would be to cut his teeth on\u00a0<strong>the Sa\u00f4ne Canal<\/strong>. The water is wide, and more importantly, there are only a few locks. To give you some idea: in\u00a0<strong>a week on the Burgundy Canal<\/strong>, you have to get through nearly 130 locks. But on the Sa\u00f4ne Canal, you only come across about 15. That means you can gradually get used to handling the boat and not be put off by your first attempts. Once you\u2019ve done that, you can have a go at routes demanding a bit more technique, although personally, I have to say that I like the Sa\u00f4ne Canal anyway. And to prove it, I\u2019m going back there again this summer for a\u00a0<a title=\"cruise between Besan\u00e7on and Scey sur Sa\u00f4ne in france\" href=\"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/boating-holidays\/france\/burgundy-saone\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cruise between Besan\u00e7on and Scey sur Sa\u00f4ne.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among the other cruises that really made an impression on me,\u00a0<strong>Holland was a great discovery<\/strong>. It\u2019s another place that\u2019s very peaceful and the landscapes, with their windmills and flowers, are wonderful\u2026 Also, everyone cruises there, so there\u2019s a really special atmosphere.\u00a0<strong>I loved Ireland as well<\/strong>, but it\u2019s not a place I\u2019d recommend for beginners. You need to have a bit of experience to be able to cruise in rainy weather, or in a storm, when visibility can sometimes be quite limited. On the Shannon or the lakes and rivers, you also need to know how to follow the kind of signage that indicates obstacles such as rocks. But once you&#8217;ve got the hang of it, cruising is very satisfying. It leaves you breathless. Like everything else in life, you just have to take it step by step, I think. Having said that, don\u2019t worry! Cruising is easy, and there\u2019s nothing more enjoyable!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was back in 1996 that Denis Ravy discovered Locaboat on the\u00a0Canal du Midi.\u00a0Every year for almost 20 years, he has faithfully returned to Locaboat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[372,207],"class_list":["post-19874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-captain-stories","tag-bfc","tag-unexperienced"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19875,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19874\/revisions\/19875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}