Every year a fresh wave of boats leaves the UK, Holland and the Baltic with the Mediterranean as the goal, and every one of them faces the same fork. You can take the mast down and motor through France on the canals, or you can keep it up and sail the long way round Biscay, Spain and Gibraltar. I have friends who swear blind by each, and the truth is they suit completely different boats and crews.
This is the canals versus Biscay decision laid out properly, with the numbers that actually decide it.
The two routes in one breath
The canal route runs from the Channel coast, up the Seine or in through one of the northern rivers, down through the heart of France via a chain of canals and rivers to the Rhone, and out into the Mediterranean near Port-Saint-Louis or Sete. You motor the whole way with the mast lashed on deck.
The Biscay route keeps you at sea: round Brittany, across or around the Bay of Biscay, down the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal, through the Strait of Gibraltar, and back east into the Med. You sail it as a series of offshore passages, the longest being the crossing the Bay of Biscay in a small boat leg that gives the route its name and its reputation.
Same destination. Utterly different trips.
The deciding factor: your boat's dimensions
Before anything else, measure your boat against the canal gauge, because if it does not fit, the decision is made for you.
The limiting standard for the central French network is the Freycinet gauge: locks around 38 to 39 metres long and about 5 metres wide, which most cruising yachts clear easily on length and beam. The real constraints are two:
- Draught. Many cruising canals carry a usable depth of around 1.8 metres, and in dry summers or on shallower stretches that drops. A boat drawing much over 1.6 metres starts to have a nervous time. The Freycinet gauge canal dimensions piece sets out the real-world limits, which are often less generous than the official figures.
- Air draught with the mast down. Once stepped, your bridge clearance is set by the cabin top and the cradle holding the mast, and the binding constraint on the Rhone-Saone axis is generally around 3.5 metres. Some routes give less. The air draught on the French canals guide covers how to measure yours honestly, because guessing here ends with a crunch.
Mast length matters too: a 15 metre mast on a 12 metre boat overhangs badly and needs careful cradling. Deep-draught performance boats and tall rigs are simply better off going round.
Time and the calendar
The canal crossing is not quick. From the Channel to the Med is roughly 1,300 kilometres of waterway depending on the route, with hundreds of locks, and a realistic pace is 30 to 50 kilometres a day once you account for lock cycles and lunch closures. Reckon on four to six weeks to cross France comfortably, and that assumes the canals are open. They are not open all year: the winter chomage (planned maintenance closures) typically runs from around November into March, so the canal window is essentially spring to autumn. The cross France by canal, Channel to Med route guide has the stage-by-stage timing.
The Biscay route, sailed as passages, can be faster in raw transit time but is hostage to weather windows. A confident crew can get from Brittany to Gibraltar in two to three weeks of actual sailing, but you may wait days for a Biscay window and again for the run down Portugal. Add it up and the two routes often take a similar slice of the season; the difference is that the canal eats your time predictably and Biscay eats it in unpredictable lumps.
Cost: the part people underestimate
Neither route is free, and the breakdown is not what newcomers expect.
The canal route costs:
- The VNF vignette for the waterways, priced by boat size and duration; an annual licence for a mid-size yacht runs into the low hundreds of euros, with shorter passes available. The VNF vignette for French waterways page has the current bands.
- Mast unstepping and restepping at each end, typically a few hundred euros per lift at a yard with a crane, so budget for two operations.
- Diesel for 1,300 kilometres of motoring, plus overnight moorings, though canal moorings are cheap or free compared with marinas.
The Biscay route costs:
- Far more fuel reserve and offshore safety kit, and the wear of open-water sailing.
- Marina nights down two coastlines, which on the Spanish and Portuguese Atlantic are moderate, often 25 to 45 euros for a 12 metre boat, cheaper than the Med.
- The intangible cost of risk and fatigue on the Biscay and Cape St Vincent legs.
In pure cash terms the two routes land closer than you would think. The mast lifts and the vignette roughly offset the extra offshore gear and the longer fuel bill. The decision is rarely about money alone.
What the experience is actually like
This is where they truly part company. The canals are slow travel through the middle of France: vineyards, village quays, a boulangerie walk every morning, locks worked by hand or by a friendly eclusier, and not a wave in sight. If that sounds like a holiday rather than a delivery, the canals will be the best part of your whole voyage. The flip side is weeks of motoring, midges, and the patience to queue at locks.
The Biscay route is sailing, real sailing, with the satisfaction of arriving in the Med on your own keel with the mast never having come down. It is also night watches, Biscay swell, and the genuine seamanship demands of the France to Gibraltar long leg south. Crews who want the passage-making, who have the boat and the experience for it, choose Biscay every time.
Licences and the rules each route demands
The two routes ask different things of your paperwork, and it surprises people. The canal route is the more bureaucratic of the two day to day. The skipper of a private boat under 20 metres on the French inland network needs an ICC carrying the CEVNI endorsement, the inland-waterways add-on tested on European canal signs and rules. If you have only ever sailed coastal, you may not hold it, and the CEVNI and ICC licence for French waterways guide explains how to get the endorsement before you set off, because you cannot legally helm the canals without it.
The Biscay route, by contrast, asks little in the way of compulsory qualifications for a visiting yacht on coastal passages, though competence is its own requirement and insurers will have views. What it asks for instead is offshore safety equipment to a proper standard, since you are crossing open water well offshore. Either way, both routes start in France, so the basic question of whether you need a licence at all is worth settling first; the licence to sail French coastal waters as a visitor piece sorts the coastal side, and the canal piece sorts the inland side.
How I would decide
Run it through three filters:
- Does the boat fit? If draught is over about 1.6 metres or the rig is tall and heavy, go round. The canal will fight you.
- What do you want from the trip? Slow inland travel, or offshore passage-making? Be honest, because each route delivers one and not the other.
- What is your weather appetite? If the idea of waiting days for a Biscay window fills you with dread, the predictable plod of the canals will suit you far better.
There is a third hybrid that suits some: cross by canal one way and return round Biscay another year, seeing both. Plenty of long-term cruisers do exactly that. Whichever you pick, the destination is the same warm sea at the far end, and both routes have delivered thousands of boats safely to it. Decide with the tape measure first and the heart second, and you will not go far wrong.
