After three winters in the Mediterranean we decided to bring the boat home to the UK. The question was how. Round the bottom of Spain, up through Biscay and across the Channel is the salty answer, well over 1,500 nautical miles of open water with the Bay of Biscay saved for last when you are already tired. Or up through the middle of France by canal, mast down, at walking pace. We chose the canals, going against the grain of the usual flow, and it was the right call for a short-handed couple who had no appetite for a north-bound Biscay slog.
Doing the transit northbound, Med to Channel, is the mirror image of the popular southbound run, and it has its own quirks. This is how it went.
North is the harder direction, slightly
Most boats do this transit southbound, Channel to Med, riding the Rhone downstream towards the sun. We were going the other way, which means pushing up the Rhone against the current. That is the one meaningful penalty of the northbound route, and it is worth understanding before you commit.
The Rhone runs fast, and after rain it runs faster. Going downstream you are carried; going upstream you grind into it, burning more fuel and more hours. In a strong spring melt the current can be enough to slow a modest cruising boat to a crawl through the open river sections. Pick a settled spell, ideally later in the season when the flow has eased, and accept that the Rhone leg will take longer northbound than the southbound write-ups suggest. The southbound perspective is laid out in our crossing France by canal from the Channel to the Med overview, and most of it applies in reverse.
Stage one: stepping the mast at the Med end
The boat starts as a sailing yacht and has to become a barge. We took the rig out at Port-Saint-Louis, the easternmost Rhone exit, where there are cranes set up for exactly this and yards used to the routine. Allow a full day, lash the mast securely fore and aft on a proper gantry, and protect anything that can chafe over six weeks of vibration.
Air draft is the figure that forces all this. On the most-used routes the limit is about 3.5 metres, so every sailing boat unsteps. Get the lashing right: a mast that works loose halfway up France is a miserable problem to solve on a canal bank.
You also need to be road-legal on the water before you start. A VNF vignette is required, and the right licence endorsement. We sorted ours in advance against the CEVNI and ICC licence for French waterways, which saved a scramble at the first lock.
Stage two: up the Rhone and Saone
From Port-Saint-Louis you climb the Rhone to Lyon. The big commercial locks lift you many metres at a time, and you share them with barges, so you fender well and you wait your turn. Going up, the lock fills beneath you, which is gentler on the crew than the downstream drop but no quicker overall. Our detailed guide to the Rhone from Lyon to the Mediterranean covers the river in the popular downstream direction; northbound you simply read it from the bottom up.
At Lyon the Rhone gives way to the Saone, and the character changes completely. The Saone is broad, slow and lovely, with gentle locks and green banks. After the effort of the Rhone it feels like a reward. From the Saone basin you choose your route north and west towards the Channel.
The whole inland transit is long: roughly 1,300 to 1,400 km of waterway and somewhere between 150 and 200-plus locks depending on route. Realistically that is four to six weeks of steady cruising, more if you stop to enjoy it, which you should.
Stage three: routes to the Channel
There is no single canal to the sea, and the choice of northern route depends on your air and water draft and your patience for lock-counting.
- Up to Paris and down the Seine to Le Havre. The Seine is wide, tidal at the bottom, and carries heavy commercial traffic, but it is the fast way out and it takes you through Paris, which is worth the diversion in itself.
- The northern canals towards Calais or Dunkerque, flatter and longer.
- Various central routes feeding the Seine basin.
We went via the Seine and out at Le Havre. The tidal lower river wants timing, so you ride the ebb down to the coast and you have your mast crane booked at the bottom before you arrive. We re-stepped at a Channel-coast yard, spent a day tuning the rig, and turned back into a sailing boat for the final crossing.
The final crossing home
The last leg is the only proper passage of the trip: across the Channel to the UK. After six weeks of locks it feels enormous and slightly alarming to be back in open water with tide and shipping. Pick your weather, watch the traffic, and treat the crossing with the respect it deserves rather than the relief of nearly being home. Our crossing the English Channel by boat guide covers routes, timing and the shipping lanes, all of which you will have half-forgotten after a month inland.
What the northbound transit is really like
Pushing north through France out of season has a particular feel. The summer charter crowd has gone, the lock-keepers are less harried, and the banks turn from green to gold as autumn comes on. You are slightly ahead of the weather the whole way, which is the one nagging pressure: get caught too late and the Channel crossing at the end gets harder.
The daily rhythm settles quickly. Locks in the morning, a long motoring stretch through the afternoon, a mooring by early evening on a village quay or against a tree. After weeks of Mediterranean berthing fees, the free banks of the Saone feel like a gift. We provisioned by folding bike, bought bread from village boulangeries, and ate better and cheaper than we had all summer in the Med.
Things that smoothed the northbound run:
- Long warps and plenty of fenders for high, rough lock walls.
- Going up means the lock fills beneath you, which is gentler on the crew than the downstream drop.
- Many locks shut for a long lunch break around midday, so plan your day around it.
- Fuel and water points are spaced out, so top up at every opportunity rather than running low.
Budgeting the delivery
The northbound transit costs much the same as southbound, with the current the only real difference. The main lines:
- The VNF vignette for the boat, scaled to size, with 2025 tariffs up slightly on the year before.
- Two mast cranes, one at Port-Saint-Louis and one at the Channel coast, each in the low hundreds of euros depending on yard and storage.
- Diesel for weeks of motoring over roughly 1,300 to 1,400 km, more than southbound because you are pushing the Rhone current.
- Occasional marina nights for showers and shore power, kept down by mooring free where we could.
Against a north-bound delivery round Spain and across Biscay, the canal route was comparable on cost and far kinder on crew and boat. The fuel bill was higher than a downstream transit would be, but still a fraction of what a long offshore delivery crew would cost.
The paperwork, including the bit people forget
Two admin points matter on a Med-to-UK delivery through France.
The first is Schengen. If you are non-EU and have been keeping the boat in the Med, your own days are governed by the 90-in-180 rule the whole way up France, with overstay fines starting around 200 euros and a re-entry ban a genuine risk. Watch the clock and rotate crew if you need to. The detail is in our Schengen 90/180 day rule for boaters piece.
The second is the boat's own status. Bringing a vessel back to the UK can have customs and VAT implications depending on where it has been and how long, and getting it wrong is expensive. Before you cross the final stretch, read our sailing to France from the UK after Brexit checklist for the flag, customs and documentation basics that apply at both ends of the trip.
Worth it?
For us, completely. The northbound Rhone cost us a few extra days of grinding against the current, and the mast logistics at both ends were faff. Set against a north-bound Biscay crossing with the worst of it last, the canals were the civilised choice: sheltered the whole way, scenic, and a proper voyage through the middle of a country rather than a hard slog round its edge. We arrived home rested, which is not a word most people use after a delivery.
