West Coast Exploration
Booking details
No dates currently available. Please contact us for more info.
No dates currently available. Please contact us for more info.
Joining Instructions: Please click here for course joining instructions
What is included in the cost:
We can accommodate most dietary requirements, including vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian or gluten free. Just let us know when you book.
Course Prerequisites: Ideally at least RYA Competent Crew or equivalent experience.
Minimum Age: No minimum but Under 16’s must be accompanied by adult. Persons aged 16+ can be unaccompanied subject to other pre-requisites having been met
Holiday Insurance: We recommend all our customers have suitable holiday insurance in place. Yachtsman’s insurance is available via Topsail Insurance and can cover cancellations and personal effects.
So what does the price actually include?
Unlike some centres, we include all your meals aboard – breakfast, lunches, dinners and snacks. You won’t need to bring extra cash for food on the boat. The only meals you pay for separately are the occasional dinner ashore when we visit a new port.
We supply all safety equipment including life jackets and wet weather gear. Just bring deck shoes, a sleeping bag, and your sense of adventure.
This trip suits sailors who have done Day Skipper or Coastal Skipper and want proper sea time on longer passages. The West Coast of the UK has some of the most interesting sailing in Britain – tide races, headlands, real offshore conditions. You’ll build miles towards Yachtmaster Coastal or Offshore, or just have a solid adventure on the water.
Not sure if this is the right level? Have a look at our Mile Building Weekend for a shorter introduction.
You’ll come away with a lot more than just sea miles. The West Country passages demand proper passage planning, tidal calculations, and decisions about weather windows. That’s experience you can’t get staying inside the Solent.
For anyone working towards Yachtmaster, this kind of trip is invaluable. The conditions you’ll meet off Portland Bill, around Start Point, and past Land’s End are the real thing.
You’ll visit West Country ports like Dartmouth, Salcombe, Plymouth, Falmouth and potentially the Isles of Scilly. The exact itinerary depends on wind and tide – that is part of the point. Alternative stops include Brixham, Torquay, Poole, Weymouth and Portland.
Each passage runs 50-80 nautical miles. That is proper sea time. You’ll plan each leg, handle sail changes in open water, and deal with real tidal gates.
The sailing itself varies a lot. Some days you’ll have a steady F4 across the beam, making 7 knots towards the next headland. Other days you’ll be reefed down in a F6, working tide races and watching the depth sounder. That variety is what makes a West Coast sailing holiday different from a Solent weekend.
Places you might visit:
For a look at another extended voyage, see our Discover Britain 50-day adventure.
We run this trip in three formats:
All formats include full-board accommodation on our Bavaria yachts. For more on building sea miles, see RYA training courses for the official syllabus.
Recommended Reading: Sailing magazines and pilot books for the South Coast, but nothing essential.
The itinerary changes with the weather. That is the nature of coastal passages. Your skipper will decide each day’s destination based on conditions and crew experience. Safety comes first, always.
If conditions prevent us from reaching the West Country, we have plenty of backup options along the way. The south coast has no shortage of good ports.
We have been running West Country passages for years and they remain some of our favourite trips. The sailing is genuinely interesting – tide races, headland passages, and the occasional bit of proper open water when you head for the Scilly Isles.
What we hear most from customers afterwards is that they did not realise how much there was to see along the south coast. Dartmouth alone is worth the trip. You get into harbour after a solid day’s sail, tie up, and walk into a town that feels a long way from Gosport.
For us, the West Coast Exploration trips are about giving people a taste of longer passages in a supported environment. You get the challenge of real offshore sailing with the safety net of an experienced skipper and a well-found yacht.
If you are collecting miles for Yachtmaster, building towards a bigger voyage, or just want to see why people rave about West Country sailing – this is the trip.
Related trips: our Channel Island Cruises head across to the Channel Islands, while our 60mile Long Passages offer shorter offshore legs.
No dates currently available. Please contact us for more info.
Our exciting and very popular luxury 7-day Channel Island Cruises are aimed at breaking the confines of the Solent for a relaxed and enjoyable Channel Islands adventure. They are a great way to relax, gain sea miles, enhance your sailing skills and knowledge with a Channel Crossing, and see the beautiful Channel Islands along with some incredible sailing. All under the watchful eye of our professional Skipper. REDUCED PRICE FOR 2025!
Take a look at our live course calendar for dates for the Channel Island Cruise!
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Our Mile Building Weekends are the perfect way to build-up your sea miles and gain valuable experience and knowledge at the helm as Skipper or as crew under the watchful eye of one of our expert Instructors. With longer, more involved & exciting passages, sometimes including night sailing, it’s an adventure outside the confines of the Solent and a great way to gain confidence in the waters around the South Coast.
Take a look at our live course calendar for dates for the Mile Building Weekend!
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The bigger brother of our famous Mile builder weekends. Our 60nm “Long Passages” Mile Builders are the perfect way to build sea sailing miles and gain valuable experience sailing. With longer, more involved passages, you’ll get to see places like Cherbourg and the Channel Islands. Perfect as qualifying passages for you budding RYA Yachtmasters out there. We operate these over 3, 5 & 7 days, so plenty of choice.
Take a look at our live course calendar for dates for the 60nm Long Passage Mile Builders!
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Exciting Channle islands exploration!! This will be my third time with Commodore, no regrets. 😁 Such a great trip exploring the Channle islands and northern France. We got to see lovely towns in Guernsey and Jersey as well as a fab market in Cherbourg. The sailing was so great! Over 350 miles covered and well over doubled my night hours. Big shoutout and thank you to our amazing skipper Ed who always had to the best recommendation and was so flexible to what we wanted to do as a group. He was an amazing support through out the trip, gave great MOB training and help in passage planning. Boat was great as always. Amazing experience and can’t wait to go on similar trips with the company.
Orla SimpsonWe did a mile builder channel crossing with Karen. She was absolutely brilliant, a great combination of confident and relaxed to help us build our feeling of confidence. Would highly recommend the mile builder with her. Overall a tiring but extremely rewarding experience. Thank you Karen!!
Ana Sofia Almagro