French hire co.s

[Guest]

Thinking of grabbing a weeks hire in France.

 

Anybody know of any reliable small indendant French hire companies as I'd prefer to avoid the big outfits like Le boat if I can.

 

Any part of the system considered but the further south the better.

 

Thanks.

Edited July 10, 2013 by The Dog House

[Athy]

Napton Narrowboats have a branch on the Canal du Midi which is about as far South as you can get without falling into the Med! We hired from them a few years ago, good company.

[Tony Brooks]

Napton Narrowboats have a branch on the Canal du Midi which is about as far South as you can get without falling into the Med! We hired from them a few years ago, good company.

 

And from reports tend to stick to UK type fuel charge practises rather than rip off charges based on engine hours - take care, great care or you could be hundreds of pounds worse off!

 

(according to a recent thread).

[Chris Pink]

Thinking of grabbing a weeks hire in France.

 

Anybody know of any reliable small indendant French hire companies as I'd prefer to avoid the big outfits like Le boat if I can.

 

Any part of the system considered but the further south the better.

 

Thanks.

 

There's an english language based one on the midi called Minervois.

 

But beware - Le Boat are in England too!

 

http://www.minervoiscruisers.com/

 

if you get in touch ask them how I can politely tell them they need a new website ;-)

Edited July 10, 2013 by Chris Pink

[Athy]

Chris, they are the French arm of Napton N/Bs which I mentioned, but I could not think of their name. Thanks for reminding me. We hired from them a few years ago.

[Guest]

Thanks both, so not a huge amount of French hire company experience on the forum.

 

Thanks Mike for the offer of your copy of Fluvial too.

 

Part way home now and getting withdrawal symptoms already. Calais tomorrow and drive home Sunday.... Glum...

[junior]

Thanks both, so not a huge amount of French hire company experience on the forum.

Thanks Mike for the offer of your copy of Fluvial too.

Part way home now and getting withdrawal symptoms already. Calais tomorrow and drive home Sunday.... Glum...

 

I'm in Calais working on the port. You'll see me wandering around the berths with my dog. Do say hello if you are passing through.

[Guest]

I'm in Calais working on the port. You'll see me wandering around the berths with my dog. Do say hello if you are passing through.

We are travelling via. Eurotunnel so will miss you.

 

And for the pedants yes I know the French end is at Coquelles which is not actually Calais.

[Boaty Jo]

Thinking of grabbing a weeks hire in France.

 

Anybody know of any reliable small indendant French hire companies as I'd prefer to avoid the big outfits like Le boat if I can.

 

Any part of the system considered but the further south the better.

 

Thanks.

 

I've no personal hiring experience but here is a link to alternative companies on the Midi (nearly as far south as you can get).

Big difference in low - high season price and some variation company to company

Bear in mind from what I hear, high season can be crowded with lock-waits of 2 hours +

As Tony says, check out fuel excesses.

 

Why do you want to avoid the bigger companies - if they were no good people simply wouldn't use them and they must be pretty well geared up for breakdown support etc.

Nicols are my favourite lay-out for a holiday boat

 

http://www.creme-de-languedoc.com/Languedoc/activities/canal-boat-hire.php#.UeJN7403DnE

[Tam & Di]

Why do you want to avoid the bigger companies - if they were no good people simply wouldn't use them and they must be pretty well geared up for breakdown support etc.

Nicols are my favourite lay-out for a holiday boat

 

 

I'd tend to agree with BJ. Obviously we have no need to hire a boat now, but we did hire a penichette in about 1981 from Locaboat Plaisance and found them just fine. I do prefer the style of the penichette too rather than the "Broads cruiser" type hull - to my mind these are the only decently designed French pleasure craft.

 

I'd agree too about the Canal du Midi, especially this time of year - fine if you like playing at dodgems with hundreds of other hirers and being food for mosquitoes. I may be slightly biased by my liking for Burgundian food and wine, but the canals and rivers of the centre are great, and they won't be short of a bit of sunshine there either.

 

Tam

Edited July 14, 2013 by Tam & Di

[Boaty Jo]

 

I'd tend to agree with BJ. Obviously we have no need to hire a boat now, but we did hire a penichette in about 1981 from Locaboat Plaisance and found them just fine. I do prefer the style of the penichette too rather than the "Broads cruiser" type hull - to my mind these are the only decently designed French pleasure craft.

 

Tam

 

Yes, the penichettes are the best looking. Naturally it's just a personal thing.

I like the Nicols ones purely because the cooking/living area runs straight out on to a rear deck .

You do see quite a number of each in private hands after their hire days are over.

 

Also we like cruising in September / early October. The weather is still generally good (even mid-France) and it's much quieter.

[Tam & Di]

Also we like cruising in September / early October. The weather is still generally good (even mid-France) and it's much quieter.

 

We hired in late September and scarcely saw another soul on the move in 2 weeks between Homps to Carcassonne and back to Aigues Mortes. It's probably busier now than 30 years ago though. It was still ample warm enough to do skinny dipping where the canal was next to the Med - we'd probably need to issue a public hazard warning if we tried that at our present ages though.

 

Tam

[junior]

We are travelling via. Eurotunnel so will miss you.

And for the pedants yes I know the French end is at Coquelles which is not actually Calais.

I do also work there sometimes but not today so I'll miss you. Have a safe journey.

[Guest]

I do also work there sometimes but not today so I'll miss you. Have a safe journey.

Cheers now in Ashford - euro tunnel had a technical problem and we were offloaded and reloaded to another train - delayed us by 30 mins. Very warm on the trains too.

 

Thanks also Tam and BJ will have a look when not on the phone.

[Waterway2go]

Does anyone have recent experience of hire companies in France?

 

[Alan de Enfield]

Have you got your visa ?

[Naughty Cal]

On 10/07/2013 at 12:49, Tony Brooks said:

 

And from reports tend to stick to UK type fuel charge practises rather than rip off charges based on engine hours - take care, great care or you could be hundreds of pounds worse off!

 

(according to a recent thread).

We paid for the all in one package which included fuel, damage waiver, bike hire, cleaning, and early check in when we hired with Le Boat last year.

 

It worked out considerably cheaper than paying for the fuel per hour and damage waiver separately. 

On 14/07/2013 at 10:31, Boaty Jo said:

 

Yes, the penichettes are the best looking. Naturally it's just a personal thing.

I like the Nicols ones purely because the cooking/living area runs straight out on to a rear deck .

You do see quite a number of each in private hands after their hire days are over.

 

Also we like cruising in September / early October. The weather is still generally good (even mid-France) and it's much quieter.

We hired in Brittany in October. The weather was mild if a little mixed but the waterways were very quiet. Some days we didn't see another boat on the move!

 

We found it a bit too quiet.

 

We were supposed to be going to Belgium at Easter but the house move has got in the way of that so Le Boat have moved it to this time next year for no extra cost.

[Athy]

11 hours ago, Waterway2go said:

Does anyone have recent experience of hire companies in France?

 

Yes. We have hired from Locaboat for the last four years on the Canal de Garonne, and this year we're hiring from the same company on the Canal de Briare. We hire pénichettes, which we like. They offer a similar all in damage waiver/fuel/cleaning package to Le Boat.

   You could deal directly with them, but we go through Blue Water Holidays in Yorkshire, who are efficient and helpful. Anything specific which you'd like to know, do ask - via P.M. if you prefer.

[Waterway2go]

Thanks for the advice. Will have a look.

[Naughty Cal]

On 04/04/2019 at 07:16, Athy said:

Yes. We have hired from Locaboat for the last four years on the Canal de Garonne, and this year we're hiring from the same company on the Canal de Briare. We hire pénichettes, which we like. They offer a similar all in damage waiver/fuel/cleaning package to Le Boat.

   You could deal directly with them, but we go through Blue Water Holidays in Yorkshire, who are efficient and helpful. Anything specific which you'd like to know, do ask - via P.M. if you prefer.

We moored in a Locaboat yard for the evening in Brittany. Their boats looked very nice and we would probably look to hire one of theirs at some point.

 

The Le Boat cruisers  are more what we are used too over here in the UK but the Locaboat boats were very much more suited to the French waterways.

[Athy]

13 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

We moored in a Locaboat yard for the evening in Brittany. Their boats looked very nice and we would probably look to hire one of theirs at some point.

 

The Le Boat cruisers  are more what we are used too over here in the UK but the Locaboat boats were very much more suited to the French waterways.

Le Boat's fleet are probably "sexier", smooth contours, tapered windows etc. I have not compared, but I suspect they're therefore dearer to hire.

Your comment about suitability is interesting (especially as the greatly experienced Tam Murrell said something similar early in the thread). What makes them more suitable, do you think?

W2Go, I forgot to mention: if you're happier with a narrowboat you can hire one on the Canal du Midi, from Minervois Cruisers who are the French arm of the long-established Napton Narrowboats. We had one from them about 10 years ago and they looked after us well.

[ditchcrawler]

We hired from Locoboats and had to spend the first night at the yard as they didnt get round to doing the induction until the next morning

[Yorksboat]

We hired from Locaboat last September, one of their flying bridge penichettes on the Canal du Midi.  They were easy to deal with via email, answered all our questions very efficiently - all in english.  The handover was perfect, the boat clean and tidy with everything working fine.  They have some good deals including up to 30% for the English at present and lots of bases to choose from.  Hoping to go again this year if our crew sort themselves out and would recommend them highly. 

[Naughty Cal]

On 06/04/2019 at 16:15, Athy said:

Le Boat's fleet are probably "sexier", smooth contours, tapered windows etc. I have not compared, but I suspect they're therefore dearer to hire.

Your comment about suitability is interesting (especially as the greatly experienced Tam Murrell said something similar early in the thread). What makes them more suitable, do you think?

W2Go, I forgot to mention: if you're happier with a narrowboat you can hire one on the Canal du Midi, from Minervois Cruisers who are the French arm of the long-established Napton Narrowboats. We had one from them about 10 years ago and they looked after us well.

We found that the cruiser that we hired from Le Boat was difficult to fender up when mooring up and the moorings were never that suitable for the gunnel height and shape.

[Waterway2go]

On 04/04/2019 at 07:16, Athy said:

Yes. We have hired from Locaboat for the last four years on the Canal de Garonne, and this year we're hiring from the same company on the Canal de Briare. We hire pénichettes, which we like. They offer a similar all in damage waiver/fuel/cleaning package to Le Boat.

   You could deal directly with them, but we go through Blue Water Holidays in Yorkshire, who are efficient and helpful. Anything specific which you'd like to know, do ask - via P.M. if you prefer.

We eventually got our act together and have now booked a boat on the Canal Du Nivernais from Locaboat, through Blue Water Holidays - who have been most helpful as described by others.   As Nicholsons don't stretch that far, does anyone have a recommendation for the best cruising guide for France ?