They warned us that the alternative of phoning the Yachtline number on arrival, for clearance, would take a lot longer. Border Force emailed back saying we weren’t required to present ourselves.īut National Yachtline informed us we would have to re-submit the form by email as we entered UK waters. The evening before departure we emailed the Returning to the UK e-C1131 to the three recipients – Border Force, the Home Office, and National Yachtline/HMRC. It was exhausting, tedious and expensive, but at least we were legal to leave. So, we invested €145 in a return taxi to the Cherbourg PAF offices. The PAF offices are closed Sundays, and this was a Saturday, with a weather window for a 0400 departure on Monday. ![]() ![]() But waiting at the bus stop a local told us that the bus service was suspended! Instead, we bought tickets for the bus from St Vaast to Cherbourg. We didn’t really want to do the day sail back to Cherbourg and then spend another day there to go to the PAF office the tides were also not working in our favour. They were not interested in Ships Papers, registration, liferaft service receipts, International Certificate for Operators of Pleasure Craft (ICC), or whether we had boat insurance. We were left with no option but to walk for 30 minutes to the PAF office where all the officials wanted to see was a hard copy of the PAF entry document (it is a good idea to print some off before you leave the UK), all the crew and their passports. The marina staff just commented that the PAF officials were ‘not reliable’.Īs one disgruntled British sailor said: ‘It took us 14 hours to get here from Weymouth and we only came to Cherbourg to get the passports stamped they wouldn’t let us in, and now we are stuck outside the marina in a truly awful anchorage in 35☌, and we are having to come in by dinghy to report to the police who never turn up. We all did.īy 1130, we were told that PAF officials wouldn’t be coming that day. After half an hour we were told to come back at 1100. ![]() The next morning, we, along with the crews of three other UK boats, duly assembled. ![]() Instead, we were told to go to the Capitainerie the next morning as PAF officials come every day at 09 to stamp British sailors in and out of the EU. We managed to sneak into an empty resident’s berth, Q flag flapping, and phoned PAF expecting officers to visit us to clear us in. It’s a long and complex spreadsheet, and while you can create it and email it to the three designated recipients – Border Force, the Home Office, and National Yachtline/HMRC – easily on your laptop at home, marina Wi-Fi, especially French marina Wi-Fi for emailing the e-C1331 for your return to the UK, isn’t reliable.Īlexa is finally in St Vaast. The first important thing to know is that you need to download the Excel app onto your smartphone so you can retrieve, amend and send the e-C1331 form. Credit: Paul DaleĪ scan of the new regulatory requirements – the e-C1331 process to notify the authorities you were leaving or arriving in the UK, and the corresponding PAF (Police aux Frontiers) paperwork for the other side – was a bit depressing.Īdvice on how to sail in the EU seemed to be ever changing, often out of date, and incomplete.Ī number of our sailing friends urged us to sail to France, to be guinea pigs.īelow is what actually happened over a very limited 10-day French cruise to Cherbourg, then St Vaast in mid-July. On the buoy at Hayling Island waiting to leave to sail to France.
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