Fast ferry fro Portsmouth to Cherbourg

Northerner

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We've just decided to have three weeks in Brittany next month and am just in the process of booking the most direct ferry. I really do not want to go to Calais or face the M25 if it can be avoided.

I've found that the ferries in question are the high-speed ones that do the journey in about three hours. However, I have a sea-sickness problem and, whilst a five-hour channel crossing on a calm day is OK, I well remember taking the hovercraft once on a very bad day and I was violently sick. What worries me about these high-speed versions is that they may be like the hovercraft and be a very hard and extremely bumpy ride. Then again, they could be smooth as silk. Has anyone any experience of them please? Thanks.

Ooops! Just found out that you can't edit typos in the title!
 
Yes! Done the fast cat from Portsmouth, not too bad, very quick with just a bit of roll. My wife gets sea sick and she was ok.I agree it's better than the journey to Dover !
 
I have used this a couple of times as a foot passenger to Cherbourg. Quite fast and was smooth. But they are relatively small compared to the large ferries.
 
Normally pretty smooth in my experience.

If you do start to feel ill there are a couple of spots, out of the wind just outside on the deck.
 
Thank you to everyone who's replied. I've decided to take a chance, swallow a few pills and hope it's not too bad. The only consolation is that it's a quick crossing and I won't be ill for about 20 hours as I was when I was daft enough to risk the Portsmouth/Santander ferry in January last year when the weather was so bad the the chairs in the cabin fell over!

I've booked it!
 
Northerner said:
Thank you to everyone who's replied. I've decided to take a chance, swallow a few pills and hope it's not too bad. The only consolation is that it's a quick crossing and I won't be ill for about 20 hours as I was when I was daft enough to risk the Portsmouth/Santander ferry in January last year when the weather was so bad the the chairs in the cabin fell over!

I've booked it!
Click to expand...

Good luck - you'll be fine.

The crossing to Santander can always be bad. The Bay of Biscay is notorious for throwing up in both ways: personally and bad weather! If you look at Google Earth you can see that there is a shelf that runs offshore virtually from north to south. As the prevailing weather / currents 'hit' the shelf the force is, quite naturally, upwards - hence sometimes very rough seas can occur. There was even a problem with one of the Brittany Ferries a couple of years ago - I believe that some waves were so strong that some of the portholes / windows were smashed and she had to turn around and return to Plymouth.
I broke a couple of ribs whilst trying to help deliver a yacht down to the Canaries. We had to put into Camaret (opposite Brest) for repairs to the yacht (Topmast was broken) and to put me ashore!
That experience leads quite nicely in to the thread re: the EHIC Card - I had a doctor out to the yacht, in harbour, on a Sunday. I paid his bill and reclaimed it very easily from DHSS Newcastle.

ian
 
We get seaasick very easily too and have tried a number of potential solutions. I have to say that the pressure-point wrist bands that you can get from Boots (and no doubt other chemists) seem to work for us. I was very sceptical about them but Jenny persuaded me to try them when crossing the Drake Passage (and it doesn't come much rougher than that!) and I had no problems at all. I am told they work on the same basis as acupuncture.
 
Thanks for that! I've booked the damn thing this morning! Let's just hope that there are no rough seas. It is August so there's hope! I normally go on larger boats and have a cabin but this was the one on offer so I thought I'd give it a try. We've done all the routes over the years and not found the channel too bad in summer. If I have any real problem going I shall change it for the return journey!
 
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