Yachting and Boating World forums: Trip Gent - Brugge (Belgium) with lots of pics

First weekend trip of the year, beautiful weather. Life can be nice. Decided to go via the inland waters from Zelzate to Brugge on Saterday, spend the evening with family and invited friends on Sunday, then back on Sunday. Each leg takes about 4 hours, 1 lock and two bridges, distance about 45 kms. Speed restricted to 16 km/hr (about 8,5 knots). Not your average coastal trip but nevertheless quite nice !

Left Zelzate on sunny Saterday morning. Zelzate is located along the Kanaal Gent - Terneuzen, one hour south from Terneuzen ( at a restricted 9 knots ) and right at the border between the Netherlands and Belgium.

Went South via the Kanaal Gent - Terneuzen towards Gent. It's about 16 kms from Zelzate to Gent.

Passed this scrapyard in Gent where an English RN warship is being scrapped to pieces, right where we turn starboard to take the Ringvaart around Gent.

Via the Ringvaart where there was some commercial traffic. Was held up by this big guy (push combination) with a combined lenght of 185 meters, nearly two football fields ! He must have been doing almost 3 knots

Then arrived in the lock in Evergem, we were joined by a smaller one.

Many helping hands make this an easy job

weird ... when i see these pictures in Photobucket, they're portrait mode, here they're landscape (anyway, just tilt your head 90 degrees)

Then onwards via the Kanaal Gent - Oostende, a trip of about 25 kms.

No need to take the small lock at Balgerhoeke but wanted to post a picture of this pittoresk lock anyhow.

Continued towards Brugge

Past the nice marina in Beernem

and on we went ... not many fellow boaters on the water, heard via the VHF that we were only six boats approaching the bridges near Brugge. During week days, there's quite a lof of traffic on this canal as it connects the port of Zeebrugge with the inland (Gent, France).

The new lock at Beernem : always open, used to regulate water height in the canal.

First bridge at Moerbrugge (both bridges are operated from one central location "Centrale Kruispoort" in Brugge).

Second brigde at Steenbrugge, about 1 km to go.

Lots of other traffic too on these inland waterways

Finally last straight line towards Flandria Marina

And here's the crew. Happy we made it safe and sound after a trip in horrendous weather and big seas

By the way, the Absolute 39 on the background is a charter boat. It was booked for 30 people all Sunday, going back and forth between Brugge and Moerbrugge bridge (round trip about 1,5 hours). Spent some time with the owner, nice young chap. Quite an investment, now in his third year. He does trips around Flanders and the Belgian Coast.

We paid 13 euros for a night, electricity and water included. Nice little marina, good accomodation too. Then on Sunday morning fresh croissants and other goodies from a bakery at a 10 min walking distance. The city center and railroad station are nearby too.

Didn't bother to post pictures in Brugge as you can find these on other websites.

On the return trip, we were to late to pass Evergem lock again near Gent, so we continued towards Gent and are now moored at Lindelei, in the midst of the city center, near our house. We'll take the boat back to Zelzate next Wednesday.

Experimented a little bit with our fuel consumption of our new toy, a topic so much discussed on this forum

Engines are twin D4-225's and boat is a Bavaria 35.

Running one engine at 1400 rpm, we were going 6,5 knots and consumed about 6 litres per hour. Running both engines at 1400 rpm, we were only doing 8 knots and consumed 6 litres per hour per engine. So 100% increase in fuel consumption for a mere 25% increase in speed.
Increasing engine RPM to 1500 increased our speed to 7 knots but consumption to almost 9 liters for one engine ! Burnt about 70 liters of fuel on the round trip at 1,30 euro per liter at current price in Belgium for (white) road diesel. If you include the marina charges, our trip to Brugge was actually cheaper than spending a night in the pub

Alternating these trips with other trips in more coastal waters and Holland make boating fun for us ! Hope you enjoyed the report. Will post some more for next trips if you're interested.

Cheers,
Alain