peterb
Well-Known Member
Pages 28-9 of the May issue of PBO have a very good article on drying out alongside a wall. It goes into many of the problems that can arise, but misses out the one that caused us a very sleepless night.
The yacht: a Najad 380 - displacement 9 tonnes, ballast 3.1 tonnes in a massive lead casting forming the fin keel. The place: Gorey harbour, Jersey. No big problem, we'd dried out there before, though not in the Najad. But the Najad was very sturdily built; what could go wrong?
We put the boat alongside, port side to, carefully positioned in respect of the harbour ladder. We laid out our anchor chain along the deck, so that she was heeled towards the wall. We had a fender board, with six fat fenders. We took the halyard across to a strong point on the wall, and settled down to watch her dry out.
At 1900, as calculated, she duly touched. We felt that stiffening, the loss of those small movements that show that she's still afloat. We waited for her to lean against the wall and for the fenders to take up their load.
Except, they didn't. As the tide dropped she inexorably leant outwards. We took warps from our strong points (winches and cleats) on the port side, underneath the boat and up to strong points on the harbour wall. The halyard came under such strain that we worried about breaking it, so we slackened it a little. In the end, after an hour or so, but with our inclinometer showing seven degrees of outward heel, she seemed to settle down.
Sleeping on a boat like that gives one a very uncomfortable feeling, with an easy solution; you don't. We waited until she had dried out, then went down to see what had happened.
The answer turned out to be simple; she was a Scandinavian (Swedish) boat. That bit of the Baltic gets virtually no tidal rise and fall, so Scandinavian sailors can't put their boats alongside a wall and dry out. Our massive lead keel casting had a totally flat bottom; put it down on to firm Gorey sand and the boat wants to sit on that flat bottom. If the sand happens to slope at seven degrees, then the boat will want to heel at seven degrees, and it's difficult to argue with three tonnes of lead.
The Najad has a particularly wide keel. With a narrower keel we might have held the boat vertical, or even sunk an inch or two into the sand. If the bottom of the keel had been veed or curved then it would have been OK. But I still wonder what would have happened if the sand had sloped at, say, ten degrees? How much slope would have been needed for the boat to fall outwards?
The yacht: a Najad 380 - displacement 9 tonnes, ballast 3.1 tonnes in a massive lead casting forming the fin keel. The place: Gorey harbour, Jersey. No big problem, we'd dried out there before, though not in the Najad. But the Najad was very sturdily built; what could go wrong?
We put the boat alongside, port side to, carefully positioned in respect of the harbour ladder. We laid out our anchor chain along the deck, so that she was heeled towards the wall. We had a fender board, with six fat fenders. We took the halyard across to a strong point on the wall, and settled down to watch her dry out.
At 1900, as calculated, she duly touched. We felt that stiffening, the loss of those small movements that show that she's still afloat. We waited for her to lean against the wall and for the fenders to take up their load.
Except, they didn't. As the tide dropped she inexorably leant outwards. We took warps from our strong points (winches and cleats) on the port side, underneath the boat and up to strong points on the harbour wall. The halyard came under such strain that we worried about breaking it, so we slackened it a little. In the end, after an hour or so, but with our inclinometer showing seven degrees of outward heel, she seemed to settle down.
Sleeping on a boat like that gives one a very uncomfortable feeling, with an easy solution; you don't. We waited until she had dried out, then went down to see what had happened.
The answer turned out to be simple; she was a Scandinavian (Swedish) boat. That bit of the Baltic gets virtually no tidal rise and fall, so Scandinavian sailors can't put their boats alongside a wall and dry out. Our massive lead keel casting had a totally flat bottom; put it down on to firm Gorey sand and the boat wants to sit on that flat bottom. If the sand happens to slope at seven degrees, then the boat will want to heel at seven degrees, and it's difficult to argue with three tonnes of lead.
The Najad has a particularly wide keel. With a narrower keel we might have held the boat vertical, or even sunk an inch or two into the sand. If the bottom of the keel had been veed or curved then it would have been OK. But I still wonder what would have happened if the sand had sloped at, say, ten degrees? How much slope would have been needed for the boat to fall outwards?
