East Coast & Draft

The Hunter 26 sailed really really well - I even won the Nore race with her!! (as most hunters.... v v tender!)

Replaced with a Jeanneau Sun Odessey 37 - v pleased with her.

Ian

I guess if I read the bottom line of your post I would have guessed. Sherlock I am not :D

Now I can imagine you being VERY pleased with a S.O 37.. Lovely boat.
 
One of the things not mentioned here is that generally when people move from bilge to fin, the boat gets longer, and apart from the speed, the comfort of crashing through a Thames chop is much greater on a bigger noat
 
One of the things not mentioned here is that generally when people move from bilge to fin, the boat gets longer, and apart from the speed, the comfort of crashing through a Thames chop is much greater on a bigger noat

The problem for most of us is the Wallet, of course. It's just a couple of hours of your time in fine weather, but an insurmountable obstacle when thngs get nasty. When I first considered sailing from the East Coast I looked at the charts and saw that all the waterways were orientated in line with the prevailing winds and reasoned that at least half my sailing would be to windward. Thus, I have always had fin keels and in terms of size my current 34 footer makes even tacking up the Wallet against a force 6 a pleasure, sometimes.

Unless you keep your boat at Tollesbury, you won't normally have a problem sailing with up to 2m draught. I have not experienced the pleasures of going up the Essex creek other than in dinghies and am saving that up for my old age.
 
Hi,

We're on our third season now sailing out of Levington with our latest boat of 6 foot draft. We probably spend more time down channel than sailing East Coast ports, but in the first season we visited Brightlingsea and Bradwell and last year Southwold and Woodbridge. The Woodbridge visit was at neaps, and we did the passage there in a single tide and the return also in a single tide. Had to use the iron tops'l on the return passage to save our tide over the bar having waited for water over the Tide Mill cill.

Crossing the estuary we still use the swatchways, but take care wth passage planning. Half of a 4m tide does wonders for the shallow bits!

So no, we don't miss the shllower draft of previous yachts (I've never had less than 4 foot in 50 years of sailing the East Coast) and clearly for passages down channel, acoss Biscay or the Irish sea we welcome the firm hold on the water our 6 foot draft gives us.

Peter Wright
Wild Thyme
Moody 425
 
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