Ever been up to Colchester ?

[alec]

I only ever get as far as that Rowhedge pub against the wall and then chicken out.

I was about when the last coasters used to get up there but I expect it's getting rather shallow now.

 

[sailorman]

got almost to U.E.A. well within 3/4 of a mile managed to turn rather than astern for a mile,( astern not that easy in a Co32 /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif)

 

[MikeBz]

[ QUOTE ]
got almost to U.E.A. well within 3/4 of a mile managed to turn rather than astern for a mile,( astern not that easy in a Co32 /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif)

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow! I didn't know the Colne went all the way up to Norwich! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Not much to see at Colchester anyway (from the river) just the back of B&Q and some of the worst cheapest tattiest modern blocks of flats I've ever seen, the kind of jobs that turn into a total slum within 15 years.

Mike

 

[Mudplugger]

Silting up nicely, since the barrier went in...Col boro council have ideas of dutch style linear marina, but need more water! for more of the time...Roll on global warming.

 

[old_doozer]

I took my Mevagissey Tosher, loa 23ft including bowsprit and draft 3 ft, up on a spring tide last year (2017) with a gentle following breeze. The river is quite pretty for a while just above Rowhedge for half a mile or so with open fields either side before the rather dilapidated old port buildings come into view and then the rather ugly modern buildings referred to by another commenter . I had the engine on tick-over from near the University of Essex just in case we grounded or needed to turn quickly as the channel is not marked at all and the depth does vary quite a bit, especially on the bends. We got all the way up to the bridge and found enough room to turn without any problem. From the Visit My Harbour website it would appear that there is a small damp patch that doesn't dry totally where the pontoon is located at King Edward Quay but we didn't stop to check it out. http://cbcgoss.colchester.gov.uk/moorings

 

[PaulRainbow]

I managed to get all the way through Colchester to West Mersea last week.







Luckily my van is very shallow draft

 

[ex-Gladys]

I live in Rowhedge, and the last time I bought the boat up, I chickened out about where the Roman River joins. It was a rising spring tide and we were down to 0.3 under the keel. I have been up to Colchester, but in the rubber duck or by foot. Interesting walk, especially past the Hythe ponds...

 

[Kukri]

As a schoolboy I remember Everards and other coasters and of course the 940 dwt "Moler Venture", built by Cooks at Wivenhoe for the Moler Works, located on the Hythe and making firebricks.

Sic transit gloria mundi

 

[Old Bumbulum]

Just been there in a lift-keel Parker. as Doozer says it is very pretty until the last few hundred yards when the sewage farm, dilapidated warehouses and scabby liveboard barges appear. We had 1.2m of keel down all the way. You do have to search a little for the deeper water though, the insides of bends are very shallow.
The jetty is a modern floating one in good condition but the water runs out pretty close to high tide, we touched in a tad under a metre of water at HW-2. The channel there is fairly narrow at that state of the tide but depths seemed to be 2m plus all the way up otherwise.
The quay by the jetty this year is infested with the scabbiest collection of hippie buses and trucks you've ever seen and doesn't look inviting because of it but they're probably OK. There's a water point on the quay and allegedly electrickery too if you arrange it with the council in advance.
It is an excellent place for crew changes as both the stations (town and mainline) are a short taxi ride away. There is a small co-op 200m away and a vast Tesco 15mins walk over the bridge.
We've used it several times over the last couple of years and found it very convenient for the purposes listed above. If you dry out there you'll be at a modest angle due to the slope of the mud.

 

[johnalison]

It is an excellent place for crew changes as both the stations (town and mainline) are a short taxi ride away. There is a small co-op 200m away and a vast Tesco 15mins walk over the bridge.
We've used it several times over the last couple of years and found it very convenient for the purposes listed above. If you dry out there you'll be at a modest angle due to the slope of the mud.

I think you would need to be fairly desperate to be rid of your crew to make your way up there. Much easier would be the visitors' pontoon at Wivenhoe YC, which you could do with a deepish fin at HW and no need to get a taxi for a London train.

 

[LittleSister]

I think you would need to be fairly desperate to . . . make your way up there. Much easier would be . . .

It's the fact that it's not too easy and run of the mill that appeals to me!

(And also that it would be amusing to use that method to visit relatives that live nearby, despite the fact that it's as quick to drive to their house as it is to the boat, even before factoring in a good couple of days sailing to get the boat there and back. )

 

[Old Bumbulum]

Wivenhoe YC also doesn't obviously provide water on their pontoon (as far as I could see) nor is there a large Tesco/small Co-op close by. Trains to London too are all very well but only if you happen to be going to London.
Anyway, I haven't an invitaion from Wivenhoe YC to make free with their facilities and am reluctant out of courtesy to do so uninvited.
And as Little Sister said, it's a pretty trip above Wivenhoe and a bit out of the ordinary too.

Colchester appeals to me for that reason.

 

[Kukri]

I’ve thought about this and I am not going to do it.

I’m going to remember Colchester Hythe as it was in the Sixties; a small working port with two or three coasters in - the Moler Works used to be served by a Dutch owner skipper coaster that was always immaculate, there was usually an Everards coaster in for the gas works, and there might be a Union coaster in for grain, and once I really did see a working Thames spritsail barge just below the old bridge heaving her gear up after discharge at East Mills.

I suspect that a lifetime in merchant shipping began as a schoolboy (CRGS boarder) poking around Colchester Hythe.

No; I don’t want to see it now.

 

[johnalison]

Wivenhoe YC also doesn't obviously provide water on their pontoon (as far as I could see) nor is there a large Tesco/small Co-op close by. Trains to London too are all very well but only if you happen to be going to London.
Anyway, I haven't an invitaion from Wivenhoe YC to make free with their facilities and am reluctant out of courtesy to do so uninvited.
And as Little Sister said, it's a pretty trip above Wivenhoe and a bit out of the ordinary too.

Colchester appeals to me for that reason.

I've nothing against the idea of sailing to Colchester for those willing to do so but WSC is still a possibility for those less intrepid or overkeeled. The club pontoons were refurbished with the help of a grant on condition that they could be used by visitors. Visitors were always welcome when there was room but now they actually have a 'right' to visit. The Coop just up the road isn't bad for basics, and the deli at the bottom of the village has some good stuff, including real bread, which is where I get mine. No water on the pontoons as you say, but the beer's not bad.

 

[Black Diamond]

I think you're probably right, Minn. I was also at the Grammar, and ran away to sea the very day I failed my last A Level (exam on Tuesday morning, Sir Alan Herbert (launched and now reverted to Lady Jean) at Shingle Head in the afternoon, summer of '77. We took the barge up to Colchester several times that summer, and one of my old Tollesbury mates, Bill Sissins, was mate on the Erwood, the bovril boat that emptied fruit of Colchester into the North Sea.

Having swallowed the anchor, I worked in the grain trade, and in the early 80s brought a coaster full of tapioca into Colchester, and got some first-hand experience of the Dock Labour Scheme, when the darling stevedores went on strike because the dust from the cargo covered their nice clean cars.

The place is unrecognisable now, silted, smelly and rotting, overlooked by what has already been described as shoddily thrown-up student accommodation. I doubt there is the budget for the political will to dam the river, so the bohemian character is likely to remain. Having said that, I preferred the silted grandeur of Docklands (when I did a stint in Prior's barges in 1980) to the glass palaces of the City overspill.

 

[tillergirl]

P1040257 by Roger Gaspar, on Flickr

 

[LittleSister]

Nice pic, Roger.

Did you notice what (or how hard) was the apparent obstruction in your photo, just above the waterline in line with the near end of the pontoon? Looks like could be a cardboard box or a deceased supermarket trolley. (Wouldn't want to bump into anything like the latter.)

 

[Cobra]

I’ve thought about this and I am not going to do it.

I’m going to remember Colchester Hythe as it was in the Sixties; a small working port with two or three coasters in - the Moler Works used to be served by a Dutch owner skipper coaster that was always immaculate, there was usually an Everards coaster in for the gas works, and there might be a Union coaster in for grain, and once I really did see a working Thames spritsail barge just below the old bridge heaving her gear up after discharge at East Mills.

I suspect that a lifetime in merchant shipping began as a schoolboy (CRGS boarder) poking around Colchester Hythe.

No; I don’t want to see it now.

You are spot on there Minn! I remember back in the mid 70's I used to drive down to the Hythe on High Tide weeks and park up at the back of the quay near the turning head to watch the comings and goings...a very pleasant way to spend a lunch hour!
Regular visitors to the port carrying out Fieldgates liner trade between Colchester and Delfzyl were the 'Ahoy' and 'Roerberg' both Dutch owned and always very smartly turned out. Then there would be the regular visitors to the Hasler and Colchester Dock Grain Silo's (usually Everard or Crescent Shipping vessels). The Moler Venture of course making her regular runs up to the Moler Wharf on the other side of the river. Occasionally Timber vessels would come in from the Scandanavian ports heavily laden...I remember seeing one come in with a 15-20 degree list to Port...it was a tad breezy that week and I guess he had a somewhat interesting crossing!
Of course harvest time was when it got seriously busy! Endless streams of trucks discharging their grain into either of the two Silo's and maybe two or three coasters line astern waiting for the berth at their allocated Silo...this would go on for two or three weeks late August and into September.
Then of course there was the old 'Errwood'... the 'Bovril' boat...every day as soon as the tide allowed her to float off her berth at the Sewage works she would get up to the turning head and off out to sea. I think I am right in saying that she was meant to start her discharge once she was beyond Colne Point, however I remember on more than one occasion seeing her pipes over the side as she passed Brightlingsea Creek and the seagulls paying a lot of attention to the water astern of her!

Thinking back to the harvest times, we would often see five or six coasters all anchored off Brightlingsea awaiting their turn at the Hythe.
The larger vessels tended to use Rowhedge and Wivenhoe wharfs and it was not unusual to see three larger coasters at Rowhedge and another (usually a timber ship) at Wivenhoe.

Sadly, those days are now long gone. The Hythe Quay is, as has already been alluded to, become something of a dumping ground. On the other side of the river there are numerous University accommodation blocks and somewhat bizarrely a new 7 storey luxury apartment development with prices topping £400k for a two bed penthouse flat with unobstructed views of the mud and University buildings and a gentle aroma of whatever is currently decaying in the silt.

All very sad having watched this once thriving, bustling river in it's Autumn years and now seeing it as basically a nothingness!

 

[Champagne Murphy]

My dad used to go down there to get summer holiday work, he was a teacher. I recall one year he got home looking like a ghost, they’d been unloading sacks of raw talc, heaven knows what it did to his lungs but he's still with us at the age of 82. One weekend during term time he took me down to have a look, he was very keen on the history of Colchester and never wasted a chance to talk about it so the hythe was the perfect subject once he’d exhausted the Civil war and the Castle. My main recollection is of a heavily bearded hippy type chipping rust on a red (in places) coaster, no mask, no ear cover, nothing PSE whatsoever. That and the mud, of course.

 

[pandroid]

Some years ago, Colchester Council got an EU grant to build a lock at the end of the harbour. This would have allowed the harbour to be full of water at all times, and therefore much more attractive to the developers surrounding the harbour, and they were going to build a small marina in the old (now silted) turning circle.

Needless to say, they pissed the money away on a different scheme entirely.