Foulger's Gat - improvements to lights on AtoN

Erbas said:
Across the South West Sunk crossing opposite Fishermans Gat?????

The one that Mystique ran aground on trusting the untrustworthy Admiralty charts?

The one we bounced the starboard keel of Brigantia off the sands trusting the previous years 2012 survey by Roger?

The one where the gradually migrating northwards swatchway we'd all been using vanished entirely over the winter of 2013/2014?

The one where the new swatchway that Roger found last year is now the other side of a drying bank with a least depth of 4.9 but a very narrow channel?

Has it moved?

Have the depths changed?

Is it still there at all???

Until somebody goes out and has a look who knows?

If Roger gets the chance to survey it before we go that'll be excellent. If the weather and my workload coupled with Jane's rota (which we're told is going to be changed at the end of March but we haven't been told how) work together I'll try and get out there for a day sail and do a recce myself

But in the absence of any current info and at the beginning of a two week cruise with a deadline in the middle I'll take the prudent option of going the slightly longer way round thankyou!
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Bru

Have a look here http://www.crossingthethamesestuary.com/SW%20Sunk%20Drawplus%202014%20V4.pdf

:)
 
ianfr said:
Bru

Have a look here http://www.crossingthethamesestuary.com/SW%20Sunk%20Drawplus%202014%20V4.pdf

:)
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Er, yes? I am familiar with the document in question (it's on my bookmarks and a printout is in my nav folder!)

The key point being that was from soundings taken in June LAST year!

What has happended over the winter? Has the swatchway moved? Got deeper? Got shallower?

When I relied on the 2012 survey in the spring of 2013 I hit gravelly sounding sand where there should have been at least 3m of water. It is not an experience I intend to repeat in a hurry!

IIRC someone else also grounded briefly at about the same time and when Roger got out there to survey the crossing he found it had moved a good 100 yards to the North. This confirmed what I'd found when I very cautiously made my way back across the SW Sunk on the return trip and sounded my way across finding slightly deeper water to the North of the 2012 recommended track

Then a year later in 2014 that swatchway had effectively disappeared altogether and a new one had opened up. With a 12 to 16 hour day in prospect (if the conditions are OK we may press straight on through to Dover and bypass Ramsgate altogether) I don't much fancy mucking about with dodgy sandbanks and the Little Sunk crossing further North seems to be fairly stable year on year.

Granted that playing it safe adds about 4.5 miles to the distance to cover, and therefore an hour to the trip, but rather that than another crunch onto the sand ... especially with Jane on board! I am under orders to stop being quite so gung ho and go back to being Mr. Cautious Careful Skipper like wot I used to be for the first couple of years. Madame did NOT enjoy our excursion onto Foulness Sands last year and has made her position vis not running aground very clear indeed!

Actually, she's not wrong. I had been getting a bit cavalier and at times even a bit careless. We got away with it, just, but it was an embarrasment and an embuggerance I don't intend to repeat!!!! :o
 
Bru

You are quite right of course, the channel may well have moved over the winter.

A couple of years ago Nic and I sailed out there to see if the channel had moved since the previous survey, it hadn't but HAD shallowed quite a bit.

We made the reconnaissance in preparation for a trip to France a few weeks later.

Regards
Ian

p.s. I still have that spare mainsail if you want it.
 
ianfr said:
Bru

You are quite right of course, the channel may well have moved over the winter.

A couple of years ago Nic and I sailed out there to see if the channel had moved since the previous survey, it hadn't but HAD shallowed quite a bit.

We made the reconnaissance in preparation for a trip to France a few weeks later.

Regards
Ian

p.s. I still have that spare mainsail if you want it.
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A recon like that is very much what I have in mind if I can fit it in to my (ahem) busy schedule!

Can I get back to you on the mainsail? If it isn't nadger freezing weather on Sunday Jane and I are going to try and sort out our lockstore at Fambridge as we really need to get as much of the boat gubbins down there and out of the house as possible. We're supposed to be de-cluttering and down-sizing this year :ambivalence:
 
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