Hurley 22 on a drying mooring?

NUTMEG

NUTMEG

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Middle son has recently bought an old but very nice deep long keel Hurley 22. Outboard engine, no well.

He also has a council owned mooring up Lawling Creek off of the River Blackwater in Essex.

The Hurley draws about 4.5 feet and sits on about a meter of mud, which to some extent, her keel will dig in to.

A chap passing his boat yesterday expressed concern that as she lays down in the mud at LW she WILL suction herself to it and will not rise on the incoming tide.

Has anyone heard of this horrible phenomena happening, not folk myth but actual experiences as I am now slightly worried! Son is convinced, that the mass of the boat being so low down, her coamings and buoyant hull should all conspire to ensure she will rise with the incoming tide at least twice a day! She is to be launched in the next few weeks and will go out to her new mooring after a spell on the pontoon for fettling.

Thoughts much appreciated chaps.

Cheers

Steve
 
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If its a swinging mooring, it sounds like a recipe for disaster. If fore and aft against a bank or landing stage, it could be OK as it will settle in the same spot every time. I wouldn't be happy though.
 
There's a Hurley 22 drying out in the mud twice a day at our yard quite happily. Admittedly that's in a fixed pontoon berth rather than randomly around a mooring.

I suspect it depends on the consistency of the local mud - any similar boats nearby?

Pete
 
we have very sticky mud in Appledore, but the trick apparently is for the first time or two on a rising tide, is to be on board a move from side to side to 'unstiction' the hull from the hard clay. Thereafter the boat slides out neatly.


And then there's the old bargee's trick when the boat is aground. Take a whopping great sledge to the top of the main mast, and wallop the crown. The shock travels down the mast to the step on the keel, and the boat shakes herself free.



I am really surprised all you East Coast people don't carry a 14lb sledge already.....
 
sarabande said:
And then there's the old bargee's trick when the boat is aground. Take a whopping great sledge to the top of the main mast, and wallop the crown. The shock travels down the mast to the step on the keel, and the boat shakes herself free.

I.
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you are getting mixed up- that trick is to start a GM10 when its full of air...:cool:
 
Deep keel boats have been sitting in mud on drying moorings for ages. They also rise with the tide as well. It is flat bottom boats that are held down by suction. However if the boat settles in slightly different places each tide it may occasionally lean over into a previously made hole.
 
theoldsalt said:
Deep keel boats have been sitting in mud on drying moorings for ages. They also rise with the tide as well. It is flat bottom boats that are held down by suction. However if the boat settles in slightly different places each tide it may occasionally lean over into a previously made hole.
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That's my sons argument. Blackwater sloops and other local boats have roughly similar hulls and, as he said, rise up with no issues. There is a Hurley 27 on a swinging mooring about 1/2 mile downstream, although muddy, it seems fine.

The mud is typical East Coast smelly stuff and about a meter deep, on the soft side I would think.
 
I'd be interested to hear if anyone has a specific answer to the OP's question: has any boat ever flooded as a result of being stuck in mud, regardless of hull configuration.
 
Quiddle said:
I'd be interested to hear if anyone has a specific answer to the OP's question: has any boat ever flooded as a result of being stuck in mud, regardless of hull configuration.
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Happens to narrowboats occasionally when they venture out of their ditches onto tidal rivers. If they end up sitting on the bottom at even a moderate angle, they often don't have enough buoyancy to lift off before the water slops over their low freeboard. Then they flood, and roll over like a log, not helped by the ballast often being paving slabs under the carpet, which fall out.

Should not happen to a reasonably-designed seagoing yacht though.

Pete
 
My Anderson, which has a canoe-body and protruding ballast bulb, sits upright in the sticky mud at West Mersea and Tollesbury and there is no hint of suction on the rise. Also a Holman Sterling 28 used to sit on the mud at the entrance to Woodrolfe Creek and had no problems. I wouldn't worry about it. Just don't do it on the Goodwins!
 
Hurley 22 fin keel has 3' 9" draft, not 4' 6", so not quite as drastic as you and he might have been imagining.

I doubt suction will be a problem. He might want to think about whether batteries and fuel tank won't spill, and no risk of siphoning back through any bilge pump, etc. outlets, at the steepest angle it will settle at (before it creates itself a hole to sit in).
 
I kept my first boat for two years on a drying swinging mooring in Lawling Creek just opposite Blackwater Marina's pontoons and never noticed any issues with any fin keeled boats on moorings there (a friend kept his Sonata a couple of moorings downstream of my boat without it sinking)

The two things of note was some of the deeper draft boats on moorings adjacent to MBSC didn't appear to float free on small neap tides and that there was the odd harder patch were the channel runs.
 
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Little Grebe, sounds like the place. Behind the spit opposite the marina.

Little Sister, your correct of course, my boat has 4'6", not Jamie's. Which might explain why he cleared the Eagle and I hit it. Lesson learnt, don't follow a shallower draught boat over shoals:-)

Thanks for the replies, I will pass them on.
 
I think we are heading for a bit of a myth buster here

I really find it hard to believe that it happens

the mention of the canal boat is a bit of red herring

I wish that I had money for every old bloke who came up to me and mumbled doom laden nonsense in my direction

so I would love to know if it has ever happened

Dylan
 
dylanwinter said:
I think we are heading for a bit of a myth buster here

I really find it hard to believe that it happens

the mention of the canal boat is a bit of red herring

I wish that I had money for every old bloke who came up to me and mumbled doom laden nonsense in my direction

so I would love to know if it has ever happened
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I reckon you're right.

For yachts at least.

Narrowboats can flood, and there are probably other types, open boats or unseaworthy river mobos, that will too due to being at an odd angle. But if a decked yacht went down without flooding then it ought to rise up again.

The buoyancy of a hull in rising water is immense, you'd need mud like epoxy to hold it down.

Pete
 
Not really Dancrane, that was a bit different. The damage to some Westerlies and other bilge keelers with splayed keels was more the lateral forces acting on the insides of the keels pushing them apart.

This thread is really about drying a deep long keel on a swinging mooring where the bottom is mud. The suggestion, well warning really, was that a vessel laying well over on her hull, sitting in mud, would suction herself to said mud to such an extent that she would not rise with the tide.
 
I have a fin keel boat with 5ft 6in draught.

I bought it from Newport, on the Usk, where the local sailors moor to drying soft mud without a second thought. They all just snuggle into the ooze and rise again, like thousands around the country.
 
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