Lack of water in the Solent?

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neil1967

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Had an excellent day sailing in the Solent today (along with many other people by the looks of things), but I saw three yachts aground - an old traditionally rigged wooden boat well and truly aground about 1/2 mile NW of Newtown creek (which was so busy we didn't even try to anchor), a racing yacht about 1 nm SW of the entrance to Beaulieu, and another yacht on bramble bank, which freed it's self after about 5-10 mins. It is quite unusual to see yachts aground so I don't know what was different about today? HM coastguard and the RNLI were busy!

Neil
 
Er.....the tide went out. It's not actually that common to have a tide that low coinciding with the Solent rush hour. And I think we forget how shallow it really is in many areas and owing to complacency don't refresh our memories of the charts and just think we know what's there. At least that's my answer for running aground a couple of weeks ago on the East Knoll, having taken great care to skirt around the Bramble Bank.
 
neil1967 said:
Had an excellent day sailing in the Solent today (along with many other people by the looks of things), but I saw three yachts aground - an old traditionally rigged wooden boat well and truly aground about 1/2 mile NW of Newtown creek (which was so busy we didn't even try to anchor), a racing yacht about 1 nm SW of the entrance to Beaulieu, and another yacht on bramble bank, which freed it's self after about 5-10 mins. It is quite unusual to see yachts aground so I don't know what was different about today? HM coastguard and the RNLI were busy!

Neil
Click to expand...
I am anchored in Newtown Creek as I write this and the gaffer finally got off on the very top of the tide. He was just the other side of the bank between creek and sea from. He was in a very strange place right on the inside of the gravel bank and only about 50m or so from the shore. Not sure how he managed to get in there.
Just had a small wooden boat nearly drag down onto me in the creek. Started about 75m up wind of me and I woke him when his stern was about 5m off my bow. He got away so quickly that I think he only had about 10m of chain or rope out in just under 5m of water! He's gone back to where he started so hope he's put more scope out this time!
 
I was in the Solent whole day yesterday, up and down Medina and towards Ryde, but I have the luxury of twin keel with one metre draft hence I would be the last boat to ground and the first boat to get away again; nothing is wrong with grounding, just a few hours for a relaxing long meal and few drinks, watching everyone else sailing around you.
 
Let me recount a story that may explain things.

I was crewing on a boat (not in the Solent)

I advised the helmsman our course took us over a sand bank. He looked at the chart, and the course. Looked at the depth, looked at the tide table and calculated we would have 1 metre under the keel. I advised him that local knowledge suggests the sand bank extends a little further west of where the chart shows. I was told to butt out.

5 minutes later, the depth sounder read zero. At exactly that moment, the boat stopped (that confirms it was correctly calibrated for the keel depth then)

I had to bite my tongue as temptation to say "told you so" was immense.

On this occasion we just left a groove in the sand and then carried on.
 
We sailed in after Lunch Saturday in Alum bay (also mobbed) and saw a pretty smart racing yacht aground off Warden point. The crew were all hanging off the boom..... boat was still stuck. Yarmouth Lifeboat was just leaving so I guess they were all OK. Chart showed an outcrop of shallow ground from the shore that I guess they had ploughed into that
 
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