N51.40'60" E1,06'00" Crouch

[Silent Lady]

We left Shotley on Friday the 10th of December in the direction of the Crouch.

Heading into the Crouch we passed the Swim Spitway Bouy and then headed towards Swallow Tail .. The intention being to leave Swallowtail to starboard and Ridge to port. At 12.15 some 4 hours after HW Harwich we should have had enough depth to cross the shallow bit but the depth gauge went down to 1.7 at which point the keel bolt came up as we touched the bottom . Once we had wound up the keel we only had 1.3m depth . The chart shows 0.2 as the lowest point and we should have had about 2m of tide . No harm done apart from dented pride and a score of 0 - 6 to SWMBO

Tides for Harwich

Fri,2010-12-10 07:50 GMT 0.50 meters Low Tide
Fri,2010-12-10 07:51 GMT Sunrise
Fri,2010-12-10 14:46 GMT 3.57 meters High Tide

Chart of area Here

N 51.40'60" E 1,06'00"

 

[tillergirl]

http://www.eastcoastpilot.com/news.html

While last July's report on ECP talked more of the Ron Pipe side, it also talks of generally shallowing and movement east as well.

The fact is that this part of the Crouch is pretty fluid. In 1903, the Swallowtail is shown but as something not going much further east than where the South Buxey is now (bear in mind accuracy would not have been as precise as today); by 1938 it has completely gone. It now seems to be bidding to join the Buxey again and extends much further east than it has done in the last 100 years! It will be interesting to see if there is nything other than a high water swatch to the north of it this year.

 

[rubberduck]

We noticed that our gauges showed considerably less water underneath than there should have been during august last year. Being a new boat I wasn't sure they were accurate but am now happy they are. I always allow a large margin for error, but on this occasion used over half of it. Beware!!!!