Bru
Well-known member
"New" route across the Rays'n
Following up on a hunch and acting on information received, I decided t'other day to chance my arm on a shortcut across the Ray Sand instead of taking the conventional and now marked line due South from the Raysand North buoy
My hunch was that the Ray Sand Channel extends much further South West than marked on the chart and that turned out to be the case. We had at least 4.5m to 5.0m on the sounder until well abeam of the Raysand Middle buoy and the toungue of deep water appeared to continue for some way.
Finally, the depth gradually dropped to 3.0m where it remained for some time before gently increasing again
The slight dogleg to port is a result of correcting our course to be more towards the Outer Crouch No.3, the wiggle as we approach the charted deep water channel is actually where we turned into the wind to hoist the main and then got her hard on th wind and stopped the engine. We were already showing well over 4.0m on the sounder by then
We passed the Raysand North buoy at approx. 09:15UTC on Sunday 25th May 2015 (last Sunday) and we set sail about 30 minutes later. Conditions were F3/4 gusting 5 occasionally from the South South West and there was roughly a one foot or so chop (however our ST50 depth gauge is very slow to react and doesn't bounce around in a chop like our old NASA Clipper readout)
High Tide at Holliwell Point was 09:25UTC at 4.7m, the preceding low tide was 0.9m and the subequent low tide was 1.3m. The Harwich tide gauge data for that day suggests actual tides were pretty close to prediction (if I have got my info right!)
We seem to have found a long flat shelf that would be 1.8m drying over CD and which would uncover on all but the neapiest of tides with a deeper channel cutting into it from the North which kind've matches my hunch that the old Ray Sand Channel is still a viable half tide route (I wonder if it might be the beginnings of a tidal scour re-opening a deep water all tide channel again? Only time will tell!)
I've seen less than 2.0m on the sounder over the accepted route on Spring tides in the past so this MIGHT be a better channel. I emphasise might because it needs a lot more work doing on it, this was a one off sneak across the sands on the top of the tide and we could easily have simply got lucky and avoided doom and disaster all around us!
In summary, I'm hypothesing that there is a route over the Ray Sand roughly on a line from just inshore of the Outer Crouch No.3 buoy towards the Raysand North buoy on a bearing of approx. 205T from the Raysand North buoy which is little if any shallower than the well known and marked route. This bears out a couple of whispers I've heard from "old timers" along the lines of "I wouldn't bother going all the way out to the beep beep buoys" and "huh, you should have cut across much sooner". I actually wonder if I may have been too conservative and should have held even further inshore (my gut feeling is that we hugged the Eastern side of whatever channel there is and then crossed the drying area too far to the East and that there may be deeper water to be found for longer further in)
It would be most interesting to get down there on a flat calm day and spend a whole tide surveying the area. If I get the chance I will! Oh and I regret that I didn't spark up the laptop and set it to datalog our instruments but it only crossed my mind afterwards
I shall now go and hide behind the sofa and await the incoming ...
Following up on a hunch and acting on information received, I decided t'other day to chance my arm on a shortcut across the Ray Sand instead of taking the conventional and now marked line due South from the Raysand North buoy
My hunch was that the Ray Sand Channel extends much further South West than marked on the chart and that turned out to be the case. We had at least 4.5m to 5.0m on the sounder until well abeam of the Raysand Middle buoy and the toungue of deep water appeared to continue for some way.
Finally, the depth gradually dropped to 3.0m where it remained for some time before gently increasing again
The slight dogleg to port is a result of correcting our course to be more towards the Outer Crouch No.3, the wiggle as we approach the charted deep water channel is actually where we turned into the wind to hoist the main and then got her hard on th wind and stopped the engine. We were already showing well over 4.0m on the sounder by then
We passed the Raysand North buoy at approx. 09:15UTC on Sunday 25th May 2015 (last Sunday) and we set sail about 30 minutes later. Conditions were F3/4 gusting 5 occasionally from the South South West and there was roughly a one foot or so chop (however our ST50 depth gauge is very slow to react and doesn't bounce around in a chop like our old NASA Clipper readout)
High Tide at Holliwell Point was 09:25UTC at 4.7m, the preceding low tide was 0.9m and the subequent low tide was 1.3m. The Harwich tide gauge data for that day suggests actual tides were pretty close to prediction (if I have got my info right!)
We seem to have found a long flat shelf that would be 1.8m drying over CD and which would uncover on all but the neapiest of tides with a deeper channel cutting into it from the North which kind've matches my hunch that the old Ray Sand Channel is still a viable half tide route (I wonder if it might be the beginnings of a tidal scour re-opening a deep water all tide channel again? Only time will tell!)
I've seen less than 2.0m on the sounder over the accepted route on Spring tides in the past so this MIGHT be a better channel. I emphasise might because it needs a lot more work doing on it, this was a one off sneak across the sands on the top of the tide and we could easily have simply got lucky and avoided doom and disaster all around us!
In summary, I'm hypothesing that there is a route over the Ray Sand roughly on a line from just inshore of the Outer Crouch No.3 buoy towards the Raysand North buoy on a bearing of approx. 205T from the Raysand North buoy which is little if any shallower than the well known and marked route. This bears out a couple of whispers I've heard from "old timers" along the lines of "I wouldn't bother going all the way out to the beep beep buoys" and "huh, you should have cut across much sooner". I actually wonder if I may have been too conservative and should have held even further inshore (my gut feeling is that we hugged the Eastern side of whatever channel there is and then crossed the drying area too far to the East and that there may be deeper water to be found for longer further in)
It would be most interesting to get down there on a flat calm day and spend a whole tide surveying the area. If I get the chance I will! Oh and I regret that I didn't spark up the laptop and set it to datalog our instruments but it only crossed my mind afterwards
I shall now go and hide behind the sofa and await the incoming ...
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