Please Help! Fin Keel 21' tipping over at low tide!

T

Tardis

New Member
Joined
28 Jun 2010
Messages
10
Location
Exmouth
Visit site
I hope someone can give me some advice.
i recently moved my yacht (21ft, 3'3" draft Fin keel Cox) to a swinging mooring on the river Exe. I was assured that the mooring was suitable. Spent fiirst night on boat only to wake up with the boat slowly falling onto its side.
Boat ended up nearly completely on its side. Mooring is on soft mud but keel did not dig in.
I am having financial trouble now and so am limited to solutions. i will purchase yacht legs as soon as saved up but in the meanwhile can the boat take being laid down on its side with every low tide or am i going to have to sail it out every 12 hours?

Please let me know your thoughts.

thank youhttp://www.ybw.com/forums/admincp/index.php
 
Tardis,

We had exactly the same problem when our fin keeler was on a new mooring. First night she laid right down on her side (big springs) and this continued for a couple of weeks. No apparent detriment to the boat though. If anything we didn't get many gulls roosting and crapping on the deck :).

See this thread where I went through similar thought processes before committing. http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=220331

We're also on soft (and deep) mud and sure enough after 2 months of tides she has dug a nice hole for the keel and sits bolt upright at low water. 2 weeks back we had a couple of really big springs and those boats that don't normally take the bottom were laid at all angles down the channel; ours was the most upright mast of them all. Provided you have a similarly deep muddy bottom (ooerr!) you should be fine after a while.

Hope this helps put your mind at rest a bit.

Tim
 
are you at Starcross, or higher up ?

The problem with a swinging mooring there is that the wind can influence where you end up on the mud, so the chance of digging a hole so she settles upright is low.

If you were told the mooring is OK, then the owner should be made aware that you are heeled over too much. Perhaps you can use a visitor's mooring for the time being ?

Sympathies for your predicament.
 
A chap in our marina managed to get his mooring dug out by about a metre over a period of a couple of months. At the ebb he used a plank of wood to stir up the mud around his mooring and the tide took it all out. The next flood helped to even the mooring out. It worked well for him although there was a lot of work involved.
 
Thank you very much to everybody... yacht legs are the way forward i suppose. Shame everything to do with yachts is so expensive!:eek:
i shall move her somewhere deeper as soon as i can afford it.
it was just a bit of a surprise waking up with the boat going over
 
Tardis said:
I hope someone can give me some advice.
i recently moved my yacht (21ft, 3'3" draft Fin keel Cox) to a swinging mooring on the river Exe. I was assured that the mooring was suitable. Spent fiirst night on boat only to wake up with the boat slowly falling onto its side.
Boat ended up nearly completely on its side. Mooring is on soft mud but keel did not dig in.
I am having financial trouble now and so am limited to solutions. i will purchase yacht legs as soon as saved up but in the meanwhile can the boat take being laid down on its side with every low tide or am i going to have to sail it out every 12 hours?

Please let me know your thoughts.

thank youhttp://www.ybw.com/forums/admincp/index.php
Click to expand...

I can sympathise with your predicament. I was sold a mooring off Starcross with an advertised depth of 2m at LWS, turns out it's only got 1m at LWS......my Jaguar 27 draws 1.35m so she sits on her fin keel on Springs.
I've now got this mooring up for sale (with the correct measured depth) and am renting a mooring for the rest of the season from Phillip at Starcross Garage.

I'm not too concerned about her sitting on her keel..........unless there is a big wind over tide situation and she starts bumping the bottom.

Is your mooring on the Exmouth side?
 
Hello,

yes i am at starcross and also got caught out by an incorrect LWS measurement. fingers crossed the weather is good for a while. i am might try nickfabri's suggestion also. might be a bit gross with what floats by in low tide but if i can get the boat secure then it will be worth it.
 
not sure that legs are the way forward, if the bottom is not hard enough, the ebb will scour around them and they will sink in. I would only use legs if other boats nearby were using them successfully.
If they sink in they can hold the boat down on the incoming tide, enough to fill it perhaps.

Maybe would be Ok with big base to stop sinking? depends what the ground is.

Also if the mooring is exposed, the leg may get hammered on the bottom due to wave action as the tide falls.

I would be asking locals what works locally and maybe trying to get a mooring that suits your boat better.
 
Tardis said:
Hello,

yes i am at starcross and also got caught out by an incorrect LWS measurement. fingers crossed the weather is good for a while. i am might try nickfabri's suggestion also. might be a bit gross with what floats by in low tide but if i can get the boat secure then it will be worth it.
Click to expand...

If you are really stuck (pun intended), send me a PM and I'll make some enquiries with Powderham as to whether you could perhaps use my mooring temporarily..............until it's sold that is.
 
petrol jet wash

Tardis said:
Hello,

yes i am at starcross and also got caught out by an incorrect LWS measurement. fingers crossed the weather is good for a while. i am might try nickfabri's suggestion also. might be a bit gross with what floats by in low tide but if i can get the boat secure then it will be worth it.
Click to expand...

I have often wondered if a high pressure (petrol) jet wash as the last 3 foot of tide leaves could be used to start the mud hole off
 
Tardis said:
yacht legs are the way forward i suppose. Shame everything to do with yachts is so expensive!:eek:
Click to expand...

Could you not make a pair rather than buy them? Especially for a 21-footer drawing 1m, it seems like the loads should not be extreme. Would a couple of fence posts make a reasonable starting point? The tricky bit is how to attach them to the hull; that will depend on the boat.

Pete
 
I would love to make them... would save so much money. i am going to trawl the net to see if i can see any specs or blueprints. Its mud on sand so if i made really big base plates it might be ok. and see if my wee female mind can cope with such manly DIY... :D
I will take l395's advice and ask the locals first... see what works. they will prob just laugh at me and call me an idiot for not driving down to test the level first. if only...
your solutions are all relaly helpful.. thank you
 
Tardis said:
I would love to make them... would save so much money. i am going to trawl the net to see if i can see any specs or blueprints.
Click to expand...

Here's a picture from the Classic Boat forum of someone's legs: http://i566.photobucket.com/albums/ss105/dur_photo/P1030018.jpg .

His look to have a moderate-size bolt through the hull, no doubt with a sturdy backing plate on the inside to spread the load. There are then lines from fore and aft to the tip of the leg, to stop it pivoting.

I wonder if it might be possible to fix legs to the chainplates rather than drilling holes in the hull. Would depend on the design of the chainplates, toerail, etc.

Any legs are going to require some amount of adaptation to the boat, so it's not as if buying them off the shelf would be a five-minute fix anyway.

Pete
 
oh that looks interesting... hadnt considered making them that large... thank you for the pic. if anyone else has pictires of the connection of pole to boat then that would be really appreciated. :)
 
lying down

i have a thirty foot long keel boat an mg 30 and it lies down twice a day every day and has done for eleven years now and apart from the mud on her sides not a problem.Kieron
 
If she lifts off the mud okay when the tide comes back and the mooring tackle is buried so the boat cannot set down on it causing damage I would just ignore it. It's hardly a inconvenience having to wait for the tide(2 hours max?) before sailng away.
 
penfold said:
If she lifts off the mud okay when the tide comes back and the mooring tackle is buried so the boat cannot set down on it causing damage I would just ignore it. It's hardly a inconvenience having to wait for the tide(2 hours max?) before sailng away.
Click to expand...

It must be a bit of a problem if you are sleeping aboard ;)
One would get a tad miffed with ending up on the cabin sole :D
 
Blakeney

provenjohn said:
It must be a bit of a problem if you are sleeping aboard ;)
One would get a tad miffed with ending up on the cabin sole :D
Click to expand...

Sorry for Slight fred drift was at Blakeney with a couple of mates on who had never been on a boat before, He was on the up side berth when that happend only he didn't wake up and slept for a good 2 hours 1/2 out of his berth on his head totaly upside down when he woke up we was supping tea watching him . His confusion was just ... hilarious .. he woke up totaly panic strickened took him an hr before he could stand up it didnt help that we were falling over laughing He took the hump for a full day :D afterwards he told us that he was thinking about the posiden adventure!!Thought we had rolled over and sunk as he came round !! :D
 
fergie_mac66 said:
I have often wondered if a high pressure (petrol) jet wash as the last 3 foot of tide leaves could be used to start the mud hole off
Click to expand...

No doubt about it. I use a pressure washer to help remove small tree stumps in the garden. Loosens the mud up a treat.

Alternatively, a length of scaffold pole hammered into the mud at the side of the boat and then waggled about will loosen things up.

Did the boat fall completely on its side or was there still enough water to avoid the hull hitting the mud? If so, it's not ideal but I think I might give it a little while to see if it does dig a hole. Helps if its a fore and aft mooring and not a swinger.
 
Oh thats funny... thats what happened to us. My partner slept through the whole thing as he was on the right whereas my sister and i had to sleep on the floor and balance on the centre mast respectively to avoid falling on him. :D
it was certainly an adventure. it didnt last long. 1 hour and we were back upright, the hull didnt reach the floor on the side, there was just enough to keep us away from the mud.
watching the kettle on the cooker was the most amusing think of the night. it was the only upright item in the cabin. Just showed us how much we were leaning.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top