Quality mud

[ChrisE]

Reading Dylan's post re shallow water has prompted me to ask where the worst mud in the UK is located.

I think that worst can be judged by several qualities, smell (anything less than a dead bear's bum is not in this league), quantity (we're talking acres or square miles here), viscosity (if the mud can't retain your welly or at least clog your anchor with unshiftable gloop then it's not worth talking about) and finally depth (could you lose a bike, a car or a lorry without noticing)

I have two nominations to start with:

1. Newtown Creek and surrounds, that mud could have fought off an invading navy single handed.

2. My home port of Keyhaven, which has managed to take a couple of wellies off me and stunk my tenders out when an oar merely kissed the surface of the stuff. On a nice warm day in summer when the true extent of mud becomes clear with the wind in the right direction you could be mistaken for thinking that you were in the middle of some time warped WW1 gas attack.

 

[glashen]

I'd certainly agree with Newtown Creek (I once anchored in the channel to Shalfleet sank into the mud and wondered as we approached high water the next day if it was ever going to release us, so gloopy and sticky was the glorious stuff), although Poole Harbour and particularly the southern half certainly deserves an honorable mention. I have a number of memories of mud covered barbequers there.

 

[Ex-SolentBoy]

I have a number of memories of mud covered barbequers there.

Is that when you have to line up for sausages

 

[ff_nick]

Newton - soft Southern mud. Try the 'umber

 

[electrosys]

Naaah - you guys are only playing at mud.

For the real stuff try anywhere around The Wash - from Boston or Kings Lynn town centres right out several miles seaward. No need for any MUD 'r' US signs in this neck of the woods.

And our unique claim to mud-fame is "where else in the country was a whole King's ransom lost in the mud ?" Along with it's oxes and ox-carts (which was the earliest known insurance-job ever pulled, if you want my opinion).

 

[Csail]

Reading Dylan's post re shallow water has prompted me to ask where the worst mud in the UK is located.

I think that worst can be judged by several qualities, smell (anything less than a dead bear's bum is not in this league), quantity (we're talking acres or square miles here), viscosity (if the mud can't retain your welly or at least clog your anchor with unshiftable gloop then it's not worth talking about) and finally depth (could you lose a bike, a car or a lorry without noticing)

I have two nominations to start with:

1. Newtown Creek and surrounds, that mud could have fought off an invading navy single handed.

2. My home port of Keyhaven, which has managed to take a couple of wellies off me and stunk my tenders out when an oar merely kissed the surface of the stuff. On a nice warm day in summer when the true extent of mud becomes clear with the wind in the right direction you could be mistaken for thinking that you were in the middle of some time warped WW1 gas attack.

Really easy post, bristol channel is just mud, probably good to polish the internal engine cooling.

 

[Searush]

Really easy post, bristol channel is just mud, probably good to polish the internal engine cooling.

Yup, I will certainly bow to the superiority of Bristol & Avon mud. It excels in quantity & quality. If you haven't experienced it then you can't judge. But I reckon the Humber runs it a mighty close second.

 

[dylanwinter]

my vote

Ramsholt is the claggiest of the journey so far

I also shoved my depth stick into the mid at the entrance to the butley - seven feet down and still no resistance

blimey

I like mud though


- very forgiving stuff when you run aground

it makes the most wonderful sculptures

and the birds like it

although I have been enjoying the sand at wells

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezPKNNzAtM

you can walk the routes before you sail them

d

Ps in the above film you will see that the bar looks like a seagulls head

 

[Talbot]

Portland Harbour was well known for its rancid mud that would stick well to the anchor, but acted like teflon when the wind started to blow.

 

[michael_w]

The Pyefleet is a contender for the "Stickiest Mud Prize".

 

[yellowspinnaker]

I will vote for Poole Harbour, too. Partcularly near Round Island or off Lake Pier, where the colour, smell and consistency is only eclipsed in severity by the stuff's resistance to shampoo, washing powder, Mr Muscle, soap, and even jet washing.

Proper mud, we have here in Poole. World Class. If there was an Olympic Mud Event we would take Gold...

 

[Lakesailor]

I think we have to bow to Dylan's breadth of expertise on this subject. has anyone else sampled as many different muds?
I expect Dr Henry Irving has a scale to refer to.

 

[Searush]

But Dylan will not get round to the Bristol Channel until 2055 at the earliest. But I can wait for a decision if he is to be the arbiter.

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

Poor deluded souls....

Notice the east coast regulars haven't even bothered to respond... mud... hah hah hah... its not proper mud until you can run aground on it 15 miles from land...

Listen to you lot talking about your creeks, rivers and harbours....... we've got an entire seaboard of it to play with.... so much that a few hundred years back we reclaimed several million acres of it and turned it in sugar beet fields...and when we get bored we can sail across a sea to play with foreign mud.....

 

[Habebty]

I'm with Pat Pheonix on this one, despite the godawful stuff to be found at Hardway in Portsmuff Arber, East Coast mud is King Gloop (or should that be 'king awful)

I would rather hit the mud than the rocks but boy, does it stick there. I ploughed a small furrow with one keel across from the Albatross in Wells Harbour last year and on lift out in Ipswich 9 months later, there were still traces of it!!

I love the way mud slows you down, none of that dramatic splintering and crashing stuff, but just the gradual realisation you are no longer moving as the seagulls paddle past

 

[ChrisE]

Hmm, so far I'm impressed with the descriptions of some of the mud but unless I've missed it I don't think anybody has come up with the really foul smelling stuff that we generate in Keyhaven.

Could be something to do with lots of boats on moorings and not a holding tank to be seen. Let's not go there and assume that the smell is due to decomposing naturally occuring organic matter, what am I saying?

 

[Bosun Higgs]

Bristol channel mud without doubt.

Apart from being toxic with all those centuries of industrial waste down the severn from the midlands, the stuff sticks better than sh*t does to a blanket. I once crossed Biscay , sailed N Spain for the rest of the season ans still had BC mud on my keels at lift out. Not a word of a lie or exagerration.

 

[Spuddy]

The Medway mud has double adhesion. I went aground last weekend and it took my motor plus a friend with hefty horsepowers to get me off. When it comes to scrubbing off, jet washers won't touch it and it fights back at scrapers. So it grips the hull and also grafts itself onto the antifoul.
There's got to be a marketing opportunity for it: the adhesion plus presence of mercury and arsenic must have a use.
However the smell has improved since the clean-up at the Port Werburgh liveaboard cluster.

 

[Blueboatman]

I see all your east coast gloop and raise you one Faro creek cos it has ( or had) one 6 foot diameter sewer outfall that trickled through the creek at low water.

I rest me case.
That stuff could actually stain unpolished weathered gelcoat-what could be in there, eh?
And yet, two miles down the creek, flourishing clam beds

 

[Yantlet]

My vote goes to Conyer Creek off the Swale but have to admit they are memories of long ago the experience must have traumatised me as I still have total recall and the occasional nightmare!