River Crouch Marinas

Stone sailing club on the river blackwater has cats in there and launching all states of the tide with competitions frequently.Rivers fairly wide at St lawrence bay too so fast sailing as soon as you launch
 
Thanks for the link dingdongs-I was getting interested until I realised that Stone SC are pretty much a dinghy club. I am pretty much limited to the first place I can get to on the east coast as my crew round from Portmouth is very limited on time away and will need to get off ASAP. Pretty well decided now for Bridgemarsh if they can lift out a little cat ok or Essex Marina. Fambridge looks nice but too expensive for me and Burnham £4.8k what!
 
Bridgemarsh have a crane that seems to handle quite big cats. Certainly it lifts our 7ton monohull without much trouble. It can only lift on highish tides - a few days either side of neaps the boats cannot get into the creek from which they lift the boats, and the crane does not like very strong winds, or rather, the handlers don't! That means that they can only lift a few boats per day/week so you have to ask in good time - it has always been fine for us, though. Biff was a superb, very careful crane operator. We are waiting to see whether the guy who now comes in to operate the crane is as careful and skilled.
 
I prefer travel lifts as being more foolproof, particularly after seeing a 50ft cat that a guy had spent 10 years building slip in the slings and end up suspended by just on sling hooked around the skegs. Fortunately the boat was quite high to clear things on the ground so no harm done but a heart stopping moment. I will come back on here in spring to check the new crane guy. Thanks.
 
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