Southwold..... first timer

[benw]

On our return last Monday our crossing from Roompot with 17-22knots pretty much all trip brought us back to Southwold pretty much at LW 1712. 12.5 hr passage which we were chuffed with except knowing despite trying to slow down a bit in last few hours closing landfall we would arrive at the harbour entrance but not be able to enter. I tend to ask the HM re guidance on exit and entry as well as look at the Lowestoft tide data actual vs predicted. On this occasion the advice from the HM was to wait until 1930 as we draw 2m, LW was predicted to 0.65m tide and HW 2.2m. The tide data re Lowestoft was showing actual was on prediction, there are occasions when it is clearly above which could have given us an earlier entry opportunity.
We chose not to push our luck and waited until 1930. We know the entrance better now we have completed this safely on a number of occasions and on our track into the river we had at least 1m below the keel. Approaching the knuckle and exiting the knuckle are the shallowest parts of this transit. We did get down to 0.4m below the keel. I guess this suggests we could have been a bit braver and entered slightly earlier perhaps! A HR exited not far after LW which I believe had a draft of 1.6m and we did ref this back to the HM who again offered the same advice.
It was great to have tied up! Can't wait to get back!

 

[Javelin]

The two shallowest points in the channel, on the way in, are around half way between the knuckle and the corner of the lifeboat station and then opposite the sluice around 100ft up stream of the end of the harbour wall.
On the positive side, both these shallow spots are well inside the entrance so if you do touch there's no great danger as near LW its very rare to see any waves or swell that far inside.
The ground is shingle and mud and I have managed to push through on one occasion a few years back.
I figured that if the worst happened and I couldn't get any further an hour before LW I could drop the kedge over the side and wait it out as the level would only drop a few more inches.