dolabriform
Well-Known Member
I'm not a gentleman apparently ?
Suffolk Sailing - River Orwell - Deep Draft Keel vs Shoal Draft Keel
- Thread starter DueSouth
- Start date
I'm not a gentleman apparently ?
fredrussell
Well-Known Member
I turned the engine on in the wallet, wind over tide, hobby horsing all the way. That's how I discovered there was crud in the tank, when the hobby horsing stirred it all up and the engine went bang bang no more
I suggest you inspect your tank more often. It’s part of my annual service, do you not check it now and then?
fredrussell
Well-Known Member
& there was me thinking that this was the East Coast forum. Not the Motor Boat Forum
So you’ve never motored your boat against a foul tide then?
…And I believe it’s just the East Coast Forum isn’t it? I don’t think it’s mobo or sailboat specific.
dolabriform
Well-Known Member
New to me boat, tank only 1/8th full. Brown stuff happens sometimes
Kukri
Well-Known Member
Been there, done that thing. Hamble to Orwell, new to us boat, engine had behaved perfectly pottering round the Solent and once we set out on the delivery it lost interest short of the Bramble Bank!
Marmalade
Well-Known Member
Yes - at v low springs the marina will warn us off - it's the channel as much as the sill. Mostly a minor inconvenience but once we managed to arrive after an 11 hr beat from Belgium at v low water and desperate for our comfy marina berth were told we'd need to wait an hour. We anchored at Ewarton, crashed out, and went into the marina the following morning.
Kukri
Well-Known Member
This picture on the Harwich Harbour Authority webcam will illustrate two points on this thread. It shows us on arrival about to set the mainsail again to get up the river as the engine was u/s and the eagle eyed will spot that we are … err … (see post 44) on the wrong side of Shotley Spit! ?
shaunksb
Well-Known Member
I think the difference between sailing performance of a relatively modern design of AWB with that amount of difference in keel depth will be negligible.
I seem to recall a test about a decade ago where the journalists were given two boats with both options of keel and were asked if they could tell which was which.
It wasn't easy to do.
Upwind performance, if that critical, will be far more influenced by,
How foul the hull is.
How baggy the sails are.
How much cruising gear you are carrying,
Whether you have Ben Ainslie or Ben Elton on the helm.
However the short time I've been sailing the East Coast I can't help noticing the tidal restrictions by bars and sills and the requirement if anchoring to get over out of the channel in relatively little water.
So if I had the choice, in the this area I'd plump for the shoal draft.
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LONG_KEELER
Well-Known Member
[QUOTE="shaunksb, post: 7909331, member: 31079"
Whether you have Ben Ainslie or Ben Elton on the helm
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[/QUOTE]
Whether you have Ben Ainslie or Ben Elton on the helm
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[/QUOTE]
PeterWright
Well-Known Member
A sailing barge, while capable of making progress upwind is hardly a good windwatd performer, the sails being anything but flat and sheeted right out at the rail. A leeboard offers a small area of resistance to leeway compared to the 4000 of so square feet of sail. Nonetheless, there was clearly no commercial sailing vessel better suited to our East Coast than the Thames Sailing Barge.
If faced with foul wind and tide in the Wallet, or elsewhere, it was common practice to let go the anchor, cook a meal and get heads down until an hour or so before tide time, when jt was time to haul up and get under way again.
What's the hurry?
Peter.
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johnalison
Well-Known Member
I remember Des Sleightholme railing against the sight of perfectly good sailing boats motoring hard just to get from A to B. I think that he must have forgotten that some people actually work for a living, and if they find themselves, say, in the Orwell and need to get the boat back to Mersea on a Sunday so that they can be ready for work on Monday morning, then the engine will go on regardless. It is true that many of us can be lazy given half a chance, but modern cruising yachts have engines that are more than auxiliaries and we often cruise as if we were in motor-sailors.
Hydrozoan
Well-Known Member
Perhaps he mellowed a little on the matter in old age, reluctantly recognising the reality you describe. I thought I remembered his writing that he wept, sitting on Bolt Head watching the sails come down, but his YM obituary ends 'In his last years Des loved walking up on Bolt Tail, watching the passing yachts and tut-tutting if they used their engines instead of the tide'.
[My emphasis; Sad farewell - Yachting Monthly]
johnalison
Well-Known Member
Although he was a wry character and I was lucky enough to meet him a couple of times, I think that his last few years were marked by increasing pain and frustration from an arthritic hip or two, and I got the impression that this made him all the more tutworthy.Perhaps he mellowed a little on the matter in old age, reluctantly recognising the reality you describe. I thought I remembered his writing that he wept, sitting on Bolt Head watching the sails come down, but his YM obituary ends 'In his last years Des loved walking up on Bolt Tail, watching the passing yachts and tut-tutting if they used their engines instead of the tide'.
Hydrozoan
Well-Known Member
Yes I gathered that about his last years. 'Tutworthy' is nice - I shall hope for a softening upgrade to it by posterity.
DueSouth
New Member
My search for a yacht is over - About to complete the purchase of a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 349
In the end I went for a deep keel version and will take all the advice and guidance on board to avoid joining the club of sailors who ran aground!
In the end I went for a deep keel version and will take all the advice and guidance on board to avoid joining the club of sailors who ran aground!
mrming
Well-Known Member
Congratulations - a sweet boat!
When you learn the secret of not running aground on the East coast, do let the rest of us know.
AntarcticPilot
Well-Known Member
The only other option on the East Coast is to be a liar ????
Concerto
Well-Known Member
Congratulations on buying a boat in this difficult market.
One of your first things to do to stop running aground is to set your depth sounder to be keel depth. Then the number you see is how much clearance you have under the keel.
Initially check the depth of the transducer from the waterline. Subtract this from the designed draught and then add 0.1 of a metre as a boat loaded always is deeper. Use this as the offset for your depth sounder and then ........................................test by running aground. I checked mine on the concrete sill at the Tide Mill Harbour at Woodbridge by looking at the tide guage for your draft and trying to enter when your depth sounder is showing zero to see if you touch.
Now you will be set to know how shallow the water has to be to stay afloat. Tacking up the Medway I usually tack on 1 metre under the keel due to the sloping edges of the channel, but other places where it is very flat I go down to 0.3 metre.
To become a true East Coast sailor you have to try entering a shallow river entrance on a falling tide and get it wrong. You have to remain over low tide (usually few people see you as no one else is around due to it being low tide). Just touching bottom on a rising tide is just normal East Coast sailing.
One of your first things to do to stop running aground is to set your depth sounder to be keel depth. Then the number you see is how much clearance you have under the keel.
Initially check the depth of the transducer from the waterline. Subtract this from the designed draught and then add 0.1 of a metre as a boat loaded always is deeper. Use this as the offset for your depth sounder and then ........................................test by running aground. I checked mine on the concrete sill at the Tide Mill Harbour at Woodbridge by looking at the tide guage for your draft and trying to enter when your depth sounder is showing zero to see if you touch.
Now you will be set to know how shallow the water has to be to stay afloat. Tacking up the Medway I usually tack on 1 metre under the keel due to the sloping edges of the channel, but other places where it is very flat I go down to 0.3 metre.
To become a true East Coast sailor you have to try entering a shallow river entrance on a falling tide and get it wrong. You have to remain over low tide (usually few people see you as no one else is around due to it being low tide). Just touching bottom on a rising tide is just normal East Coast sailing.
johnalison
Well-Known Member
Whatever floats your boat, as they say. Having relied on a Seafarer then Navico whirly thing for nearly thirty years, I am quite content to have the meter showing depth from transducer, in the knowledge that we ground when it says about 1.1. My brain knows that our draft is 1.5+, so anything around that is still OK. I have sailed on boats with instruments showing depth below the surface or keel and it drives me mad since senility has removed flexibility from my system. I believe that there is no single way that is better than any other. I just don’t like sailing with the meter showing 0.3, even if my own showing 1,5 means exactly the same.
Capt Popeye
Well-Known Member
Yea them modern Pansies , we used to use a long timber Pole suitably marked up in Feet n Inches , when in deeper waters , we used a 'Lead line' also marked in Yards ; that was before them Foreigners started t building them Boats in Meters , foreign currency i recon ; thought that the East Coast waters got much shallower then {
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