Swale boaters lost in fog 'rescued'

Perhaps...

But what about the lump of granite sticking out the water? That's Ailsa Craig. in the background.... Getting lost near Swale and ending up there would be a feat of navigation to rival Cook ...
 
xyachtdave said:
It can't be that hard to get some stock photos of life boats with nothing in the background!

Only the colour of the water would let the experienced East Coaster know it's not a local boat...
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:D

It would be a start if they could rustle up a second stock photo of an inshore lifeboat and give over using the stock shot of an AWB for stories that don't involve one!

(Are the editorial staff at YBW aware that they're getting a gentle smack upside the head for being twits?)
 
:)

Err navigating the Swale and Thames estuary are not mean feats these days or to be taken lightly, recall the lone yachtsman who set off to travel to the South Coast (or somewhere southerly) and had his road atlas with him, east peasy he thought, just keep the coast on my right hand side as I leave the Thames, what could go wrong; well it did go wrong, he entered the East Swale entrance and continued round until land appeared on both sides of him, rescued he was; So its not all plain sailing in the there parts :)
 
Top of that.. In the Thames estuary there is often very little water under the keel unlike oop in tham thar foreign places where if it be wet thar be lots of wateer..
 
Capt Popeye said:
:)

Err navigating the Swale and Thames estuary are not mean feats these days or to be taken lightly, recall the lone yachtsman who set off to travel to the South Coast (or somewhere southerly) and had his road atlas with him, east peasy he thought, just keep the coast on my right hand side as I leave the Thames, what could go wrong; well it did go wrong, he entered the East Swale entrance and continued round until land appeared on both sides of him, rescued he was; So its not all plain sailing in the there parts :)
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The story goes that it was worse than that. As he completed one circumnavigation, darkness was falling and he went round again in the dark before running aground (or running out of fuel, can't remember which) and calling for help, without having a clue where he was.
 
I think I read he had £20 of petrol in a can for his outboard and was using the logic if he'd driven his car to Southampton it would cost £20 - so he would need the same amount of fuel for his new boat.

Following the coast out of the Medway and turning right, as he managed to get into the Swale without grounding he's done well but if bound for Southampton he must have thought Whitstable etc was France?

Mind you these confusing pictures of 'local' life boats can't have helped..
 
Hydrozoan said:
But also in fairness, we do now expect every story – however minor - to be illustrated, [/I]
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Not all of us!! I much prefer reading my old copies of YM from the 50's and 60's. Infinitely better content and writing than the current stuff (which I only occasionally skim through).

Pass me my rose tinted spectacles, would you?
 
NealB said:
Not all of us!! I much prefer reading my old copies of YM from the 50's and 60's. Infinitely better content and writing than the current stuff (which I only occasionally skim through).

Pass me my rose tinted spectacles, would you?
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My apologies - I was writing of modern society in general. I probably share your rosy-tinted preference for much of the writing of yesteryear - in many different subject areas - even without photographs. But just think - if news/magazine publishers are increasingly constrained by costs to using generic stock photographs, it will no longer be axiomatic that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’...

sailorman said:
Come back DS, he could spin a tale
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+1
 
Cantata said:
The story goes that it was worse than that. As he completed one circumnavigation, darkness was falling and he went round again in the dark before running aground (or running out of fuel, can't remember which) and calling for help, without having a clue where he was.
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Oo-er, missus! :eek:

It seems there's a fair-to-middlin' chance that Yrs Trly is likely to be trying to pass and repass the Sharpness Cavalry sometime in the next few weeks, as he makes a break for freedom and The Kent Road from the glutinous nethers of Gillingham..... and has a fair-to-middlin' chance of finding Himself up the Swanee - or at least the Swale - in pursuit of a legendary ale hereabouts:


cache_24989129.jpg



However, if'n the Foggy Foggy Dew is real thick on the London River/Sea Reach, mayhap Our Hapless Nav may stumble once more across this famous Dutch sailors-beloved old hostelrie, and this time stay a while.....


LP2.jpg



( taken with my trusty Box Brownie sometime in a previous century )

Anyway, the good East Coast Pilots Honorary Port Pilot of This Parish enjoins me to mention my prospective passing along through the Region of Old Kentish Cement Boulders and my entreaty that you considerately 'look the other way' should there be an undisciplined dangly fender or soggy headsail luff in plain view to frighten the oysters.
 
Might an 'higorunt furriner' ask a potentially-importunate qwessie?

Wherein the East Coast Pilot there is mention, time and again, of 'suitable only for shoal-draught boats', what in the settled opinion of ECF swamp-dwellers constitutes 'shoal draught'.....? As in "near LW the Copperas Channel is suitable only for shoal-draught boats.”

Would that be akin to a wet West Country meadow aka a Zummerset Levels paddy field? Where one can plainly see the gulls' red knees?

:confused:
 
oldbilbo said:
Might an 'higorunt furriner' ask a potentially-importunate qwessie?

Wherein the East Coast Pilot there is mention, time and again, of 'suitable only for shoal-draught boats', what in the settled opinion of ECF swamp-dwellers constitutes 'shoal draught'.....? As in "near LW the Copperas Channel is suitable only for shoal-draught boats.”


Would that be akin to a wet West Country meadow aka a Zummerset Levels paddy field? Where one can plainly see the gulls' red knees?

:confused:
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Copperas will be fine, just get the latest positions for the buoys. Never had less than 1.5 below the keel in Y*ti and that was weaving round to find the best channel.
 
oldbilbo said:
Might an 'higorunt furriner' ask a potentially-importunate qwessie?

Wherein the East Coast Pilot there is mention, time and again, of 'suitable only for shoal-draught boats', what in the settled opinion of ECF swamp-dwellers constitutes 'shoal draught'.....? As in "near LW the Copperas Channel is suitable only for shoal-draught boats.”

Would that be akin to a wet West Country meadow aka a Zummerset Levels paddy field? Where one can plainly see the gulls' red knees?

:confused:
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As the good Mr.FC says, here at ECP Towers we mean 1.2m-ish when we say 'shoal draught'. In fact it says so in the introductory words. As for the Copperas, I note that there is usually plenty of water in it, innit, but the problems are more at the ends, particularly the western end. The buoys however have not been moved since they were placed there 3 years ago, I think.
Bit worried about oldbilbo's comments about cement boulders. It makes me think I may have unwittingly met him last Saturday...
 
What are the cement boulders, rubble from demolished forts or something?
Just below them is a feature with the name: "Clit-hole bank", the name sticks in the mind..
 
jerrytug said:
What are the cement boulders, rubble from demolished forts or something?
Just below them is a feature with the name: "Clit-hole bank", the name sticks in the mind..
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Dunno, I'll ask a Whitstable fisherman if I remember next time I meet one. They'd probably know (they'd certainly have an opinion, anyway!!)
 
I'd hazard a guess that the cement boulders are the solidified contents of cement bags lost or dumped overboard from one or more ships.
 
I think you will find it is the weighted remains of my ex-wife, although to be honest I couldn't afford the cement by then.
 
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