Swale Visitors Mooring

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Toutvabien

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We went round from Ramsgate to the Swale this weekend and took up one of the visitors moorings east of Faversham Creek, just past the barge anchorage. I have used the mooring in the past once at least and had no problem, however about an hour before low water on Saturday night the boat, with a draft of about 1.6 metres, touched bottom and continued to go down to the extent that we ended up healing by about 15-20 degrees before teh tide came back in. I know it was my own fault for not working out the hights and assuming that the mooring would be ok for a boat with our draft. At a high spring tide it would have been a bit dodgy for a boat with much more than our draft.
 
There's no mention of a visitors mooring in my East Coast pilot nor on my chart. It's a few years since I've been there but I just grabbed a mooring and hoped the owner didn't come back! There's not much water on the north side just passed the hard but I thought there was plenty in the moorings. As I have a new boat drawing 1.6 I shall watch out - thanks for the warning. SWMBO would not be pleased and I would have to fake nonchalance!
 
There are moorings at Harty Ferry, just West of Faversham Creek and I believe that permission should be asked at Harty Ferry pub on Sheppey.
 
I know people who used to put their own moorings down to the west of Faversham Creek (for a fee of course), so assume that they are private. Don't know if any are set as visitors by anyone. Many used to be drying, but there seem to be a lot less there now.

Like others, I grab and hope nobody comes back at 2 in the morning!
 
The two moorings that I am thinking off are the first two as you turn left out of Faversham creek, they are the red ones that people seem to most frequently pick up and leave on a regualr basis. Have, I think, 12 ton written on them which is what makes me think that they are visitors moorings.
 
Mainshiptom over on MoBochat has house/mooring at the top of Faversham creek,he will almost certainly know if they are public/private.
 
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The two moorings that I am thinking off are the first two as you turn left out of Faversham creek, they are the red ones that people seem to most frequently pick up and leave on a regualr basis. Have, I think, 12 ton written on them which is what makes me think that they are visitors moorings.

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I'm astonished if you went aground on one of those moorings. I assumed you meant you were over on the north side, where it is certainly shallow. Most of those do belong to the pub, the Ferry House Inn.
Quite a few of the moorings on the south side 'belong' to the owner of the big fishing boat kept there, Bluey Walpole. There are also large white moorings, these are marked up as owned by HCC (Hollowshore Cruising Club), CCC (Conyer ditto) and WCC (Whitstable ditto). East Coast Pilot is exactly correct in what it says, there are no 'visitor' moorings as such as there is nobody to come along and fleece you, although Bluey might possible come along and invite you to pay something if you are one of 'his' moorings and he's got time on his hands!
As others have said, holding is excellent if you want to anchor.
 
Yes, we were on the north shore and were firmly aground for and well healed over, to the extent that a bottle of malt and couple of glasses slipped gracefully off of the cockpit table.

I was also amazed, which is why I posted about it. Presume the mooring has moved or the bank is getting shallower. The similar sized boat on the other one of the pair of moorings appeared not to suffer the same fate.
 
Ah, well, in that case I'm not surprised - the bottom is uneven over there anyway and I wouldn't trust any of the moorings for depth except the outermost. I am not aware of any maintenance of them either (although I may be wrong). The ones on the southern side of the Swale are properly looked after.
Serious incident, losing a bottle of malt..... /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
3 or four years ago we observed a 30ish foot boat drag one of the large white moorings in a wind over tide situation (plenty of rocking motion) and one or more of these moorings often appear a little out of station. On one mooring last saturday night there was a 45 foot yacht and a couple of 30 footers all strung together - they sure have faith in the ground tackle!
 
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