Thames advice

[Anthonyexmouth]

Hi, bringing a little boat down the Thames later in June delivering to Dartmouth. Plenty familiar with the coast but wondering what the best time to leave the Erith area would be can make 7kts but planning for 6. . Any problematic places heading down river?

 

[rafiki_]

Hi, bringing a little boat down the Thames later in June delivering to Dartmouth. Plenty familiar with the coast but wondering what the best time to leave the Erith area would be can make 7kts but planning for 6. . Any problematic places heading down river?

Have a look at the Thames Forum. Lots of local knowledge on there.

 

[markc]

Leave on slack high water and take the tide with you. No special problems except being wary of the shipping lane. First fuel will be Ramsgate

 

[oldgit]

Hi, bringing a little boat down the Thames later in June delivering to Dartmouth. Plenty familiar with the coast but wondering what the best time to leave the Erith area would be can make 7kts but planning for 6. . Any problematic places heading down river?

Either a slow mobo or a yacht. ?
East Coast Forum for this one, more sailers.

Thames forum mostly Moboers to whom using the tides is a mystery.
Leave at Erith at HW and you can add 2-3 knots to your SOG.
Depending on your endurance go on directly to Ramsgate but you will be punching the tide after LW around Southend .
Perhaps overnight at Queenborough and then use the ebb the following day down round the North Foreland.
Then need to decide offshore or inshore route.
Good weather and neaps the inshore route is a bit more interesting.
Try to avoid anything over F5 from the NE especially on Springs.

 

[tillergirl]

Leave the Sea Reach @ 6kts (boat speed) at +1.30 to +2.00 after HW Sheerness will give you the quickest passage duration to Ramsgate via the Princes Channel - 3hrs 47 minutes on Springs, 4hrs 08 minutes on Neaps. From the Thames via the Queens Channel or Copperas Channel would be a little slower.

 

[Anthonyexmouth]

Leave the Sea Reach @ 6kts (boat speed) at +1.30 to +2.00 after HW Sheerness will give you the quickest passage duration to Ramsgate via the Princes Channel - 3hrs 47 minutes on Springs, 4hrs 08 minutes on Neaps. From the Thames via the Queens Channel or Copperas Channel would be a little slower.

Wow, wasn't expecting Ramsgate to be that quick actually. plan was to get there and check everything before heading on. Then a couple of easy days down. over night in Ramsgate, Brighton and Poole/Weymouth
Only draw 3' if that makes a difference.

 

[tillergirl]

My tables don't go up the Thames... or indeed down past Ramsgate. The tables do tend to look like a train timetable but that's because it's maths and tide data working together. What you have to do is to consider is what would happen if the conditions are adverse; e.g. wind over tide and oldgit's v. relevant point about endurance - boat or crew.

As a very crude guesstimate HW at Erith is 30 minutes later than at Southend - which is a few minutes off HW Sheerness (I am doing this mentally so check). 30nm approx from Erith to the Sea Reach No 1. 6 hours less the helping of the tide - 4 hours if you can make good 7.5kts over the ground (I would suggest a headwind might make that difficult). But there is a relatively pleasant 'window' of opportunity. If you set off at Sea Reach No1 (away from the main channel of course) for Ramsgate at 4 hrs after HW Sheerness, you can expect a duration of 4hrs 12 minutes. On that schedule you are starting to dally with the tide between the exit of the Princes Channel to the East Margate. Later than 4 hrs after HW Sheerness will start to extend the duration. Actually anytime between HW Sheerness to +4hrs gives reasonable times between Sea Reach No 1 and Ramsgate. This is based on 6 kts boat speed on Springs. Neaps are a bit slower of course but the 'window' times apply. And of course you could start at Erith in the last hour of the flood.

No the draught doesn't really make a difference. If you needed to cheat the tide finding some shallows might help but you need to ride the ebb. You have to stay out of the ships of course but I assume you know about that. There is sufficient room just outside the Princes Channel buoys.

 

[Anthonyexmouth]

My tables don't go up the Thames... or indeed down past Ramsgate. The tables do tend to look like a train timetable but that's because it's maths and tide data working together. What you have to do is to consider is what would happen if the conditions are adverse; e.g. wind over tide and oldgit's v. relevant point about endurance - boat or crew.

As a very crude guesstimate HW at Erith is 30 minutes later than at Southend - which is a few minutes off HW Sheerness (I am doing this mentally so check). 30nm approx from Erith to the Sea Reach No 1. 6 hours less the helping of the tide - 4 hours if you can make good 7.5kts over the ground (I would suggest a headwind might make that difficult). But there is a relatively pleasant 'window' of opportunity. If you set off at Sea Reach No1 (away from the main channel of course) for Ramsgate at 4 hrs after HW Sheerness, you can expect a duration of 4hrs 12 minutes. On that schedule you are starting to dally with the tide between the exit of the Princes Channel to the East Margate. Later than 4 hrs after HW Sheerness will start to extend the duration. Actually anytime between HW Sheerness to +4hrs gives reasonable times between Sea Reach No 1 and Ramsgate. This is based on 6 kts boat speed on Springs. Neaps are a bit slower of course but the 'window' times apply. And of course you could start at Erith in the last hour of the flood.

No the draught doesn't really make a difference. If you needed to cheat the tide finding some shallows might help but you need to ride the ebb. You have to stay out of the ships of course but I assume you know about that. There is sufficient room just outside the Princes Channel buoys.

Thats awesome, thanks, only mentioned the draft as i didn't want anyone thinking i was a fin keeled yacht or something deep, It's just an old 8ish metre pilot house grp fishing boat that was used commercially in the thames. Friend of mine bought it but found he doesn't use it up there because its in mud 80% of the tide so I told him i'd bring it down to Devon and stick it on one of my deep water swing moorings. He's got a little holiday home down here and will probably use it more with better access to open water.

 

[Anthonyexmouth]

Either a slow mobo or a yacht. ?
East Coast Forum for this one, more sailers.

Thames forum mostly Moboers to whom using the tides is a mystery.
Leave at Erith at HW and you can add 2-3 knots to your SOG.
Depending on your endurance go on directly to Ramsgate but you will be punching the tide after LW around Southend .
Perhaps overnight at Queenborough and then use the ebb the following day down round the North Foreland.
Then need to decide offshore or inshore route.
Good weather and neaps the inshore route is a bit more interesting.
Try to avoid anything over F5 from the NE especially on Springs.

motor, just a little 8ish metre ex commercial fishing boat.

 

[tillergirl]

Whoops. In the quick guesstimate I deducted the '30 minutes later HW' Erith, should have added. So if you took 4 hours departing Erith HW, you would be arriving at the Sea Reach No 1 at +4.30 Sheerness assuming you made 7.5kts over the ground down the London River. A +4.30 Sheerness start from the Sea Reach No 1 @ 6 kts boat speed is 4hrs 28 minutes. If you loss the schedule during that passage, thinks don't go well. Feasible from an earlier start at Erith. Typically Erith would make about 0.4 of a metre in the last hour of the flood so and early start wouldn't be too negative.

Given that this is likely to be a unique passage, PM me an email. I will make up an attachment cut and pasting relevant parts of the tables. There is a video which explains how the tables work:

As said by oldgit, Queenborough as an overnight is feasible so you would want to consider an inside route along the North Kent coast.

 

[oldgit]

If its any reassurance at all , have passed narrowboats doing this trip.
Often seen in Sea Reach and on one occasion, going past the Copperas bouy on our way to Ramgate. We were doing a heady 6 knots, the narrow boat about half that, he arrived about 6 hours later.
There is more to this story for the interested.
This website has several cameras at the yacht club near Sheerness, handy for quick look (live wind) at whats going on outside as you come down The Thames.


Cam 1 - Web Cams and Weather Station, Sheerness | IOS Sailing Community