Thames estuary short cut !

Colin K

Colin K

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Hello,
I had a friend who crewed on the Walton lifeboat who used to tell me about how they at the right state of the tide would cross Gunfleet and Long sands rather than go around. Now granted this was also him showing off after a couple of pints and wanted to point out that the lifeboat drew very little when on the plane !!
I did wonder however whether in a flat calm and a rising tide if you could take what looks to be a straight line from Pye end straight through Fishermans Gat. I draw 1.4m and have bilge keels.
I hope to cross to Kent a week Wednesday and so I am getting nervous about my normal black deep,Foulgers gat passage with the bloomin windmill work going on.
Any one have any experience of this ? or be around to laugh/pull me off!
Thanks, Colin.
 
I sailed out to the windfarm yesterday - just because it was warm and sunny:p - anyway there was a yacht that was sailing right through south to north and this was a couple of hours before low water.
 
Hi, we went from Walton Backwaters last Saturday, round the north end of Gunfleet and over the sunk sands at 11:15am and then foulgers half an hour later. We draw 1.8m and there was about 1.3m under the keel at the sunk. Foulgers is ok with some of the bases in place but there was no one working around there. It was reasonable at that time but blew up horrible when we rounded North Foreland.
 
Colin

Taking you literally with a straight line from Pye End to Fisherman's Gat, there are some potential issues crossing the Sunk Sand as this will put you close to the unmarked stump/tangle of collapsed steel structure that was the Sunk Beacon plus the northeast finger of the Middle Sunk that now extends north of the position of the old beacon dries at LW. As to the Gunfleet, to the best of my knowledge there is no data but the track from Pye End to Fisherman's does take you through the 'gap' on the Gunfleet leaving the old lighthouse to port. Who knows if there is a gap? The people who have just surveyed that part of the Gunfleet for the Wind Farm extension - but I don't know where to get at their data.
 
Hi all, Thanks for your replies, very helpful and I think I will leave the cross sandbank saga's for another day when I dont have a destination 200 miles away on the South coast. So I think normal route with me checking in to check for Foulgers gat workings the day before I sail. Forecast however is looking more and more yeuk so I might be staying in Ipswich :mad:
Once again thanks, Colin.
 
tillergirl said:
Colin

Taking you literally with a straight line from Pye End to Fisherman's Gat, there are some potential issues crossing the Sunk Sand as this will put you close to the unmarked stump/tangle of collapsed steel structure that was the Sunk Beacon plus the northeast finger of the Middle Sunk that now extends north of the position of the old beacon dries at LW. As to the Gunfleet, to the best of my knowledge there is no data but the track from Pye End to Fisherman's does take you through the 'gap' on the Gunfleet leaving the old lighthouse to port. Who knows if there is a gap? The people who have just surveyed that part of the Gunfleet for the Wind Farm extension - but I don't know where to get at their data.
Click to expand...

Hi thanks for that yes the tangle sounds a bit of a risk. Looking at the survey catamaran I recon it would float in a decent puddle.
Col.
 
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