The Deben bar

[Mirelle]

I have hesitated before posting this, but I think (and let me emphasise, I am not an expert and I have not done any surveys, this is just based on looking at my own echo sounder) that the long continuation of Easterly winds has perhaps piled shingle up and moved the shoal further out to sea, so anyone entering or leaving is perhaps well advised to make the WE HAVEN safe water mark buoy, rather than "cutting the corner" by turning southerly after passing the W Knolls red can buoy.

This is just my impression. Anyone using the entrance without local knowledge should check further.

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[dickh]

Mirelle, yes I agree with you, the shallow part is definately further out than earlier in the year. I came in 2 hrs after HW(neaps) and registered min depth of 3.2m on my echo sounder - Bank Hol Monday.

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I'd rather be sailing... /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

 

[Neil_M]

Inclined to agree. Haven't taken detailed soundings recently but it does seem shallower in the area you describe. Only on Sunday on our way back from Ramsgate we passed a yacht (Medlar) aground there having tried (I think) to cut the corner too soon after LW - finally towed off by Felixstowe volunteer RIB after taking a pounding in the N Easteries - no way I could go in close enough to assist!

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[Mirelle]

A confession. Familiarity breeds....stupidity....

I was fool enough to come in 2 hours before LW on Tuesday, in a NE'ly 4, which I should not have done, as every schoolboy knows, certainly including me!

Least depth under keel was in a trough in the breakers, on a line from the WE HAVEN buoy to S Knolls buoy but well before the latter - 0.2 metres! Draft is 5ft so there was less than 2 metres in the troughs. Between S and N Knolls buoys the least depth under keel was 0.6 metres - no breakers there.

I owe the Almighty a big favour.

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[Neil_M]

Re: A confession. Familiarity breeds....stupidity....

I think we've all done it - I had a nasty near miss earlier this year having estimated the depth without allowing for wind/high pressure effects - won't cut it that fine again...

Met a Woodbridge sailor last week whilst in St Valery sur Somme (great place, hairy entrance channel - but that's another story...) who pranged his Hillyard badly on the Deben Bar last year. Even the most experienced get caught out occassionally.

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[Jacket]

Re: A confession. Familiarity breeds....stupidity....

Did a similar thing going into den Helder a few years ago, in a F6/7. Missed the main channel, and passed over the sand bar off the entrance. Had a bit more water than you under the keel - 0.6m- but was surfing at 14 knots at the time. It would have been great fun if I hadn't been so terrified. Got wipped out by the next wave, but at least I discovered that the self inflating lifejackets work.

My non-sailing girlfriend thought it was great fun, but I very nearly gave up sailing there and then. Sat in harbour for 4 days before I got up the nerve to go sailing again.

I see what people mean when they say that all sailors find God at some point!

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