The perils of brown water sailing.

Well done and Thank You to both crews.
It is very comforting to know that such skilled and dedicated volunteers are on standby at all times to come to our aid when we get ourselves into difficulties in the area.
 
I stuffed up trying to go through the SW Sunk passage and put myself on the sand. It was in very benign conditions, not like mentioned here. Nevertheless Dover CG sent Burnham lifeboat and I was very pleased to see them!
Great bunch of selfless lads.
 
Well it could be the Swin Spitway. Then the two slightly larger turbines would be the two Demo turbines that are slightly larger than the rest of the Gunfleet Farm. In which case she is very much on the Buxey and that could be the edge of the 'deep' water of the Swallowtail with the unbroken water to the right.
 
NealB said:
A member of the Burnham crew, tells me the yacht "grounded close to Swin Spitway Buoy".
Click to expand...
One would expect that a yacht sailing in those waters would have a crew with their eye on the echo sounder. One would know pretty soon that the yacht had left the main channel as the chart shows it shelving quite sharply. With over 3 hours of tide there would have been ample room to tack, or change course.
Are any of the buoys missing, or off station, which might lead to an error in position?
But of course all these things are easy in hindsight & I have hit most of the sandbanks in the estuary over the years :rolleyes:
 
The only buoy close by is the Swallowtail No 1 and there is no report of that being off station. But isn't that relevant to there. The south side of the Buxey has a rather placid 'bay' with nice shelving but where Colin is showing suggest a yacht thunderin' along at a rate of knots toward the Spitway buoy where the shelving suddenly gets steep. On a lee shore, a momentary loss of concentration and there we are - as observed, quite common. So far I have always 'donked' in placid weather! Once, deeply in conversation with my wife and mother, we suddenly noticed our dinghy pass us ?
 
In the pre-Crossrail spoil days before the N side of the Swallowtail was marked, it seemed every time we left Burnham on Gladys that there would be a boat aground on the Swallowtail... Last time down there, the channel was a bit skinny, but as TG says a momentary loss of concentration in windy weather...
 
Interestingly, I understand this was a sea school boat, and a daughter of someone I know was aboard... Boat was motoring not sailing... anything else I've heard is only gossip, and I won't post it. If it was a school boat, there will be a MAIB investigation and that report will be interesting reading...

As for cutting the corner, TG and I spent a lot of time at around the Buxey and Spitway this year and last, and there is no doubt that it's pretty skinny down there
 
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