The Tay

dylanwinter

dylanwinter

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www.keepturningleft.co.uk
I have been looking at the Tay

looks a great river for wildlife and shallow sailing

what are the tides like - I assume they are pretty good

I also assume there is a fair amount of water as google earth reveals commercial vessels up at Perth

getting very excited now

D
 
Sea eagles at Tentsmuir forest and I think on the north shore near Errol.
Loads of seals sunbathing on the sand banks.

Busy little marina at Tayport, moorings off the Royal Tay Yacht Club and Wormit Boat Club too.
I think you could easily dry out alongside the old pier at Newburgh also.

Yes the coasters go all the way up to Perth to load timber mostly - the channel is well marked.
The one that got stuck on the Farne Islands recently was carrying timber from Perth.
In the past couple of years they've taken to anchoring off Balmerino quite frequently - it's nice to see them there.
Oil rig supply vessels plus the occasional small cruise ship moored at Dundee and currently there's a big white three-masted tall ship in.

Sorry I don't know much about the tides but there's an awful lot of exposed sand at LWS..
 
fekin nightmare to race on is all my experience , huge tidal flow , especially going out with river , even in a high performance cat to make any progress against ebb had to crawl up shores .

so in short in a slower yacht , tidal planning highly essential ,
used to love going there however folks at royal tay really friendly and area beautiful for east coast ;) .

other prob , is the Harr , not har har ! local mist that sets in overnight and doesnt clear till afternoon if lucky .

finally , its silvery in the sun mc gonagle assures :)
 
I have very fond memories of racing catamarans there, probably not in the areas you are going to be most interested in. I fully agree with markhomer, Royal Tay was a super friendly club when we lived in Scotland, not at all as the 'R' in front might suggest.
 
Oh the wonderful Harr-its been down the Great Glen as far as Spean Bridge every day this week-it took until gone 10.00 yesterday to clear from the mid Glen and you could still see it hanging over the Moray Firth.
 
Just a small reminder that the Tay has the largest flow of any UK river - the same as the Severn and Thames combined, so there's a lot of water coming down it. I second stops at Balmerino, also Elcho Castle on the Rhynd (where I used to stay). You could try sticking your nose up the Earn too - dunno how far you'd get, but it's certainly tidal and a road less travelled. You may be able to get as far as Bridge of Earn (so a morning's return trip).
 
The tidal streams in the Tay are fierce, as has been said,. When I used to sail on the Tay I frequently had the experience of sailing close-hauled, heeled over nicely and leaving a significant wake, only to realise from watching landmarks ashore that I was actually going backwards.

The trip from Dundee to Perth is far from straightforward in a sailing boat, and not just because of the sandbanks. Because of the flow of fresh water down the Tay the tide graph very asymmetrical with the flood lasting for much less time than the ebb. Thus today at Perth the flood lasts about 3 hours and the ebb for about 9 hours, Dundee to Perth is about 17 miles, so you would need to maintain a pretty brisk speed over the ground to make it with the flood. (See http://www.tides4fishing.com/uk/scotland/perth )

Getting under the bridges at Dundee can be fun, too. The road bridge is reasonably straightforward but the piers for the rail bridge are closer together and create more of an obstruction to the tide, so there can be a discernible step in the water when the tide is running strongly. Also, the stumps of the piers from the 1878 bridge are immediately downstream of the present one, and some of them are (just) submerged at high water.

I hope I'm not putting you off ....
 
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Done the Forth, but not the Tay yet.

Having looked at the pilot book, my hunch is there's a lot more to see and do in the Forth ...especially with a 30ft plus boat, as most of the harbours further up the Tay are best suited to smaller craft.
 
alan_d said:
Also, the stumps of the piers from the 1878 bridge are immediately downstream of the present one, and some of them are (just) submerged at high water.
Click to expand...

It is not generally known that one of the reasons for the span lengths of the replacement bridge being identical to those of the original was so that the old low girders could be re-used in building the new bridge (together with an equal number of new girders, since the present bridge is double track).
 
armchairsailor said:
Just a small reminder that the Tay has the largest flow of any UK river - the same as the Severn and Thames combined, so there's a lot of water coming down it. I second stops at Balmerino, also Elcho Castle on the Rhynd (where I used to stay). You could try sticking your nose up the Earn too - dunno how far you'd get, but it's certainly tidal and a road less travelled. You may be able to get as far as Bridge of Earn (so a morning's return trip).
Click to expand...

In the 1980s I took a Vivacity up to Bridge of Earn. The then Forth YCs' Pilot suggested that HW there was about the same as Perth. I planned to arrive at around HW, find the pool just below the road bridge, and spend the night there. In the event we ran aground and the flood continued for about an hour after the time of HW at Perth. Does anyone with an up to date copy know if this tidal data has been revised?

Thinking about it now, and the earlier point about the great outflow of river water making for the Tay's very asymmetrical ebb / flow pattern, I think that's the answer: there is so much less flow down the Earn that its tide is probably much less asymmetrical.

We were a bit put out by the grounding since it was observed by the occupants of a row of new houses who were having a barbecue, for whom we were now providing the cabaret, so we dropped down the river when the tide turned and anchored out of the shipping channel just below the confluence with the Tay. A lovely spot, with the salmon fishers doing their thing with the coble and net close by. The mechanical log clocked up quite a few miles overnight...
 
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