Watermouth Info?

[eastlaked]

Hi Guys,

I am considering visiting Watermouth (near Ilfracome) in my Moody 35 BK next week, does anyone have any hints or advice?

Thanks,
David.

 

[DuncanHall]

I strongly recommend Watermouth. I stayed there twice last year.

The Watermouth website gives the harbour plan

http://www.watermouthyachtclub.co.uk/harbourplan/harbour_plan.html
I stayed twice last year in my Moody 31 BK.

If you are traveling from Milford plan to arrive near high water then it's fairly easy to enter and pick up the moorings which are fore and aft moorings with yellow buoys.

 

[sarabande]

a lovely, unusual, place to visit, quite different from e.g. Minehead or Ilfracombe.

Keep an eye on the long-term forecast as a NW wind can make it difficult to leave.

Watermouth Castle (nearby tourist attraction) is of modest value unless you have easily pleased small children.

 

[bert49uk]

Give Keith the Harbour master a ring nice guy and a Moody owner to boot

 

[eastlaked]

Thanks guys. Fingers crossed I will visit in the middle of next week.

 

[bert49uk]

weather looks good

 

[spidercrab]

We are also considering going to Watermouth or Oxwich on Wednesday to lock out from Cardiff at 8:30am. Not sure which at the moment.

As the winds are forecast as NW for Wed & Thur I am concerned that Watermouth may be too exposed. I haven't visited Watermouth before but looking at the chart it does look exposed to the NW. If that's the case we will go to Oxwich.

 

[eastlaked]

Thanks for the information and encouragement. We made it there and stayed two nights (was supposed to be one night but ...). My notes, lessons learnt and comments for others are:

1) Very nice place! Well worth the effort. Friendly people, lots of hellos and thumbs ups etc from the local boats coming and going.

2) Probably the comfortable upper limit for the size of a visiting boat is about 30 ft (depending on your boat and skill level!). My boat is 35ft and I found it difficult finding a safe spot to anchor where we didn't swing into other boats or the rocks. The available visitors mooring (red pickup bouy next to the yellow cat) looked too small a spot for a 35 footer as it was only about 5ft from the cat and about 20 ft from the boat behind. Hence why we anchored.

3) The spot indicated on the yacht club diagram (great link, thanks), was too small for us to swing in.

4) Do contact the HM first to find out about visitor or other unused moorings and save all the hassle with anchoring in tight spots. I just turned up and hopped for the best!

5) Probably springs with a relatively strong NW wind is not the best time for a first visit.

6) We put out the kedge from the stern to reduce the swing , but it got tangled in a mooring chain, so if you do anchor use a tripping line. We didn't use one, so ended up staying an extra night, so we could untangle it at the next low water.

7) Combemartin, is close, so a good spot to wait if you arrive a low water. We had a look at low water, but as the beach shelves quite steeply at the entrance, we touched and it took a couple of minutes before we got off again.

8) Mobile signal coverage at anchor depended on the operator. I had reasonable coverage with O2, but dad had none with Orange. Maybe better at the head of the harbour.

In summary, well worth the effort, but if your boat is bigger than 30ft do some extra homework!
Thanks again for the advice and info.

David.

 

[geepee]

Hi David

Glad you made it and found the natives friendly - I was the Hunter 273 who said hello

I might have misunderstood what you are saying but all the moorings have fore and aft bridles under the pick up buoy so there wouldn't have been a risk of swinging
Fridays & Sat nights the club is open, thre's a bar and showers, we have occaisional BBQ's through the summer on Sat nights, next one is this Sat 6th July and there is one on Sat 31 Aug if yopu or anyone else wants to visit again

regards
Geof

 

[wakeup]

if your boat can't take ground is there anywhere to anchor in deeper water?

 

[bert49uk]

Not really, best to co to Ilfracombe (about a mile West)