What happens when one is not there...

[Mirelle]

My first boat was a centreboarder that used to horrify me by occasionally drying out bolt upright on her ballast keel. She was small enough to be cured of this by stowing the anchor and water breaker down one side.

Once or twice I have gone down to the present boat on her swinging mooring and noticed a streak of mud halfway up the topsides.

Last weekend we found that assorted crockery had leaped out of its stowages and spread itself, in shards, along the starboard side of the cabin sole. It has never done this under sail.

A poltergeist was ruled out, as I knew all the previous owners and none of them ever had a disturbed adolescent on board.

Spending a night on board on the mooring shows that she grounds at low water springs, and proceeds to sit bolt upright, with a good foot of antifoul showing aft!

I suspect that on occasion she has grounded, sat upright, and then fallwn over.

She does not seem to have taken any harm, so far, but one wonders what would happen on a really low tide...ten tons of boat is too much to go giving a permanent list to, as I did with the little centreboarder.

Any ideas?

 

[Sabrat]

Oh no, I'm worried about this too, unfortunately I can't help but you might be able to help me /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I havn't a boat yet but I think I'm likely to want a lifting keel but I really don't know what I will be able to get away with on a drying mooring.

What sort of boat did you used to have and how big was it? It migh give me some idea.

 

[Mirelle]

She was an 18ft half decker - a Mumbles YC One Design (what she was doing on the wrong side of the wrong country, in West Mersea, Essex, I don't know!)

Lovely little boat, in which I camp cruised the length of the Thames estuary with an ex-Army groundsheet over the boom at night.

She had a sizeable iron ballast keel.

Basically, the only problem with centreboarders on drying moorings (and there must be thousands upon thousands of them!) is that mud enters the c/b slot and plugs it - you need to be able to get steel bar down to poke it, and bits of shingle, out again.

Making she dries "uphill" is a good idea.

 

[tillergirl]

Umm, that's a bit scary. I find as I get older that when I fall over it hurts more than it used to when I was young and I suspect the same happens if you are a yacht.

TG drying on the hard scares me. she has a wide long keel and two bilge plates of dubious value. On the hard, there will be two inches clearance underneath each plate unless there is some give in the ground (which no doubt some wag could calculate - 7.5 tons to give 2 inches deflection.....) What is scary is that she will sit bolt upright on the hard on the centre keel. At first, I used to carry wedges to put under the bilge plates but now I don't bother and walk gingerly on deck when she is balanced. So far she's never fallen onto one of the bilge plates and the potential leverage of 7.5 tons falling 2" onto the bottom edge of the plate ...... Now I think, since its wet and 'orrid today I shall go into the workshop and reshape those bits of the floors I kept after cutting out last winter and turn them into new wedges on string! And there was I about to bring my charts up to date!

 

[aphay]

Might be really stupid sugestion but could you use beaching legs?

 

[Peterduck]

As you say that Mirelle is only grounding at Low Water Springs, you'd only need to apply an off-centre weight, such as the anchor on the side-deck, when that time approaches. I would think that ensuring a gentle landing on the "uphill" bilge would be better than having her toppling [possibly to the "downhill" side] after the water has gone somewhere else.
Peter.

 

[Peterduck]

Beaching legs assume a level surface to the seabed. The photos that I have seen of East Coast estuaries with the tide out suggest that they are anything but level, and in some places are quite steep. Under these conditions the legs would be counter-productive, as they would ensure that the boat would be canted toward the middle of the creek, or "downhill" side, which is what is to be avoided.
Peter.

 

[Kristal]

Mirelle,

I have been awake for over 35 hours now and therefore shouldn't be trying to solve puzzles like this, but...

What if you had a big wedge-shaped bit of something attached to two lines, which could be taken aft and then made fast, so that the wedge was more or less hard against the bottom of the keel just aft of where the stem turns upward. Providing the wedge was made of something strong enough to take 10 tons of Whisstock's finest, and was steep enough, the action of the after part of her keel settling ought to topple her nicely - and she would always topple the same way, too.

I may wake up tomorrow evening and realise this is supremely stupid, so if that's the case, I apologise in advance.

Sorry to hear the old girl had a fall, though - I don't think I should have liked to see (or heard) her do it, but glad she hasn't taken any harm.

/<

 

[Mirelle]

Would that it were that simple! Unfortunately, it ain't - when she did it whilst I was aboard I tried walking along a side deck to tip her, when she was about a foot out of her draft but my 12 stone hanging off the shrouds had no effect at all!

I think the river bed is very stiff clay - she sits down vertically, digs a hole for her keel, which gets gripped in it - THEN sometimes she crashes over!

 

[aphay]

Understand the problem now-told you it was probably a daft idea!

 

[Talbot]

There is an easy answer, but is dependent on the boat being moored fore and aft, or always drying out pointing in the same direction. I have seen this used at Maldon where the owner wanted to ensure that the boat dried out leaning in towards the river bank - they secured the boom (with gybe preventer) overboard, with a lead weight on the end of the boom. You just have to make sure that it is not the boom that hits the ground!

 

[Mirelle]

The maldon smack solution...

Good one, but alas, the fairway is narrow, we are on a normal swinging mooring just to one side of it and we would obstruct it on the flood.

I suspect I will end up lifting the mooring and having my private "pocket" dredged out a couple of feet! (at least I do know the local dredging contractor!)

 

[Sean]

Re: The maldon smack solution...

How about just one beaching leg, a bit longer than your draft? Then you'll settle on the leg before the keel, and heel away from the leg. Of course, you still have to be pointing in the right direction...