Yacht wrecked - is it just me?

xyachtdave said:
Is it not more a case of time/crew restraints taking preference over the weather?
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Too true and probably very likely given the time of year and with the intention of getting somewhere rather than a jolly.

From my own experience it is something that we tend to apply in our early day's of sailing but later realise that it just doesn't work . I suppose not having Red Traffic Lights around the sandbanks is the price we pay for freedom.

Isn't it a great pity that we can't all make minor 'learning cock_up's" without suffering this level of consequence ?

I too think it very brave that " He was brave to write it up for everyone to criticise! "
 
LONG_KEELER said:
Too true and probably very likely given the time of year and with the intention of getting somewhere rather than a jolly.

From my own experience it is something that we tend to apply in our early day's of sailing but later realise that it just doesn't work . I suppose not having Red Traffic Lights around the sandbanks is the price we pay for freedom.

Isn't it a great pity that we can't all make minor 'learning cock_up's" without suffering this level of consequence ?

I too think it very brave that " He was brave to write it up for everyone to criticise! "
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Reminds me of the sailing saying "You start out with luck and no experience and hope to get the experience before the luck runs out,"

Having said that if you don't get out of your comfort zone occasionally you won't learn anything.
 
It's 'o' Level Sums init? Draft 2.29m, charted depth 0.9m, nasty NE blow, close to the bottom of the tide. Haven't done a full analysis of the tides but it was springs as well. That's not getting out of your comfort zone. I wouldn't wish it on the guy but my insurance does not cover me for acts of recklessness!
 
pasta_simon said:
I have made some really stupid mistakes in my time; but the consequences were 100% my fault and as far as I'm concerned if there's the slightest chance of serious injury to my crew, then the sea can have my yacht anytime it likes!
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We all learn the limits of our boats and our sailing competence one way or another. Eventually. In this case the author hit the putty, but in many cases I bet a lot of us, including me, just scraped by and learned a valuable lesson! I have sympathy for this guy.

Up to a point. We are often warned about radar induced collisions etc. There is a serious point to be made here, and a warning not included in the account. Focusing on a screen induces a reliance on just one means of making progress; you concentrate on the moving marker dissociated from anything else, rather than using all the senses at your disposal.

Just heading off into very restricted waters in the dark, even having done it before, reliant on electronics is narrowing the odds in a way experienced sailors know is pushing their luck.

The proof of my assessment centres on the failure to try the anchor. When you're in trouble, you chuck the thing overboard and it does its job. A practical hands-on course of action. When you're an instrumentalist, as here, you seek optimum setting conditions, sublimating the real peril you're standing into. TV dissociation from reality.

So the optimum becomes the enemy of the good, and the boat stikes.

Do they teach this at sail school? I guess folks are still finding out the truth the hard way. Pity.

PWG
 
LONG_KEELER said:
Isn't it a great pity that we can't all make minor 'learning cock_up's" without suffering this level of consequence ?

"
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I suspect that we all make minor learning mistakes, certainly I have and have scraped many a sand(or mud)bank in fine weather, but this is not a minor 'cock up' but a series of questionable decisions in bad weather which led to disaster.

Personally I would rather take the long way round, or chicken out, than risk my crew and boat.

The challenge is to understand your limitations and the challenges of the chosen route and sail accordingly. I'd rather sit in Ramsgate than chance it in such conditions.
 
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PeterGibbs raises interesting points about technology assistance. If you spread out a full Admiralty Chart in good light, I doubt you would miss the 0.9 sounding of this swatchway. To what extent is it so easy to see on a chartplotter; does the software provide that detail? Everyone here knows I (as leading luddite) haven't got a chartplotter so I can only surmise that Peter may have a very good point. Having thought about that route for the book I am perhaps more sensitised to its risks as is Cantata. What does it look like on a plotter anyone?
 
tillergirl said:
PeterGibbs raises interesting points about technology assistance. If you spread out a full Admiralty Chart in good light, I doubt you would miss the 0.9 sounding of this swatchway. To what extent is it so easy to see on a chartplotter; does the software provide that detail? Everyone here knows I (as leading luddite) haven't got a chartplotter so I can only surmise that Peter may have a very good point. Having thought about that route for the book I am perhaps more sensitised to its risks as is Cantata. What does it look like on a plotter anyone?
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If you zoom out, the depth will disappear.......as will buoys and all other relevant features. Most disconcerting until you get used to it.

I should say there is a disclaimer on every plotter startup screen

NOT TO BE USED FOR NAVIGATION.

Worrying isn't it?:eek:
 
tillergirl said:
If you spread out a full Admiralty Chart in good light, I doubt you would miss the 0.9 sounding of this swatchway.
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As a matter of interest, which chart are you looking at that gives 0.9m?

Mine shows rather more, and looking at a couple of admiralty charts at the show (hopefully the most recent) from memory they were something like 1.2m min, possibly even 1.6m.

Doesn't help with a 2.5m keel, but would like to know what the current depth is.

I agree about planning on a proper paper chart as being beneficial.
 
Admiralty 1607 Thames Estuary Southern Part - edition 11, 20th April, 2006. There is a later one printed 26.2.2009 but that's not at home with me. The 2001 print (Edition 9)shows 2.2m at the same point! (the 1932 chart shows lest depth of 2.3 Fathoms!!!!)

I tried to find the exchanges last autumn when Trinity House had a look and described is as chart (the depth) but narrowing. Perhaps Cantata can help on that.

I think I would make the point that the 2001 depth of 2.2m was a v.narrow channel that you would not attempt in lively weather - well I wouldn't!
 
when comfort gets to be terminal

"Having said that if you don't get out of your comfort zone occasionally you won't learn anything"

Too true. I wouldn't ever try that passage in those circumstances as I'm far too cautious but caution can become too much of a habit. I had the time and inclination to do plenty of sailing last year. I've got the experience and enough theory but I barely went anywhere. Why? Aside from general wimpishness and lack of proper planning (oh for an all-tide berth) I've had the winter to reflect and realising I've been 'catastrophising'. That is, I've moved from expecting what's likely, to worst-case-scenario. I think it was due to too much reading about disasters, reading too much about hi-spec safety kit I can never afford. For heaven's sake there's no spray-hood on my life-jackets and I don't have a see-me active radar reflector, or AIS. Even the boat was reproachful. I'd go down expecting the engine to fail to start and it fires up every time. I had a couple of frights in 2008 but what's new? I like cruising far too much to give it up and this season I'll be out there, on the water, staring at the rigging, waiting for it to fall down.
 
I have had a look at the area on the C-Map chart, updated March 2009.

Both buoys are shown as lit, although in his account he talks of failing to find the "unlit buoys" The area between them is less than 2m, and if you go a fraction off track to the South when approaching from the East, there is a spot height of 1.2m. The distance between the buoys is only about 1 cable, and involves a significant course to the North to pass between them. On a wild dark night even with plenty of water under you it seems a narrow and risky way to go? It certainly allows very little room for error.
 
Leighb said:
I have had a look at the area on the C-Map chart, updated March 2009.

Both buoys are shown as lit, although in his account he talks of failing to find the "unlit buoys" The area between them is less than 2m, and if you go a fraction off track to the South when approaching from the East, there is a spot height of 1.2m. The distance between the buoys is only about 1 cable, and involves a significant course to the North to pass between them. On a wild dark night even with plenty of water under you it seems a narrow and risky way to go? It certainly allows very little room for error.
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Thanks for that. Have just been comparing 1183 2004 with July 2009, and it does look on that as though it is now not deeper than 2m, and that you want to approach the green and go through, rather than come up from the south. Really pretty difficult to see on that chart though.

So assuming you avoid the 1.2 spot height, does your's give any sounding between the marks, and just to the N / NW?

Perhaps if Dick is talking to the powers that be about buoyage / channels in that area, they could put a up a chartlet of their most recent survey, although with the recent rate of change it may well be out of date by now. At least having a total loss adds argument for producing a similar chart in detail to the Deben entrance.

The various channels above Margate Hook look as though they have lost depth as well, so it doesn't look as though as one channel closes, another one opens. From the look of it all, before long the only way round will be the outside.
 
Pye_End said:
Thanks for that. Have just been comparing 1183 2004 with July 2009, and it does look on that as though it is now not deeper than 2m, and that you want to approach the green and go through, rather than come up from the south. Really pretty difficult to see on that chart though.

So assuming you avoid the 1.2 spot height, does your's give any sounding between the marks, and just to the N / NW?

Perhaps if Dick is talking to the powers that be about buoyage / channels in that area, they could put a up a chartlet of their most recent survey, although with the recent rate of change it may well be out of date by now. At least having a total loss adds argument for producing a similar chart in detail to the Deben entrance.

The various channels above Margate Hook look as though they have lost depth as well, so it doesn't look as though as one channel closes, another one opens. From the look of it all, before long the only way round will be the outside.
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I don't know why we are obsessing on the 1.2m?
That was what it was on the day they surveyed it. As we are all astutely aware, a decent bit of weather will mess up the surveyed depths in muddy bottomed areas like ours. So my assumption would be not to trust that there would be anything like that available as a spot depth.
 
Decisions......

I think discussions about the charted depth mask the overall picture, just look at how shallow the whole area is ....

I spent an age looking at this last night for the first time. This is what my (2001 Maptech raster) charts show close up of the buoys in question. We all have different views on this. Mine is that I would try that on a fine clear day in my old boat (Centaur - draft 1m) at LW, for fun, slowly, and being fully prepared to reverse out and nose around for deeper water if it didnt work. The same charts have LAT depths known to be out by 1.5m in places across the estuary.

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I would have gone the slightly longer way round, north of Margate Sands. Absolutely no question.

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I am told that the area was re-surveyed in January, but buoys are not being moved as a result.
There is a survey of the wider area around there scheduled for sometime this year, after which the buoyage could be re-evaluated.
That's all I've got at present. If nothing else emerges in the near future in the way of information, I might well go down there myself in settled weather and see if I can't have a bit of poke around. Could be a day trip out from our home berth. Usually we are going somewhere and don't stop!
I wonder what a J-133 keel is worth?
 
How the heck he thought he would get through there on the bottom of a tide, in the dark, in the winter, in a blow, with over 2.0m draft, in a newish boat that they don't really know, with two of them is beyond me.

I know there are many 'there but for the grace of...' occasions but this does sound completely daft.
 
Son and I went thro in the opposite direction on route Oare Creek to Folkestone, in thick fog, we found our (borrowed) GPS was U/S, but it was half tide and our draught was only 66cm. With just compass and chart, but buoys coming up on the nose, with sometimes only 50 meters visibility. Our only chance to do the passage that year, so took the gamble. First boat we saw at sea was A SeaFrance ferry, which treated us as the stand-on vessel, we had taken the precaution of radioing in to Dover.
 
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weather conditions

I was in Ramsgate that day in question. Work on the Thanet wind farm had been suspended and all vessels (apart from the Jack up rigs) had gone to seek shelter.

It was a vicious cold day and that N'easter was extremely strong. A cold NE F6 is an extremely heavy wind.

If a yacht had to be there, then there is no excuse for not giving yourself sea room.

But it was very brave of him to write the article and submit himself to all us critics.
 
christo2024 said:
I was in Ramsgate that day in question. Work on the Thanet wind farm had been suspended and all vessels (apart from the Jack up rigs) had gone to seek shelter.

It was a vicious cold day and that N'easter was extremely strong. A cold NE F6 is an extremely heavy wind.

If a yacht had to be there, then there is no excuse for not giving yourself sea room.

But it was very brave of him to write the article and submit himself to all us critics.
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Agree with all you say, esp. the last observation
 
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