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Crossing the Wash


NBOusedunit

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I think you've strayed into egg sucking territory, here, Phylis.

 

Whilst you follow the buoyed channel you will see experienced sailors zipping around the shallows, relying on their navigational skills, local knowledge, charts and depth sounder.

 

Depth sounder, narrowboat. Yes i should imagine the depth sounder will consist of "were on the bottom"

 

Local knowledge, the person in question doesnt appear to have any.

 

Experienced sailors, again nope.

 

 

Has all the makings of a great disaster. Im willing to watch though. Give us some times and dates :)

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I've already calculated the tidal heights for each leg and added a very large safety factor for chart inaccuracies and shifts.

There's plenty of water for the times after HW that I would be motoring.

 

My boat has 2 x VHFs, a depth indicator, duplicated GPS and electronic charting. I'm also quite capable of navigating visually using the buoys

that are my waypoints.

 

Not so long ago in this thread you were telling me to beach my boat on the sands and inspect my underwater bits. Now you're telling me not to go aground.

 

When you get to your charts, work out how far the passage is, using the white bits on the chart. Thats a very long while at about 4 Knots.

 

I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

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I've already calculated the tidal heights for each leg and added a very large safety factor for chart inaccuracies and shifts.

There's plenty of water for the times after HW that I would be motoring.

 

My boat has 2 x VHFs, a depth indicator, duplicated GPS and electronic charting. I'm also quite capable of navigating visually using the buoys

that are my waypoints.

 

Not so long ago in this thread you were telling me to beach my boat on the sands and inspect my underwater bits. Now you're telling me not to go aground.

 

When you get to your charts, work out how far the passage is, using the white bits on the chart. Thats a very long while at about 4 Knots.

 

I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

Agree to disagree but do tell us when you do this trip. I want to come and watch.

 

You are quite safe to beach your boat and there are areas to do this that are not so far out of the channelas you intend to stray.

 

It doesnt matter how long the journey is, at what speed you can travel. As the crow flies the distance from my home to the office is about 4 miles, i would have a hell of a job ploughing through the hundreds of office blocks, houses and shops in the way though, hence the 7 mile route we go instead. ;)

 

As i said before taking short cuts is how narrowboatists get themselves into trouble. Why go the long way when you can cut the corner? Answer, because it is too bloody shallow there. Not just in estuaries either.

 

boat_rescue_020.jpg

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Unfortunately, when any debate gets interesting, you resort to abuse.

 

You don't know me and you don't know my background or experience.

 

You are assuming that because some narrowboat owners make a hash of it and that you follow the deep buoyed channel at 20+ knots, then I must

be in the wrong and doomed.

 

Thats a lot of assumptions.

 

I'd hoped for a sensible discussion on the merits of routing, but I don't think this is going anywhere, so I'm going to call it a day.

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There is no abuse in there, just observation. Unfortunately as i dont have my charts to hand i cant give you a step by step guide to cutting corners and running aground. You have had my views on the matter and are welcome to choose to ignore them or heed them as with any other topic.

 

The sensible merits of routing are that there is a buoyed channel. Why would the channel be where it is if you could just cut the corner out and save more than half of the journey time in the process?

 

Narrowboas do successfully navigate the Wash, but they use the buoyed and marked channel.

 

Now who's is that ?

 

not quite high and dry but a tadge awkward one suspects!

 

You wouldnt belive the amount of narrowboatists that run aground each summer on the Trent. All in completey the wrong positions. Read the charts its what they are there for :angry:

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Depth sounder, narrowboat. Yes i should imagine the depth sounder will consist of "were on the bottom"

 

Local knowledge, the person in question doesnt appear to have any.

 

Experienced sailors, again nope.

 

 

Has all the makings of a great disaster. Im willing to watch though. Give us some times and dates :)

I don't know how have made the judgement about whether anyone is an experienced sailor or not but by some of the comments you have made on this thread you are certainly exposing a degree of, shall we say, limited knowledge. Carlt has mentioned egg sucking and I would definately agree with him. :banghead:

 

Howard

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Has this ever been done >? i think you would have to be mad to do it in a Narrowboat, i have been Jetskiing in that area for the past 4-5 years and no matter how calm it is near the essex and kent coastlines its always choppy when you get a mile offshore,

 

Absolutely agreed. I went across The Wash last August on a Jetski and not in a million years would I take any narrowboat (let alone my pride and joy) on that trip. I'd already battled 2.5 metres waves out of Sea Palling; and in the middle of the wash they were a good 1.5 metres mostly - yet it was a still, calm, sunny, balmy day. In my view, a narrowboat would need full water and weather protection at the bow to prevent submerging, but of greater importance: a narrowboat does not have the draft to cope with the tail end of the North Sea.

 

I'm the first in line when it comes to defying the naysayers in this world. If you prove me wrong, I'll be the first to congratulate you but I just wouldn't take this challenge on.

 

And if you're planning to do this in August, I'll give a nudge when I'm attempting (for the second time) to be the first woman to jetski around the UK!

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Depth sounder, narrowboat. Yes i should imagine the depth sounder will consist of "were on the bottom"

 

Local knowledge, the person in question doesnt appear to have any.

 

Experienced sailors, again nope.

 

 

Has all the makings of a great disaster. Im willing to watch though. Give us some times and dates :)

I have a friend with a depth sounder on his NB and he has done the Wash, but went for a walk on the sandbank like most people who do it.

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given the right boat

 

Kennet?

 

If you were going to try something like this in a narrowboat would you be best with a shorter boat which would ride the waves or a longer boat which would punch through - or inbetween? I would have thought that a longer boat would lead to the prop becoming totally out of the water which could cause issues but Ocean Princess seems to have worked well being 70ft.

 

Edit - ditchcrawler beat me to it.

Edited by Speedwheel
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You can take a narrowboat on any water. The question is whether you can make a safe passage by reducing risk.

 

There are places that I would take a narrowboat and places I wouldn't. I have done many of the short transits in the UK with just a normal, albeit well equipped boat.

 

The Wash is probably the longest in hours. My assessment is that it's safe with the right mix of factors.

 

I feel just from the forums that there is an upsurge of boats wanting to do the Thames tideway. The Olympics and the new Marina on the Stort will increase the popularity.

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You can take a narrowboat on any water. The question is whether you can make a safe passage by reducing risk.

 

There are places that I would take a narrowboat and places I wouldn't. I have done many of the short transits in the UK with just a normal, albeit well equipped boat.

 

The Wash is probably the longest in hours. My assessment is that it's safe with the right mix of factors.

 

I feel just from the forums that there is an upsurge of boats wanting to do the Thames tideway. The Olympics and the new Marina on the Stort will increase the popularity.

I sometimes use to go out of Gt Yarmouth with some guys diving, I didn't dive and they always panicked that I would run them aground on the sand banks, but we use to go out just before hi tide and as I said if its covered at low tied there is more than 4 ft at hi tide. The biggest problem was getting out of the harbour as all the big boys wanted to come in as it neared the top.

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You can take a narrowboat on any water. The question is whether you can make a safe passage by reducing risk.

 

There are places that I would take a narrowboat and places I wouldn't. I have done many of the short transits in the UK with just a normal, albeit well equipped boat.

 

The Wash is probably the longest in hours. My assessment is that it's safe with the right mix of factors.

 

I feel just from the forums that there is an upsurge of boats wanting to do the Thames tideway. The Olympics and the new Marina on the Stort will increase the popularity.

 

Yes because taking your narrowboat to sea then crossing an RAF firing range is really reducing risks :wacko::blink::wacko:

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Are you still going on about this five days later ?

Point 1 is my route plan doesn't and second I seem to recall that they only use it if the range

Is clear - read the notes on the chart.

 

I read it this morning just out of interest, what version of the chart are you using?

 

What also caught my eye was the average drying height of the area you intend to use. An average of 4.5m. You will need a big tide to keep you afloat.

 

This weeks tide heights:

 

Wed 23 Mar

LW HW LW HW

04:16 08:24 16:23 20:42

1.3 m 6.7 m 1.4 m 6.8 m

 

Thu 24 Mar

LW HW LW HW

04:53 09:07 16:59 21:28

1.6 m 6.4 m 1.6 m 6.2 m

 

Fri 25 Mar

LW HW LW HW

05:25 09:53 17:31 22:20

1.8 m 5.9 m 1.8 m 5.5 m

 

Sat 26 Mar

LW HW LW HW

05:54 10:46 18:08 23:23

2.0 m 5.4 m 1.9 m 4.9 m

 

Sun 27 Mar

LW HW LW

06:36 11:51 19:02

2.1 m 5.0 m 2.0 m

 

Mon 28 Mar

HW LW HW LW

00:51 07:31 13:10 20:13

4.5 m 2.2 m 4.8 m 2.1 m

 

Tue 29 Mar

HW LW HW LW

02:25 08:33 14:25 22:55

4.5 m 2.2 m 4.9 m 1.9 m

Edited by Phylis
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The latest one.

I'm not going through it all again.

 

I'm currently navigating the Bosphorus and life moves on.

 

Which one are you calling the latest one?

 

Life does move on. The charts were out because tonight we are starting to plan our summer cruise to Southwold and the Broads. To do this we need to know the tide times and heights.

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BA 1200: "The Wash Ports".

Edition Date: 20100114 - Jan 2010

Corrected to latest NM Number: 201100308 NM308/11

 

Regarding Holbeach Firing Practice Area, read notes under FIRING PRACTICE AREA

 

What charts are you using ?

Edited by NB Willawaw
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Which one are you calling the latest one?

 

Life does move on. The charts were out because tonight we are starting to plan our summer cruise to Southwold and the Broads. To do this we need to know the tide times and heights.

Sunny Southwold home of Adnams beer

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The lockie at Boston prefers everyone coming up onto the non tidal Witham to come through on a level tide. We usually aim to be there about 15 minutes before the predicted level tide to make sure we have plenty of time and make some allowance for tide time fluctuations.

 

Probably something to do with the lock being shorter than most narrowboats.... :closedeyes:

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Probably something to do with the lock being shorter than most narrowboats.... :closedeyes:

 

Yes but it isnt shorter than most of the cruisers that go through. He still makes them wait for a level. There are far more cruisers go than way than narrowboats, although if the new link is ever finished that may well change. Not sure if that is a good thing though :huh:

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