Notes from the UK - Sally Taylor, Summer 2007

Burnham on Sea, Somerstet, UK Burnham on Sea Motor & Sailing Club floating docks as the tide is coming in on the little Brue river. Note the height of the pilings. Nine meter tides are common. So, this is the way the river looks most of the time, though it is still a long way down to low tide. The mud is so soft and so deep, all the boats just rest in it. The big boat, Matilda, draws 7 feet and has a single keel. My boat was further upriver, around the bend to the right, on two mooring balls, along with about 20 other boats. You can see a small dinghy being rowed out to the owner's boat. They often launch the dinghies off the dock into mud and just slide down to the water, so they can get the benefit of as much of the high tide sailing ops as possible. (Click photo for larger image).

taylor-UKfriendsThese are my friends there:
(You can click this one too if you want close-ups)







'Dreamer'"Dreamer" This is the boat that I was loaned for month of July. A Hurley 22. (Click photo for larger image). That's me and a white knuckled friend onboard in the Parrett River, which flows out into the Bristol Channel. She was in great shape and both the former owner and the current owner are Club members, so I had plenty of expertise nearby if I needed it. And all the guys couldnt do enough for me. But finding water and wind (and not gale force wind) and dry conditions was one combination I needed that they couldnt control. The gales kept sweeping in off the Atlantic all through July, bringing torrential rains. Major flooding to the north and east of us made national news. Everyone complained there has never been such a horrible summer for weather.

When conditions did allow, at high tide, like this, you had enough water for about three hours of sailing, including the time needed to get off and back on to the mooring and dinghy out and back to the pontoon dock. Then you were stuck in the mud for another 10 hours. Very few boats werent out sailing when conditions permitted. These guys took every opportunity they could get and would face all but gale force winds for the privilege.

Twice a month there were "two-tiders" Sundays where, weather permitting, we could race out into the Bristol Channel on the early morning tide, go as far as we dared all day, take a GPS reading, and sail back in the evening in time to catch the next tide before it started sweeping out too fast and fell too low to allow you to make it back up the tricky entrance into the Brue. Whoever got back to the Club and reported the longest GPS distance won, with handicapping, of course. If you miss timed your return, you were stuck out in the mud in the dark until the next morning, with the guys at the Club chuckling through the picture windows, nice and warm with a beer or a cider in hand.

We never got a two-tider race while I was there. Every two tider Sunday a major gale cancelled the event.