Up the Creek Winter 2025 🎄

2025 year has been a quiet one for activity on the water for most of us. But there has been an influx of new members this year, with some of them claiming to be under 60! So with new enthusiasm and some interesting events in the calendar let’s all make a new year’s resolution to make better use of our various vessels.

No ‘Commodore’s Rambles’ this edition – I think Graham is either rambling or wrapping. But hopefully Santa will bring that new engine part or gizmo that you dreamt about, and we wish all members a very Merry Christmas. Michael🧑‍🎄

MOORINGS MOVING FORWARD.

The purchase of the Hover Craft has made a huge difference, a very positive move, it has allowed the Mooring Team to survey and inspect not only the Moorings and their condition, but the ground surrounding all of them.

This has been carried out, and alarmingly, many of them have been tagged as unserviceable, (US), we have also found a lot of surface debris abandoned amongst our moorings, things like Tyres, old chain, and, even in some cases Sinkers, in deed some of this matter has been recovered, but its a bit of a logistical problem, and a bit slow.

We have concluded that none of this litter presents a danger to the vessels currently moored throughout our area. This brings me onto the Safety aspect, as we all know being out on the Mud presents not only risky work, its dirty, wet, and can be dangerous too.

Having the HC has reduced that risk, enabling us to respond to an emergency much more quickly.

We now, where possible, assemble the mooring onshore and transport it via the mooring Raft, the HC collects the team transporting them back ashore once completed. The Raft can be collected at a later date.

Bridled Moorings present a slightly different problem in so much that they can only be repaired down to the main bridle Shackle, where possible bottom chain can be looked over as far as one can trace it.

Approximately 3 Months ago the Committee decided that the Club should have on hand at all times, 2 spare moorings, one for deeper draft Boats, one for Shallow draft boats and if possible a further Visitor Mooring. The previous 2 are for emergency or temporary use, or for situations arising from the concerns of any Member after presenting an issue to the Committee.

These have been allocated.

Could all Members familiarise themselves with the changes made in the Bye laws regarding the maintenance, repair, reporting  and responsibility of their own Mooring, and, the methods open to Members to make good any of the above.

At this juncture can i reiterate the following, the Mooring Master, and indeed the Committee are here to help.

The preferred method of contact is now via the following Email, mooringmaster@lhyc.org.

Finishing off 2025 we have invested around £6000.00 in equipment, mainly the HC, but new shackles, chain and swivels and some shovels and tools, all available to Members with Club Moorings, requests through Email above.

Finally a polite reminder, it is your responsibility to check your mooring, not only for your sake but for all other Members sake and their boats too.

Many thanks and Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and good luck for next Season.

                                                           Steve.🧑‍🎄

NEW HEDGE AND FENCE

As you drive into the club, you will notice a new hedge and fence running alongside the flood bank to port. This is intended to form a barrier to discourage walkers using the new coastal path from wandering into our yard. Well done to Steve and various volunteers for their hard work in setting this up.🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🤺🤺🤺🤺

COASTAL NAVIGATION AND PILOTAGE COURSE: for members fed up with going round in circles and wishing to improve their navigation skills, Roger Bromley offers the following:

Ten modules are included:

Charts, chartwork, WGS84. Tides, vectors, curves and 12ths. Recap, questions. Course to steer, EP, DR, effects of leeway. Passage planning. Fixes, bearings. Recap, questions. Buoyage, lights. ColRegs, rules of the road. True north, magnetic north, variation & deviation.

Course Assessment 😊:Briefly discuss the importance of weather forecasts and cloud formations.

The course is free to members, however, places are limited. Anybody interested who would like further information should in the first instance contact the Yardmaster account on the club website. A member of the team will get back to you. Roger 🎅

TRINITY HOUSE

Trinity House is a charitable body that was founded by Royal Charter in 1514. Its primary role continues to be to maintain lighthouses and navigational aids. Its operational base is at Harwich and its admin HQ in central London overlooking the Tower of London. You may have seen the Patricia or Mermaid out servicing buoys. I recently went on a tour of the HQ. We leant about the history of TH and saw its fascinating collection of ship models, paintings and other memorabilia. It is worth a visit if you are interested in maritime history. My personal interest is that my father was a Trinity House pilot, navigating ships from Dover and Folkestone towards London. I remember him disappearing up to HQ every three (I think) years to have his licence renewed. Have a look at their website for dates if you are interested. Michael

EXTERNAL WIFI

Those at the Autumn work party may have seen Kenny and I fitting an antenna on the roof of the club hut and a WIFI camera attached to the container at the top of the yard. We wanted to remove the blind spot at top end of the yard. The distance exceeded the recommended ethernet cable maximum distance of 100m, so we have set up an external WIFI access point to run the camera over. WIFI should now be available over the whole yard. Now we know it is working, this can now be made available to all members. The specification for the antenna gives a range of up to 300m, so it may be available out on some of the moorings. The details are below, but as Up the Creek can be read by visitors to the website you need to logon to read the details. It will be added to the notice board in the hut.
Dave

DIARY DATES

The AGM will take place on January 30th at the usual venue of the Lower Halstow Village Hall, starting at 2000. The formal bit will be followed by prize giving, a fish and chip supper on the club, and a discussion forum.

Do you have any ideas for club events for next season? Cruises in company, fishing competitions, dinghy races, BBQs…? If you have a suggestion please send it her, mention it to a committee member or we can discuss at the AGM forum.

NEW MEMBERS

The club has had a healthy incoming of new members over the last year. So a warm welcome to the following: Daniel Bryant, Daniel Burch, Mathew Cuoghi, Diana Fenyves, Joe Robinson, Andy Wootton.

And welcome back to Darren Stanesby, John Nelligan and ’50:50′ – Mick Drury and Alan Douglas, who must have found that the water isn’t bluer…

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT, FROM ROGER BROMLEY:

Over the weekend of 9th 10th of August, I decided to head out for a sail, and return to Stangate Creek to anchor for the evening.

Angie came with me for her first sail and very pleasant it was too.

I decided to anchor just off a mark we all use, South of the entrance into Sharfleet, whilst sitting in the cockpit, with G&T in hand, the dinner on, and the evening sun fading we watched as 3 yachts came into the creek.

After all 3 did several figure of eights, three sixties and general faffing, two rafted. 

The other chap ran aground on the west bank, his engine in retreat as he just got off ,the ebb ripping away underneath him.

Angie chuckled  and asked, whats he doing? 

I replied, I dont think he knows! I did not realise how apt that comment would be.

At 0200 hrs we were awakened by one all mighty crash, I was up and out through the wash boards quicker than a greyhound in trap 1, Angie right behind me.
My boat had gone from 28ft to 40ft, long, the run aground man had rammed us, his Canoe Stern under my Bow.

The wind had picked up, it was HW, and this chap presented himself dressed in Scrooge nightgown, I chuckled, as he told me I had dragged anchor.

Whats the tide doing mate, I asked. In a posh accent he replied, erh, um, well I, I erh put 20 metres out.

LOL, were in 7mt of water mate, Ive got 32mt out, you do the maths, in the meantime I suggest you, do one, and if you cant lift your  chain ,cut it, I will see you in the morning.

At breakfast he had gone!!

Angie knew I was not happy, I did not mention any thing, she made a cup of tea whilst I checked the bilges, put the life jackets to hand, ran the engine and double checked our position.

I snatched an hours kip.

So, he did not do his calculations correctly, when anchoring at LW.

Things can go wrong very quickly!!!!

Thank you for getting this far. Please send any contributions for future editions of Up the Creek to utc@lhyc.org.uk or michael.frankish@btinternet.com