Shallow water BR20

[JOD]

Winter is a great time for planning next year's trips and mine includes my first foray out of the Blackwater to the Crouch; a simple enough passage except that I am used to deeper water than I see is available. The advice from my Old Gaffer friends is to use the Raysand channel but I am worried by the BR 20 centreboard which draws a whopping 4'6" fully down and previous posts relating to weather helm advise of the need to ensure it is fully down. So how do other BR 20 owners go to windward and tack in depths less than 4'?

[Sea Simon]

I'm surprised no one has come back to you on this yet; hope they do - I'm interested too.

Sorry, I can add much value myself.
I don't tend to sail much in the shallow water where I am, due to both the random rocks and (in the known soft/sandy areas) the scattered lumps of scrap iron/concrete etc that act as mooring weights; I fret for my some-what fragile board, and so I generally motor when needing to get up wind in very shallow water.
I didn't fret quite so much for the Lugger (with its steel "board"), but then I rarely was in a position to sail upwind in the river anyway - the boat simply wouldn't point to any worthwhile extent.

If pushed, in the BRe I try to trim out/reduce any weather helm by adjusting the mizzen sheets for balance, and on a few odd occasions this has worked for me. That said, I then always have at least some board down, rudder too (of course).
Regardless of the board, trimming the rudder up significantly will cause a dramatic load-up of the tiller, independently of board depth.

[Rory C]

I had a very frustrating time one day getting out of Brancaster Staithe (N Norfolk) against a northerly breeze before the flood tide had given adequate water. All I can suggest is that you plan your passage for a time/day when you can do the upwind leg when there is sufficient tide under you. I haven't sailed in the Blackwater area for many years but I guess the sand or mud there is fairly harmless and as long as you are ready to raise the board quickly if you ground and keep enough room to gybe right round rather than tacking if you lose too much way.
BRe 25

[Martin Bevan]

Many years ago, 1979, we owned an early Cornish Crabber (No60) that we built from a kit, drawing 2ft4ins with a steel centre board.  After sailing it back from Germany via Holland, we had a happy summer sailing it up and down the East Coast.  I cannot remember where the information about the Raysand Channel came from, possibly the East Coast River Pilot.  The perceived wisdom passed down from barge skippers for transiting the Raysand Channel in settled weather was to push up the channel on a falling tide, wait for the tide to recede allowing you to see where the channel went and as the tide returned gently bump over the top and down the other side.  We did try it, it did work although it did feel a little odd to someone more used to deep draught fixed keel boats.  Perhaps we will try it this summer with our yet to be delivered BC23.  Has anyone tried this more recently?

[Llafurio]

The first thing you need for sailing in shallow water is a protective strip on the leading edge and a little bit into the foot of both centreboard and rudderblade. Brass half-round profile, approx. 15" up on the board, and approx. 2" up on the blade. Dunno why the yard did not offer this at least as an option. It's a bit of work to retrofit this because for this some of the leading edge has to be jigsawed off, the open wound sealed with layers of epoxy, then the strip must be bent to shape and drilled for screwholes, then set in with an underlay of Sika or the other flex stuff.

[JOD]

Thanks to everyone but this is not very encouraging. It seems to confirm the problem lies with the inability of the BR 20 to go to windward unless the board is fully down, an issue discussed at length when I raised in the 'sailing' section of the forum previously.

[Llafurio]

Thanks to everyone but this is not very encouraging. It seems to confirm the problem lies with the inability of the BR 20 to go to windward unless the board is fully down, an issue discussed at length when I raised in the 'sailing' section of the forum previously.

-1.

Still good tacking up with the board only partly down. And in extremis, that is where the oars come in. It's a RAID boat, remember.

[Matthew P]

If anyone is contemplating changing the shape of their centre board or rudder foils, especially the leading edge profiles or radius, they will find an interesting discussion on this forum under the "BRE Keel" topic at:
https://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/smf/index.php/topic,1537.0.html

Matthew
BRe 20 Gladys

[Graham W]

This article in the library may be helpful https://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/?page_id=1058