Christchurch Harbour - Plan "B"

[Steve509926]

We had planned to go to Cowes on the Isle of Wight for our last boat trip of the holiday. It didn't happen, but plan "B" was a good substitute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6GoTGr4Tc0

[smallribber]

Looks like a nice trip. We have never been there so looks like it is one for the list. I imagine you need to get the tide right to get up as high as you did

[Johno99]

You definitely need to plan your visit, the tide going out is quite viscous in the small channel between the Mudeford quayside and the beach area. Launching and recovery is difficult on a low tide but generally do able. Many years ago I had to walk the boat along the channel. The lowest I’ve ever seen it there though.

[Steve509926]

Johno will know better than I, but I didn't find the river a problem. The depth from the mouth of the river, where it runs into the harbour upto the 2nd road bridge where we turned around didn't drop below 1.2 mtr. Outside of the marked channel, the harbour from Mudeford to the the mouth of the river was really shallow in places. At 1.12 in the video the depth was only 0.2 mtr and it was 3 hours before low tide.
As Johno says, it can be tricky launching and recovering when the tide is running and even more so when it's windy as well, but providing you make allowance for it it's not a problem.
Towards the end of the video you can see a black rib which had just launched, he appeared to use shallow drive for a good 150 mtrs as they went towards Christchurch.
It's well worth a visit when the conditions out of the harbour are a bit iffy, the only downside is a lack of places to stop off and/or a visitor pontoon at Christchurch.