Safety on the Water

Hamble river rowing club has the safety of its members in the highest regard. The following guides have been created to help members make decisions while navigating the river Hamble. These are guides and do not replace seamanship and common sense. The guides can be downloaded in pdf format for printing and reading offline or read online below.

New Members Induction

Tides and when the gigs are afloat

Hazards on the River

How to row video clip

Tides and when the Gigs are afloat

Below you will find some hints on how to find and interpret the tides in the River Hamble which will enable you to work out when it is easy to get the Gigs off the mud/moorings and when you can re-moor them, and whether to bring wellies with you.  There are, also, hints on what the curves mean.  If it is all very obvious to you it may not be to others.

 

When and where can we go rowing?

We can, usually, go rowing from about 3.5 hours before Bursledon HW to about 4 hours after Bursledon HW.  This is when the tidal height is above 2.5m.  On the Rowing Diary tidal times are, generally, Bursledon HW or LW.  PLW or PHW refer to Portsmouth times, which are up to 30 minutes before Bursledon.

One needs the following tidal heights to reach certain points.  These heights can vary by as much as .3m depending on high or low pressure.  So the rise or fall happens at the expected time but the height may be different.  Higher with low pressure, lower with high pressure.

Botley Mill Pool                 4.1m

Botley Quay                     4.0m

Horse & Jockey                 4.0m

The Fork at Fairthorne        3.5m

To moor and unmoor the boats one needs the following tidal heights.  For unmooring this assumes that one can pull them off just before they float even if the bow is on the mud.  For mooring it assumes that one can moor them and pull them back to their normal position.

                                               Unmoor  Moor

Downstream outer mooring           2.8m   3.1m

Downstream inner mooring           2.5m   2.8m

Upstream mooring                       2.8m   3.2m

The jetty at the Jolly - One can get onto the last, downstream, outer corner of the jetty when the tidal height is 2.0m.