Wednesday 30 July Too deep or too shallow?

Last night we were anchored along with Labarque, Calypso and Saol Eile, the first a shallower 1.4m draft and the others, including us, the deep 2.2m draft, a short distance before the shallowest part of the Kinabatangan river. Here the river gets wide and lazy before joining with a second river and emptying into the sea at Dewhurst Bay.

still unconcerned

With military precision the convoy weighed anchor half an hour before expected high water. Labarque led the way both as the boat taking least water and having been this way in a previous year. Jackster tucked in at number 2 to carve the way through mud if required for Calypso and Saol Eile. Ten boats had already made the passage on the days before and had relayed waypoints for either where they passed or where they struck mud. With all this information we did get through the noted shallow bit OK (a small amount of bottom puckering) but where it was thought to be deeper, at the intersection of the two rivers the mud bank had shifted further south and we ploughed our keel through with the depth gauge reading a firm 0.0m under the keel. A strong engine kept us going; David's bottom clamped shut until the depth increased 0.1m, 0.2m, 0.5m (positively deep!).

From anchor up to anchor down with the rest of the fleet waiting inside the river mouth was less than 90 minutes but felt like a whole day's sail.

Now the question is is the river too shallow or is our keel too deep? Answer – have a boat with a lifting keel.

unconcerned