Sitting on keel

[Imperial88]

So i went to my boat today... South West FL and it seems a northern wind combined with a low tide took the water out of the marina. Heres a pic i don't like..

[jackdale]

On a full keel- no problem. A fin keel may not take the full weight of the boat. You should be OK.

Good thing there are fenders between the two boats and no spreaders clashing.

[night0wl]

Holy smoke, that is just not right! How much does the marina typically have in terms of water depth?

[tager]

Time for a deeper slip!

[LandLocked66c]

Damn, how long was it like that?

[Imperial88]

marina dosn't ussually get so low.. and when it gets low the boat is ussually dug in sitting flat... not sure how this happened. Not thrilled... glad i havn't redone the bottom paint yet! fin keel by the way.

[jackdale]

I did a quick check of tide levels. There were some rather large negative tides which is not unusual on a full moon.

[tager]

Seriously though, the boat wasn't designed to take this. Cyclical loading like that could kill fiberglass if the frame supporting the keel is not strong. Deeper slip is an easy fix. Marina management should be able to help you switch with a stinkpotter who doesn't want to truck his beer so far down the dock.

[Leither]

Great photo, but I am somewhat surprised by some of the responses. I sailed for many years on the East Coast of Scotland where drying harbors are the norm. Every day at low tide, it was normal to see boats lying on their sides in the mud - long keels, fin keels etc. I was lucky and had bilge keels (ie twin keels) which mean that my boat sat nicely. None of these boats came to any harm.

I suppose if the boat was held more or less upright in a marina dock (all the boats I am referring to were on swinging moorings) then the full weight of the boat might rest on the keel. However, I imagine that it would be a very unusual circumstance to have so little water that this actually happened.

Stuart