Erith Yacht Club and its “Mud” Berth History.
Once upon a time, Erith Yacht Club was located on an island on the marshes at Erith surrounded by a deep creek that filled and drained with every tide causing deep mud walls around the site.
Access to the Club Ship Garson was by a very unstable cat walk which was quite often washed away and needed a rebuild across the muddy marshland.
More often than not following a high tide the causway was almost destroyed and had to be rebuild – mud everywhere no secure bit of dry land available to bring a Cruiser ashore, the ONLY craft on site was a wreck of a boat/shed inhabited by the Club caretaker John Wiggins and his ”mad dog”.
Eventually you would reach the riverside if the tide were right then had to negotiate more mud and marshland to get your Dinghy out or get on abard Garson, our Club Ship. Some tides covered the entire fill so in all these manouvers you were up to you knees in water and soft mud.
As a result little or no work could be carried out on a Cruiser other than taking a turn on the Scrubbing dock in thick mud!! and low tide.
And so this brings me to the” MUD BERTH”.the Committee decided they would allow a few members to get into the deep creek and dig away into the thick muddy marsh giving enough room for a cruiser to be pulled or polled into the space, the bay had to be long and deep enough to take a craft right in so as to leave space at the rear in the creek not to slow the tidal flow and allow other craft to pass, some of our enterprising members lined the side and bottom to stop the mud moving! This was no easy task, I can tell you that from the ONE AND ONLY time I helped dig out a bay !!!!
Since we allowed the creek to become a dumping ground the old mud berths have disappeared and the tidal flow almost stopped – over the past few a few of our members remains have been sent on their way along with the tide. The creek now, albeit still a creek allowing some of the tide to flow is nothing like it was whan Stars were SAILED or rowed up to the sea wall before being lifted out and taken in winter storage.
13 June 2020