Somers Yacht Club
Tides
Tide range
In contrast to the tides in Port Phillip1 those in Westernport are large and surging in or out for much of the day. While the tides add interest to sailing in the area they also need to be considered just like the weather and sea conditions while planning a safe sail on the water.
It is worth knowing what the tides are doing before setting off from the beach and even before deciding where to leave your boat trolley, gear, towel and thongs.
The size of the tides can vary greatly each day and over the year with up to a 3 metre difference between high and low tide or as little as 1.3 metres.
Cross shore tide flow
While it might seem as though the tides simply 'fill up' to the shore gently, this is not the case. The incoming tide at Somers flows along the shore from the westerly Balnarring direction, past Somers and on toward Sandy Point. The outgoing tide then does the reverse, flowing past Somers (and through the sailing course to varying degrees) from east to west.
Marked launching channel
Being so tidal means that the rock reefs along the shore of Somers need to be closely observed when leaving and approaching the shore - use the channel marked with small floats just past the end of the breakwater. With local knowledge and care for your foils, it might be possible to sail over part of the reefs at high tide only at your discretion. At low tides, even the channel can be too shallow and boats need to use the area infront of the breakwater and club which generally has a sandy floor, but is only accessible at low tide - if you plan on returning at high tide, leave your things on the beach near the channel.
Graph with table and 1, 3 or 5 day display. Location can be changed.
The picture shows that the tide is high for about 2 hours and low for about 2 hours which means that it takes only about 3 hours for the 1.3 to 3m incoming flood tide to flow in and about the same for the outgoing ebb tide.
Annual Tide Chart for Stony Point.
Somers reaches high and low tide about 23 minutes earlier than Stony Point.
Sample below with the time shown as 24 hours rather than 12 in the left column for each date and the height of the tide in the right column.
1 Port Phillip tides range from about 0.5 metre at Williamstown to a larger and stronger 1.5 metres at the Heads, Point Lonsdale.
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