Bantham (South Devon) Navigation

[bats]

The charting for Bantham is very small scale. On a recent visit I anchored off before entering the River Avon. The lower stretch of the river was walked and reference points on the edge of the river noted using a hand held gps (15,16,17,18).

DO NOT USE THESE PICTURES FOR NAVIGATION





GE2KAP was used to make a chart for use with OpenCPN prior to the visit. This chart was the main source for the route. The yellow track is the exit track taken and it shows an interesting discrepancy between the 'official' charted shoreline and the actual land. Google Earth is more accurate than either the vector or raster chart.


USE THIS INFORMATION WITH CAUTION

Mike

 

[itchenseadog]

Bantham, my very favourite place. It's a must do when in the SouthHams. Never been in by boat but would love to potter up the estuary. The River Erme looks ibteresting too.
By the way Bantham is up for sale if you've got a few million quid to spare.

 

[T_C]

Bantham, my very favourite place. It's a must do when in the SouthHams. Never been in by boat but would love to potter up the estuary. The River Erme looks interesting too.
By the way Bantham is up for sale if you've got a few million quid to spare.

Yes, it's a great place, and a fantastic place to visit by boat if you can take the ground.
IMHO the National Trust ought to flog their newly confirmed Rembrandt that they have discovered at Buckland Abbey to the National Gallery (it's allegedly worth £30m) and step in to buy Bantham, where £12m is being put around as an asking price in order to preserve it as it currently is.

 

[Rigger Mortice]

Yes, well worth a visit.
Fishwick gives good pilotage notes and you do need to be careful with timing.

 

[jdc]

That's really interesting. Do you know how OS maps compare to either GE or the admiralty chart?

If you look at Antares charts, http://www.antarescharts.co.uk/, they use the OS as source for the MHWS line and for features such as drying rocks and their own surveys for depth, making excellent and very useful charts(1).

The advantage of OS maps is that the data is now free to use, the disadvantage is that you have to convert OSGB36 to WGS84.

(1) but incompatible with SeaPro until you do some fiddling around: I modified the source code of imgkap to muck around with the colour mapping to make the .kap files render properly.

 

[bats]

The Rembrant has been bequeathed to the National Trust and I guess it's not easy to sell it on.

However ....

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/get...tham-beach-and-estuary-appeal/donate-options/

Could make a difference!

Mike

 

[YachtAllegro]

Ah, Bantham was the very first place I sailed to in my own boat. Had bought a bilge keeled Corribee in Salcombe, and was spending the weekend sailing her singlehanded back to Plymouth, where I was living at the time. Light southerlies, and I'd been a bit perturbed coming out of Salcombe by the pyramidal seas bouncing off the cliffs just west of the entrance. But once beyond those things settled down and I happily broad reached into Bigbury Bay. Must have anchored behind Burgh Island for an hour or so, I suspect, then gone in around half flood - I'm guessing I left Salcombe at low water. I remember my relief when I identified the white painted boulder on the shore to give the leading line in, though in retrospect the corribee only drew 2ft, so if I couldn't see the bottom I was afloat! Anyway, a lovely place to spend the night as the tide ebbed away leaving me aground on a sandbank in the middle of the river, cooking up a celebratory feast on the meths stove by the light of an oil lamp. Bit nervous the next morning at the distant rumble of surf on the beach, but the wind was no different and coming out of the river near the top of the tide wasn't a problem, though it was slightly disconcerting following an avenue of smooth water out to sea past waves breaking on the beach only a hundred yards off to port.

Top destination. Nice walk up one side of the river and back down the other, too, which we later did when I visited it again a few years later, no longer singlehanded, but with wife and 9 month old child on board.

Cheers
Patrick

 

[Cookee]

Bantham is just down the road from my office and I frequently walk the dog on the extensive beach at various states of the tide - Whilst the charts will show the average course of the channel I wouldn't trust anything very muchg by the amount of sand that moves around on there, best bet is always on a rising tide and if you stay any length of time you had better be prepared to dry out! Only ever been up there in outboard powered boats for a bit of water skiing which is for members only.

 

[snowleopard]

I must have another go. last time we anchored 1/4 mile offshore at low water planning to go up in the dinghy on the first of the flood to identify a suitable spot to dry out. On the way in we hit the prop on a rock in the river bed and it came off (no more steel shear pins for me). That left us in a rubber duck with just a short pair of aluminium oars, plus SWMBO and the dog. Rowing for all I was worth I was just making headway against the onshore wind when one of the oars snapped. That left us in a tight spot. Fortunately the RNLI lifeguards were working that day and towed us out with their RIB. That winter I built a decent sized rigid dinghy with proper oars.