Bembridge

[oldharry]

After all the bad press Bembridge had earlier this season from (justifiably) fed up visitors - high charges, lack of facilities etc, just thought an update was in order following a visit this weekend.

No the prices have not gone down! But, the visitors pontoon is now linked to the shore, and the HM told us they will be installing power and water as soon as possible. Also they will be installing toilets, showers etc for visitors. At present the nearest toilets are about 10 minutes walk, down by the whiter shipmark, on the beach. So dont leave it too late before you set off....

Also pontoon users can use the marina facilties - but they are still a long walk, or a short hop in the dinghy away.

BUT. Having spent a couple of hours out there, the marked entrance channel is non existent. between Nos 2 and 4 buoy the channel has completely disappeared - THERE IS NO CHANNEL!

Where the channel dog legs North around the No5 buoy just keep straight on East, to go South of the fort - as all the locals do, there is on average .2 metre more water there than in the marked channel.

 

[Langouste]

Thanks I am off there next week!

DHK

 

[charles_reed]

I went over there by road last month and was appalled by how stuffed with moorings it was, the almost total disappearance of the channel and how much more sand was there.

Mind you the last time I went there by sea was 1977.

 

[JamesS]

It sounds just as bad as ever - perhaps they are trying to discourage visitors!

 

[Andrew_Fanner]

I want there for part of the Jubilee weekend and thoroughly enjoyed the place. Decent loos and friendly people, even if it was stuffed full with a rally. Don't know what its like out on the detached pontoon though, we were rafted up (one out) near the office. Good pub up the hill in St Helens.

Two beers please, my friend is paying.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Call the dredger

It's really about time Bembridge bites the bullet and gets the channel dredged, otherwise they'll have a landlocked port.

Last season we found depths in the channel were considerably less than advertised, and now it sounds as if it's got worse.

 

[oldharry]

Re: Call the dredger

What channel? There isn't one until No5 Buoy inbound.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Re: Call the dredger

Point taken about current 'channel'. But there used to be one, albeit somewhat doglegged.

I've often wondered with Bembridge whether it should do like some of the tidal ports on the other side of the Channel and put in training walls to constrain the flow and use the resulting scouring to help maintain depths.

Also Bembridge has a sluice on the River Yar which restricts its outflow to a trickle. If the sluice was dropped towards the end of the ebb, that would (presumably) send a scouring surge down the deepest part of the non-channel. The old tide pond, if restored, could also serve a similar function.

 

[oldharry]

Re: Call the dredger

I beleive the silting problem with the Bembridge channel is not so much the lack of scour as the fact that it is artificial and cuts across a steady current. When I first started visiting Bembridge in the mid 70s, it was very much as it is now, except that there was a shingle causeway of sorts from the beach near the shipmark out to the fort, which could still be used at LWS, so that entry to the harbour channel was to the South of the fort over a sand bar - very much as it is now.

The channel was cut (I think about 1978?) to go north of the Fort presumably for easier access to Portsmouth and the Solent, and because there is deeper water closer in that side of the fort. Many of us wondered then whether this was wise, because of the regular scour from the South up this bit of coast through much of the tidal cycle. It seemed inevitable that eventually the channel - cut almost at right angles to it between nos 1 and 5 buoys - would eventually silt up again, and it has.

By picking that route BHB committed themselves to a regular dredging operation every 10 - 20 years - a commitment they now seem reluctant to fulfill!

To be fair, had they continued the channel due east instead of dog-legging north of the fort, they may still have suffered the same problem.

Whatever - come on BHB! Get your spades out and get digging!