Brighton entrance

[John_Silver]

For anyone curious, the answer was 0.9m below CD in the entrance. Appalling that they didn’t know this and worse that they use NTMs rather than change the chart and guidance.

Similar to the depth in the mouth of the Sovereign Harbour channel. From observation on the way in, that's 1m below CD on 'the bar.' Later confirmed by the knowledgeable and helpful lock team. (Always find Sovereign an efficient, if expensive, set up). They too are waiting for the Premier dredger, to restore the nominal 2.4m below CD in the channel. When (if) the breeze decides to play ball, on Thursday, daybreak (05.00) coincides with a 0.8m low water (0.0 under keel, if no swell & I steer straight and bottom ploughable) .Hoping to scrape out on the 06.00 lock (0.3 under keel)

 

[lustyd]

I was wondering about sovereign, glad I didn’t decide to move around as that wouldn’t have been a better leaving time.
Ferry arrives 3pm UK time so hopefully we’ll have worked out the checkin shenanigans by the time you arrive.

 

[Dockhead]

I wasn’t asking for a guarantee I was asking what the depth was when they measured it.
Charted depths should not be aspirational. If theres a bar at the entrance even occasionally then chart it that way so people are first and foremost safe. It’s pointless and dangerous to say we wish it was 1.7m and this is the only dredged place I’ve experienced this, everywhere else dredged deeper and redo when it comes up to the charted depth.

Agreed.

We were there last summer and the depths had no relation to the chart.

If one must go in there, best on a rising tide.

Besides the horrible entrance, the tide rips through there. 2 out of three of the last times Ive been in there someone got out of control and bashed into me whilst I was tied up. Bleh!

 

[Snowgoose-1]

It would be nice if every marina had a sight gauge showing minimum depths. Many do but mainly sill gauges.

 

[S04]

It would be nice if every marina had a sight gauge showing minimum depths. Many do but mainly sill gauges.

Deleted my poorly worded response.

 

[lustyd]

For an entrance like Brighton the depth at any point on the entrance wrt CD is likely to vary over time and similarly the depth at different points across the entrance will vary. If they had a gauge there what depth would it be showing and which bit of the entrance does it relate to?

Usually it's set to charted depth and the operator doing dredging maintains that depth as a minimum. That's the whole point of this thread, the way Brighton operates is needlessly dangerous. They could happily set the charted depth as 0m through the entrance - we all agree they are maintaining to that level and their NTM confirms this. Setting the charted depth to 1.7m because they dredge to 1.7m means that effectively only one day per year are the charts correct.
The whole point of saying "dredged to 2m" is that that depth is guaranteed.