East is west?

dancrane

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Umm...why is the 'Nab East' buoy, so far west of the Nab tower?

I lately found in a dusty hardback, a laughably mistake-laden four-page typewritten account of a foggy trip I took across the Solent in the eighties, in a very ill-prepared dinghy.

In the twenty years since, I'd forgotten that halfway over, we met the Nab East buoy...and being without chart or compass, were horrified to suppose that somehow, in the mist, we'd sailed far south and east from Chichester, instead of SW as planned. In fact, we were right on course.

Inspection of Imray all these years later, doesn't clarify why the buoy is so-named.

Any ideas?
 

prv

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I don't know where that buoy is, but I'm having a scan around via VisitMyHarbour (all my charts are on the boat, as always).

Can't see the buoy, but I can see a shoal named "Outer Nab Rock", to the west of the tower. So presumably both buoy and tower are named after the rock, rather than the buoy being named after the tower. The buoy is presumably to the east of the rock, hence its name.

Pete
 

dancrane

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Ouch! I reckon you're right. I had no idea where the rock itself is! ...but I see it's actually only a mile off the Bembridge Foreland. So, the Nab East mark is indeed somewhat to the east...and quite a way north.

I guess the Nab Tower's distance offshore, led me to suppose the rock was out there too. Mais, non.
 

VicS

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I don't know where that buoy is, but I'm having a scan around via VisitMyHarbour (all my charts are on the boat, as always).

Can't see the buoy, but I can see a shoal named "Outer Nab Rock", to the west of the tower. So presumably both buoy and tower are named after the rock, rather than the buoy being named after the tower. The buoy is presumably to the east of the rock, hence its name.

Pete

http://www.visitmyharbour.com/viewchart.asp?chart=50B10B0D65F757823

Port hand buoy between Nab end and St Helens
Shown on the chart you were looking at but not named
 
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