Folgers Gat open? Closed? Anybody's guess

Supine Being

Supine Being

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On a passage was to go from Ramsgate to Shotley I wanted to go through Foulgers Gat. I looked on the London Array website and found a number to call for their Community Realtions Team. So I called at 9am and got through to a nice man who had clearly never heard of Foulgers Gat (I head to spell it for him and he still insisted on calling it 'gap'). He promised to get someone to call back very soon

By 12:30 we had just left Ramsgate but still not call so I rang again, explained the situation but no one n the know was picking up. They promised to call back - nothing!

Approaching Foulgers, got warned off by a guard vessel as they have work vessels near by, 500m exclusion, etc.

Am a right to be as narked as I am? I tried to do the right thing and got ignored. I get the impression that they simply don't want yotties going anywhere near their wind farm at all. Anyone else had this?
 
I received an email last week from a yachtsman in a similar position. Several times this year he was warned off by the Mary Ann 1 due to work. He arrived recently with the Mary Ann 1 missing changing crews and was told by another vessel that it was possible to go through - and did.

The 'rules' are dead simple. If there is construction work going on they are entitled to exercise a 500m exclusion zone (recently this has for certain craft been extended to 900m (which is nearly a kilometer!)). If that construction work is genuinely taking place around the Gat then asking us to avoid the Gat is reasonable. If the work is not there, then it isn't. All the work at the moment is cable burying and surveying and due to the positioning of the Sub Station at the side of the Gat and the passage of cables across the Gat it may be right to ask us to avoid it - but a blanket convenience ban is not on.

I am not sure who the Community Relations Team are but the people to speak to are the Marine Coordinators:

email: londonarraytraffic@dongenergy.dk
Duty +44(0)7920854358
Emergency only: +44 (0)7918881811

I was intending to email them this week about something else and will raise this if your experience is clearly common. Dick (Cantata) in the past has spoken to them so may have comments to add.
 
I know that the RYA have discussed this all again in recent months with L.A. questioning why so may craft are being turned away when the original agreement was that craft would be enabled to get through as much as possible, and out of that L.A. reaffirmed the agreement.
Out sailing for the last 3 weeks I agree that M.A.1 is constantly on the blower although I haven't switched channels to listen to the rest of conversations so I don't know how many folk were actually being turned away or just advised to proceed with caution.
But as a result of what I did hear I wrote to L.A. at Ramsgate the other day suggesting that the guard vessels make their initial calls with clearer identity 'clues' for the target yacht rather than spouting out lats and longs, which I am sure we are mostly blissfully unaware of when on passage! I got a quick friendly and grateful response from the Marine Coordinators.
 
They're still identifying yachts by lat/long. Someone else replied to mine, bizarrely.

It's understandable that they have to close it from time to time, but I think that it's only common courtesy that they make that information easily available and return phone calls. They number I got was from their own contact information here. The fact that they make it so difficult makes me think that they're playing games.
 
Lazy Kipper said:
Just out of interest, why use Foulger's and not Fisherman's?
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If you are coming south having crossed the Sunk Sand by the Barrow No 2. Foulger's is immediately to hand to continue south rather than plugging up to Fisherman's which if my memory serves adds another 1nm/1.5nm. And if the tide is adverse, in this part of the Black Deep at certain times of the ebb you can face 2.4 kts of adverse tide on springs!
 
tillergirl said:
If you are coming south having crossed the Sunk Sand by the Barrow No 2. Foulger's is immediately to hand to continue south rather than plugging up to Fisherman's which if my memory serves adds another 1nm/1.5nm. And if the tide is adverse, in this part of the Black Deep at certain times of the ebb you can face 2.4 kts of adverse tide on springs!
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Also if coming down the Black Deep it saves a good half an hour or so which can make the difference between getting to Ramsgate or Dover before the North going stream starts or having to fight an increasingly strong foul tide at the end of a long trip.
 
Karouise said:
Cos we should be able to!! :rolleyes:
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Absolutely! Came through on Thursday from Ramsgate. The boat ahead was challenged by Mary Ann 1 who said he'd RATHER the yacht didn't use the Gat. I lost the answer but it must have amounted to 'tough, I'm going anyway'. MA1 chose to vanish South at that point. There was a 900m exclusion zone and the work vessel had anchors out with buoys that reached almost to the turbines on the Eastern side of the Gat.
TBH as long as they aren't actually working in in it I can't see how they can stop you. According to the preceding boat they were using the wrong working channel although, as I said, I didn't hear the whole exchange.
 
To add to this discussion, it may be of interest that yesterday I motorsailed from Liverpool to Port Penrhyn. Our route took us north of the North Hoyle wind farm and between the Rhyl Flats and Gwynt-y-Mor wind farms. This is an area off the coast of North Wales but I'm almost certain is run by Dong Energy. There is extensive work on-going at this site with plenty of guard vessels. They didn't approach/warn or impede our progress. The sound of piling (for the bases of the fans) was clearly audible and plenty of vessels were buzzing around the area between the work sites and the moored hotel ship. Surely there must be uniformity of policy for vessel movements in such areas and as we certainly passed closer than 500m to some of the "stumps" then maybe precedents have been set?

We were a 46' ketch rigged sailing vessel and were motorsailing because contrary to popular belief, these wind generators don't generate much wind!

Andy (my boat on mooring in Walton Channel hence interest in this forum).
 
I think the difference with the London Array is that to use Foulger's you actually have to pass through the Wind Farm/Construction Area where are every other wind Farm you are passing round. The situation with Foulger's is complicated in that they have a Sub Station in the 'line' on the eastern side of the Gat and have all the connection cables from the 'western' part of the farm traversing the Gat to get to the Wind Farm (best don't anchor in the Gat - ever!). That means that there will be genuine times when the Gat should not be traversed but the fear is that the MA1 seems to want to do a blanket ban. There is also the issue of wet stores:

A number of wet store locations are established at the constructions site. The areas are used for storing anchors and connected pennant buoys when not in use. Positions of wet stores or other obstacles can be obtained from Marine Coordinators office or the onsite guard vessel

It would seem to be poor seamanship to put these in the Gat but who knows?
 
isn't there a way of challenging by vhf? if the guard boat is just being bloody minded can we not call up the Coastguard or London Port Authority (?) to check what work has been notrified officially?
 
I was thinking about this as I want to get down there for some photos. If you were close to the entrance of the 'avenue' you would be able to see if there were any work craft available. If there are, fair enough since a lot of the work at the moment involves divers I think. But if there were no craft obviously in the Gat, I think I would ask on what basis they are making their stance. If they were to say that it is because of the 'wet stores' - anchors etc which are unused which have been buoyed for later, I think it would be valid for us to make two points - one at the time, that we frequently avoid buoys pretty successfully and later to the Marine Coordinators that it is pretty irresponsible for them to block a navigable channel when there are other places they could use.

The official notification from the London Array that goes to the PLA (It's out of their area) and the Coastguard is the same as I post up in the Temporary NtM each week. Whereas they used to say which turbine they were working on, since they have reached the finishing up stage it's all be vague 'cable burying'. to be fair, there are a lot of cables!
 
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as I've mentioned before in earlier threads, when we came by in late May, albeit using fisherman's as that suited our plans, Mary Ann 1 was stating Foulger's was closed on her securite broadcasts and actively discouraging it's use despite MA1 being the only vessel to be seen anywhere in the area (even with binocs)
 
When I intended to come through, we could see that there was a vessel just to the south of the substation so they weren't telling porkies. Whether that impeded use of the gat in any real sense is another question.
 
Supine Being said:
When I intended to come through, we could see that there was a vessel just to the south of the substation so they weren't telling porkies. Whether that impeded use of the gat in any real sense is another question.
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Quite. The evidence seems to suggest a general desire for us to go away rather than doing it according to need.
 
In my experience, ever since this project started, the guard boat's response has invariably been to recommend that yachts don't use Foulger's but go the long way round through Fisherman's, regardless of the nature of the work in progress. After the first time, 3 years ago, I got fed up with this and took to announcing my intention to sail (or motor) through Foulger's, which has always elicited a repeat of their recommendation, followed by acknowledgement that they have no powers to prohibit our passage. It is only after this formal dance that they usually outline the work actually in progress with a recommendation to keep well clear of the relevant area. This has never significantly impeded our passage. Once clear of the Gat, I always notify the guard boat.

The last time was heading south in early June, when the work in progress was being done on one platform with a workboat standing by. They'd do us all a favour if they would just restore the bouyage and tell us up front of the actual work in progress as we arrive at Foulger's - work planned for a couple of hours or more hence is of no interest, once you're there.

They would also help themselves by giving Tillergirl accurate details of their work plans - the service he provides to yachties on here is superb.

I'm afraid that the attitude of the project seems to be driven by the "knowledge is power - so keep it to yourself" philosophy, as exercised by medieval clerics, rather than the more modern "shared knowledge is power for all mankind" exemplified by Tillergirl.
 
We came though yesterday lunchtime.
Mary Ann 1 was south of the farm as we approached from the south.
Folgers Gat appered to be free of work boats by eye and AIS.
We decided to just press on and let MA1 make the first move.
No call from him until we were about half a mile from the farm.
He asked if we intended to go though Folgers Gat.
We said that that was our intention.
He told us that that was fine and asked us to stay at least 50m away from the turbines and 500m from any work boats.
He also added that there were no work boats in the gat to worry about.
On passage though there were work boats at one of the turbines and the transformer station.
The chap on MA1's radio had a north country accent and was out to be helpful.
Hopefully there will be no further obstruction of the Gat.
 
I came south past there Tuesday and as Clive said, the Mary Anne was at the south end with no other activity going on and 1 or 2 boats using the gat. I chickened out and as it was high waterish I cut the corner to Fishermans.
I looked at my previous GPS track through Foulgers and it looked diagonal to the turbine avenue.
If I had remembered to print the excellent Crossing the T E pdf of the route through the turbines I would have been ok.
To be honest, unless the wind is exactly right or its flat calm motoring weather, this route has been limited by the wind farm.
Yes, a buoyed route would be helpful.
 
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