Harwich entrance after dark

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spillemw

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I am planning to cross from Zeebrugge to Harwich 8 April in my 33 foot Elan. Sunset will be too early to make it in daylight. The east coast pilot however seems to indicate entering Harwich after dark can be a challenge with all the lights on the container quays.

Any experiences that may help me make the right decision will be welcome.
 
There certainly are a lot of lights in the harbour. I would steer North of Cork Sands and follow the "recommended yacht track", which runs along the deep water channel, keeping the red buoys to starboard.

Check the NM's on the Harwich harbour website (www.hha.co.uk) to ensure your charts/plotter are fully up to date with the buoyage inside the harbour, as some of the buoys were moved a year or so back. Most notably, the North Shelf buoy, which now resides at N51 56.470 E1 18.492
 
It's not a big problem.

Do have an up to date chart*. Most ship movements occur around high water and the place is distinctly less busy at low water.

In keeing clear of ships, do remember to watch out for the breakwater which extends from the Dovercourt shore, covers at HW and is not well lit, so don't keep too clear of the deep water channel.

* I am a local, and I managed to set off from Ostende with an heroically out of date chart in the year when the Cork LV was removed and all the bouyage was changed - we arrived at 0200... this is not to be recommended....
 
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PaulGooch said:
There certainly are a lot of lights in the harbour. I would steer North of Cork Sands and follow the "recommended yacht track", which runs along the deep water channel, keeping the red buoys to starboard.

Check the NM's on the Harwich harbour website (www.hha.co.uk) to ensure your charts/plotter are fully up to date with the buoyage inside the harbour, as some of the buoys were moved a year or so back. Most notably, the North Shelf buoy, which now resides at N51 56.470 E1 18.492
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Good advice. I entered the area once around 2 am, on a windswept night, having an up-to-date chart and a simple GPS - plotters were still a rarity then. I found the number of buoyage lights very confusing, and ended up counting flashes for the first time since navigation class.
Subsequent entering the Orwell, which is pitch dark at night , and folding the mainsail, I was obstructing a coaster bound for Ipswich. I simply hadn't seen him behind me in the middle of the lights of Felixtowe.
 
thalassa said:
Good advice. I entered the area once around 2 am, on a windswept night, having an up-to-date chart and a simple GPS - plotters were still a rarity then. I found the number of buoyage lights very confusing, and ended up counting flashes for the first time since navigation class.
Subsequent entering the Orwell, which is pitch dark at night , and folding the mainsail, I was obstructing a coaster bound for Ipswich. I simply hadn't seen him behind me in the middle of the lights of Felixtowe.
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Thanks for all the good advice.
Does not sound too promising though.
 
I think is not as daunting as it may seem from the above. Yes, there are a lot of shore lights, but the approach buoyage is easily distinguishable, I find.

You should approach to the south of the ship channel, which curves away to the north. All you need to do is to set a course to converge with it as it turns into the harbour, and stay just outside it, leaving the ship channel's port hand marks (and these are big, easily visible buoys) just to your starboard (this is the recommended yacht track shown on most charts).

You will therefore not be in the way of or troubled by any shipping, until you cross the channel turning into the Stour. This is just a matter of checking that nothing is coming up or down river nearby, then crossing. The crossing is very short, and continuing on the recommended track you are still just outside the main 'Orwell' ship channel, so have buoys almost adjacent to let you know when you have cleared the 'Stour' channel.

Once past the brightly lit quays to starboard, you will see very litle shipping, but do keep an eye out for the occasional Ipswich bound or departing small freighter going up or down river. There is plenty of room to move outside the channels as they pass (but watch out for boat morings close to the channel).

In the dark the entrance into Suffolk Yacht Harbour is probably the trickiest bit, as (unless this has changed recently) the buoys outside are unlit and can be hard to find, and the 'leading lights' indistinguishable from the general lighting in the marina. (Shotley Marina may be a better first stop if you arrive tired and in the dark.)
 
It's not too bad, lots of lights but also lots of space. Follow the recommended yacht track as shown here :-

http://www.hha.co.uk/navigation.html

Would second the point that the breakwater is the only thing not lit up like a christmas tree, but the track is well clear of it.

If you have a plotter but don't like to rely on it then a few waypoints on a handheld GPS in case of emergency?
 
LittleSister said:
I think is not as daunting as it may seem from the above. Yes, there are a lot of shore lights, but the approach buoyage is easily distinguishable, I find.
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+ 1

Also, if arriving in the small hours I would be tempted to pick up a vacant mooring off Levington and the proceed to my marina of choice after a good night's sleep.
 
I can remember entering Harwich Harbour in the dark several years ago, before I could afford a gps and remarking to my wife " I don't remember that block of flats......" and then noticed it was moving..... it was a large cruise liner leaving Harwich!
I use a Yeoman Plotter so can plot my position on the chart very quickly everry few minutes - an excellent piece of kit and I reckon it's indispensible.
 
If you're competent enough to sail across the North Sea you're competent enough to navigate Harwich harbour in the dark. The advice about following the recommended yacht track is the best - go from red to red and keep them to starboard and you'll be clear of anything big and scary which will be navigating in the deep water channel.
 
If you have AIS you can spot the large ship movements too, which is reassuring. It should be OK, if you take it slowly so you are sure of which buoy you are heading for next - the chartplotter makes it pretty easy.

One of the worst bits, when we did it as the end of our 3rd-ever passage at sea, was turning the corner after passing Felixstowe with all its lights, and suddenly everything was dark. Our night vision was completely wrecked, and it took several minutes to acclimatise and work out where the buoys were, despite knowing the river quite well. Then, as others have said, picking out the SYH approach buoy while missing a few moored boats gave some scary moments, but you can always pick up a mooring and wait till it's light.
 
I'd also agree about Nth of Cork Sands and then in.

Yes, the quantity of lights is excessive, and its hard to pick out the bouys, but the reality is that there are no sudden shallowings, and providing you keep an eye on the sounder, and a look out for traffic (its quite obvious, even with the light), then there really isn't too much that can go wrong. By the time you are well into the entrance, it becomes much much easier to pick out the bouys, which is handy as this is where the traffic is closer, and the shallows, shallower!
 
After my horrible night approach to Harwich last year I would definitely try not to go the Rough Towers route. The deep water channel for shipping snakes all over the place and out near the Shipwash it was difficult to work out what the inbound and outbound ships were going to do (they passed very close to each other just about where I had been before I engined on and did a 180 at high speed:eek:).

The actual harbour is OK - stick near the big red buoys and if you're not in 12m of water the big ships can't get you.
 
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