Have you EVER seen 350 boats in Studland Bay?

[SimonFa]

TL;DR, so apols if anyone else has done this.

The main anchoring area is roughly 750m x 500m = 375,000 m^2 by inspection using Google maps and Navionics boating app and that's also lager than the area he complains about (I know as I've watched him going up and down surveying).

Lets say the average boat is 10m and puts out 20m of chain. Allowing for catenary effects lets call it a radius of 25m = a swinging area of 25 x 25 x PI() =~2,000 m^2

In a perfect world that would be around 190 boats.

If we reduce the swinging radius to 20m we could fit around 300 boats in there.

I appreciate that during the day there's loads of smaller boats that get in much closer than the average yacht that he claims do most damage, but that's still a heck of a lot of boats. I suppose we could add the clowns on PWC, the odd water skier, canoeist, paddle border and dinghy sailor but that really is stretching it.

In a perfect world we couldn't get 350 boats in there if we tried.

I don't expect journalists to do this maths, not least because most are Arts grads and numbers are a different universe, but they could have at least called up someone like the RYA to see if his claim passes a sniff test.

 

[Blue Sunray]

Is he, though? Boats are still anchoring at Studland, even if he has managed to convince Chris Packham and a few equally naive and gullible journalists.

He certainly hasn't won but the movement is in his preferred direction so, yes I think he is winning in the same way that a team 3-1 up in the second half is. Your comment on Packham and journalists (I'd dispute 'few' and add the odd politician) seems to imply that this is insignificant, it is not.

 

[Blue Sunray]

[Content removed]

Rather more relevantly to this matter he is an opinion former with a significant public following. He is certainly no David Icke.

 

[SaltIre]

From an article in today's Times, by Environment Editor Ben Webster, quoting Neil Garrick-Maidment of the Seahorse Trust:

"Studland Bay is normally crowded with up to 350 leisure boats on a sunny day in May. Their engine noise disturbs marine life and their anchors tear up the seagrass where the seahorses shelter, feed and breed."

I'm as aware of and concerned about the environment as the next person, but isn't the phenomenal destruction of major global resources (e.g. the accelerated destruction of Brazil's rainforest) of greater concern - rather than one individual's pathalogical hatred of boaters in a single bay off the south coast of England?

Had the article said "up to 100,000 boats" it would have been just as accurate. It certainly seems to have got folk exercising spleens, which is good.

 

[sarabande]

Had the article said "up to 100,000 boats" it would have been just as accurate. It certainly seems to have got folk exercising spleens, which is good.

If a charitable maximum of boats is 200, then Grossly Madeupdata's figure of 350 is less than twice. Your hypothetical figure of "up to 100,000 boats" is 500 times. I suspect that you are confusing accuracy and precision for the sake of exercising spleens. Overloading a spleen is not a good idea; ask your doctor.

 

[Sea-Fever]

If a charitable maximum of boats is 200, then Grossly Madeupdata's figure of 350 is less than twice. Your hypothetical figure of "up to 100,000 boats" is 500 times. I suspect that you are confusing accuracy and precision for the sake of exercising spleens. Overloading a spleen is not a good idea; ask your doctor.

I suspect that in a world where the young can't afford to keep a boat and care about the environment a seahorse is just the means by which they can vent their anger, packham/ngm are just the catalysts.

 

[Sandy]

I just found it deeply offensive, I come from a long line of Clydeside engineers and don't shock easily. I've worked with some brilliant people over the years many of whom were all over the Asperger's spectrum, with my attention to detail (apart from spelling) I may be on the spectrum myself!

Chris P was on Desert Island Disks (BBC R4) a few weeks back and spoke about both his love of nature and his type of Asperger's. An interesting program that is well worth a listen to

 

[SaltIre]

If a charitable maximum of boats is 200, then Grossly Madeupdata's figure of 350 is less than twice. Your hypothetical figure of "up to 100,000 boats" is 500 times. I suspect that you are confusing accuracy and precision for the sake of exercising spleens. Overloading a spleen is not a good idea; ask your doctor.

The journalist's figure was "up to 350". If he'd said "at least 350" the OP would have a valid point. Up to 350 means 1, or 2, or 3 but not more than 350...

 

[Blue Sunray]

The journalist's figure was "up to 350". If he'd said "at least 350" the OP would have a valid point. Up to 350 means 1, or 2, or 3 but not more than 350...

A fact beloved of advertising copywriters for decades.

 

[JumbleDuck]

The journalist's figure was "up to 350". If he'd said "at least 350" the OP would have a valid point. Up to 350 means 1, or 2, or 3 but not more than 350...

The shopping centre in Newton Mearns used to have a sign outside which said something along the lines of

PARKING FOR 2000 CARS
143 at a time​

Maybe that's what was meant?

 

[SaltIre]

It also used to have Main Street up the middle and a sweetie shop called Fowlers.

 

[Slowboat35]

In a perfect world that would be around 190 boats.

If we reduce the swinging radius to 20m we could fit around 300 boats in there.

Which means that the entire area of the bay and seagrass gets regularly trawled and swept by anchor chains.
How can that be anything but very bad news indeed for the seahorses?
As for the noise - almost all creatures rely on sound to some degree and scores of boat engines, let alone speedboats and bloody jetskis must make the audio environment there something like living on a roundabout between Heathrow and the M25. Of course it's going to affect them, how could it not?

Don't get me wrong, I detest Chris Packam et al and their imbecilic anthropomorphism but I do feel that the Studland Bay crowds are far, far more than the local area should have to bear and I hate the idea of anchoring bans but Studland is a special case.
My suggestion would be to ban anchoring and deploy two or three lines of trots to secure a reasonable number of boats 50 perhaps and a ban on jetskis (that should, imho, be National) within a half mile of the beach.

If Packham's keen enough to save the seahorses he'll be keen enough to afford the associated costs, won't he...?

 

[Laser310]

My suggestion would be to ban anchoring and deploy two or three lines of trots to secure a reasonable number of boats 50 perhaps

That might sound like a reasonable compromise...

But his goal is not a reasonable compromise - it's not 50 boats.., it's 0 boats

I'm sure he will happily accept your help in getting closer to his goal of 0 boats though...

 

[JumbleDuck]

Which means that the entire area of the bay and seagrass gets regularly trawled and swept by anchor chains.
How can that be anything but very bad news indeed for the seahorses?

Since there seems to be good evidence that their habitat is thriving and no trustworthy evidence that their numbers are in decline, I conclude that they are good at dodging.

 

[cherod]

If he can inflate the number of boats typically anchored by a factor of TEN , ought we not to correct his count of the number of seahorses he encounters on each dive by a similar factor?

Perhaps , but we may also like to correct your miss quote , he refers to “ up to “ , not your “ typically “ .

 

[Babylon]

Perhaps , but we may also like to correct your miss quote , he refers to “ up to “ , not your “ typically “ .

Irrelevant splitting of hairs. "Up to [a madly fictitious number]" and "typically [the same madly fictitious number]" is neither here nor there - where the primary issue is the madly fictitious number! What is your purpose in nit-picking?

 

[Ehecatl]

I'd urge as many people as possible to write to them:

I have sent a letter to the Times

 

[SaltIre]

Irrelevant splitting of hairs. "Up to [a madly fictitious number]" and "typically [the same madly fictitious number]" is neither here nor there - where the primary issue is the madly fictitious number! What is your purpose in nit-picking?

All that is being done is pointing out, politely, that your gripe is without foundation.

 

[Babylon]

All that is being done is pointing out, politely, that your gripe is without foundation.

In the first instance, I was asking him, not you.

In the second instance, my observation was entirely with foundation: the figure quoted of 350 boats in Studland Bay is a colossal exaggeration, broadly by a factor of ten. That he said "up to" and I paraphrased "typically" doesn't detract from the fact that the true figure on any given busy sunny day is likely to be at most only roughly 10% of the fictitious press-release figure printed by The Times.

In the third instance, what is the point of all these distractions? First we have someone who is abusive about people with Aspergers, then we have people who just want to pick a fight with another forumite over his paraphrasing.

 

[Blue Sunray]

In the second instance, my observation was entirely with foundation: the figure quoted of 350 boats in Studland Bay is a colossal exaggeration, broadly by a factor of ten

35 boats! have you been to Studland in school holiday periods?