Instructions not to anchor in Osbourne bay

[Nicholas123]

Matter of life and death? We do have some intrepid adventurers in the Solent Ocean don't we Any conditions when Osborne Bay offered sanctuary, you could just as easily take refuge in Cowes. But there is still room if you wanted to take the harder option, the buoys are only in one small corner.

I sail single handed & sometimes you arrive back from voyages of several days knackered.I prefer to anchor & await favourable tides to get into Portsmouth & my mooring than to pay & enter places like Cowes but I don't expect anyone who probably just sails from marina to marina to understand that.(I am off tomorrow to collect & sail my boat back from Belgium so don't have time to argue about this but seajet has tried to explain it to you.There is a principle at stake here & if Government agencies just do as they like as it appears NE are doing then our hard won freedoms will disappear over night.I for one don't want that).Jobsworths & you might have different ideas.......

 

[Nicholas123]

There is no need for this ugly homophobic language, Seajet. Having flexibility in such matters is part of the heritage of seamen.

I look forward to you and l'Escie setting off to circumnavigate in your Anderson 22, proudly flying the rainbow flag.

Perhaps you'll spend the first night in Osbourne Bay. I shan't say anything about being inside or outside buoys!

Most of our ancestors who were seamen did'nt receive much flexibility from the Government & had to fight every inch of the way for the freedoms that we now enjoy.The right to anchor was one of them.
Sadly it looks like that is going to be lost......
& PS:it will probably be to the politicly correct brigade.

 

[l'escargot]

I sail single handed & sometimes you arrive back from voyages of several days knackered.I prefer to anchor & await favourable tides to get into Portsmouth & my mooring than to pay & enter places like Cowes but I don't expect anyone who probably just sails from marina to marina to understand that.(I am off tomorrow to collect & sail my boat back from Belgium so don't have time to argue about this but seajet has tried to explain it to you.There is a principle at stake here & if Government agencies just do as they like as it appears NE are doing then our hard won freedoms will disappear over night.I for one don't want that).Jobsworths & you might have different ideas.......

If you have ever been in a life or death situation you would know that there is no time for "preferences" or the choice of avoiding paying and you certainly wouldn't sail on past an accessible safe harbour to anchor in an open bay. If you bothered to read what is the true situation here instead of joining in with the hysterical rantings about freedoms and principles you would realise that you will still be able to anchor and await favourable tides - you could even take some of the time to understand things yourself, but I don't expect you really want to do you ? You would probably rather keep playing intrepid voyagers - in the Solent.

Most of our ancestors who were seamen did'nt receive much flexibility from the Government & had to fight every inch of the way for the freedoms that we now enjoy.The right to anchor was one of them.
Sadly it looks like that is going to be lost......
& PS:it will probably be to the politicly correct brigade.

There has never been a fight to anchor, people have always just got on and done it. And where does political correctness fit in with anchoring anyway?

Some confused thinking going on here...

 

[Seajet]

Plenty of people have died in the Solent.

I've been in the Eastern part in 55 knot prolonged squalls ( seemed about 20 minutes, we let the sheets fly and she forereached surprisingly well, 2 reefs & storm jib ) when Langstone Harbour entrance to leeward was just a horrendous mass of surf.

The windspeed was measured by TS Royalist who saw us and was impressed that 'the little blue boat' kept going.

Yes I'd rather be there than mid-Channel in those conditions, but it was still rather serious with the cockpit getting filled from over the side, surprisingly big waves between the forts.

The Solent is not an easy lake / yotties playground all the time !

 

[l'escargot]

Plenty of people have died in the Solent.

I've been in the Eastern part in 55 knot prolonged squalls ( seemed about 20 minutes, we let the sheets fly and she forereached surprisingly well, 2 reefs & storm jib ) when Langstone Harbour entrance to leeward was just a horrendous mass of surf.

The windspeed was measured by TS Royalist who saw us and was impressed that 'the little blue boat' kept going.

Yes I'd rather be there than mid-Channel in those conditions, but it was still rather serious with the cockpit getting filled from over the side, surprisingly big waves between the forts.

The Solent is not an easy lake / yotties playground all the time !

I totally agree and given the choice between dropping an anchor in Osborne Bay or tucking myself away up the Medina in weather such as you describe, it would be the Medina for me.

 

[Seajet]

I totally agree and given the choice between dropping an anchor in Osborne Bay or tucking myself away up the Medina in weather such as you describe, it would be the Medina for me.

Agreed, most definitely !

At the end of that sail - Chichester to Cowes as my mooring wasn't ready, obviously a lot stronger than advertised - we went to East Cowes Marina, the wind was blowing spray over us even there.

Which is the point where I shut the padlock and locked us out...my crew already had mild hypothermia ( it was Easter ) and wasn't very impressed...

 

[wotayottie]

All this "passage making" and "sheltered anchorages" is all a load of nonsense on a sunny August afternoon - the vast majority of people who anchor in Osborne Bay don't have the slightest inclination to anchor within 300 yards of the shore and never have.

Road speed limits are irrelevant in the middle of the night but they still apply. Its the same with anchoring restrictions - they apply whether its a sunny August afternoon or a howling January gale.

 

[snooks]

Howling gale or sunny afternoon there will be, and still is, space to anchor.

These buoys do take up part of Osborne bay, but it shelves so gradually everybody can be accommodated.

The issue here isn't the loss of room to anchor, there's still plenty to go around, it's the way the area was "taken" without consent or consultation.

 

[l'escargot]

Howling gale or sunny afternoon there will be, and still is, space to anchor.

These buoys do take up part of Osborne bay, but it shelves so gradually everybody can be accommodated.

The issue here isn't the loss of room to anchor, there's still plenty to go around, it's the way the area was "taken" without consent or consultation.

This is the area in question - the blue area is as defined by the licence and the buoy locations are from my chart plotter:

As you can see lots of yachts naturally choose to anchor outside the area anyway.

 

[snooks]

As you can see lots of yachts naturally choose to anchor outside the area anyway.

I've been there, seen the area and also saw many yachts anchor in the area. If the area is legitimately made an anchor free zone, people would just have to anchor further out which you correctly point out that they do at the moment, which you have to do with a deep draught boat if you want to stay over a full tidal cycle.

Again, that isn't the issue. The way EH went about it is

 

[Seajet]

As you can see lots of yachts naturally choose to anchor outside the area anyway.[/I]

I suspect that is the effect of the 'official' looking buoys on people not aware that they're completely bogus !

That blue rectangle looks a fair chunk of OUR sea to me, when people do this 'squatting' in other bods' houses it's generally looked down on.

I'd love to see a transcript of the meeting when they decided to have a go at this blatant try-on...

 

[l'escargot]

I suspect that is the effect of the 'official' looking buoys on people not aware that they're completely bogus....

The picture on Google is at least 8 years old - long before the buoys were put there.

 

[Seajet]

If so that's a good one I admit, but it's still a big chunk of OUR sea, as Snooks says it's the way it was done which upsets people.

Like most things in life, if you ASK me, I'll stand on my head to help

If you TELL me, it ain't gonna happen in a thousand years !

If only we'd known when the satellite was taking this, we could have been there and either set up anchored boats together or left a wash behind a fast boat with a rude message to EH, I had something like that happen when taking aerial photo's, finding by the time we got to altitude a very succinct message had been left using traffic cones...

 

[snooks]

I suspect that is the effect of the 'official' looking buoys on people not aware that they're completely bogus !

Well yer wrong then, that was a google image taken long before the buoys appeared on the scene...

L'escarlot's point was, if I'm correct, that before the buoys we're there few boats saw that area as a place to anchor. And indeed at low water with the tide out, I would be on my side in that area.

 

[Seajet]

Snooks,

did you see my last post ?

 

[Seven Spades]

This is a mess of EH's own doing. It looks to me like they wanted to create a boat swimming area off their beach. This is not an unusual arrangement. However the area extends beyond where swimmers are likely to want to go, then they have told boats to keep out, most of whom would not have anchored in that are in any event and lastly they have said its was for conservation.

If they had marked off a swimming area and said as much most reasonable people would not have too much objection. But the the area extends too far out to see and does impinge on the anchorage and it serves no purpose as swimmers are not likely to venture that far offshore.

EH need to take a reasonable approach, negotiate with the RYA to find an acceptable solution. It looks to me as though they are not interested in anyone else apart from themselves.

 

[Seajet]

It also seems EH were trying to pre-empt any ( bogus ) conservation zone by getting their foot in the door; sadly for them the door got shut hard on said foot !

 

[l'escargot]

This is a mess of EH's own doing. It looks to me like they wanted to create a boat swimming area off their beach. This is not an unusual arrangement. However the area extends beyond where swimmers are likely to want to go, then they have told boats to keep out, most of whom would not have anchored in that are in any event and lastly they have said its was for conservation.

If they had marked off a swimming area and said as much most reasonable people would not have too much objection. But the the area extends too far out to see and does impinge on the anchorage and it serves no purpose as swimmers are not likely to venture that far offshore.

EH need to take a reasonable approach, negotiate with the RYA to find an acceptable solution. It looks to me as though they are not interested in anyone else apart from themselves.

At low tide there will barely be sufficient depth to swim inside the buoys, they are on the lowest astronomical low tide line. It is a very gently sloping area and apart from shallow draft boats they couldn't anchor there anyway at low tide. The EH application was not for a conservation area there. The conservation area is around the corner in Kings Quay, wasn't applied for by EH and ironically EH were the only organisation who objected during consultation (the RYA nodded it through) and had the conditions varied. There is no requirement for EH to negotiate with the RYA as the RYA have no authority or control over the area, it is the MMO they needed to apply to and it is the MMO who issued the licence to EH.

 

[snooks]

Snooks,

did you see my last post ?

I hadn't before I posted,

 

[Seajet]

At low tide there will barely be sufficient depth to swim inside the buoys, they are on the lowest astronomical low tide line. It is a very gently sloping area and apart from shallow draft boats they couldn't anchor there anyway at low tide. The EH application was not for a conservation area there. The conservation area is around the corner in Kings Quay, wasn't applied for by EH and ironically EH were the only organisation who objected during consultation (the RYA nodded it through) and had the conditions varied. There is no requirement for EH to negotiate with the RYA as the RYA have no authority or control over the area, it is the MMO they needed to apply to and it is the MMO who issued the licence to EH.

Spiffing, but the set-up installed by EH was nothing like that agreed by the MMO, as pointed out rather forcefully by the RYA legal dept who for a change were on top of the situation and delivered a broadside.

If swimmers ( and I still don't think there will be any after the novelty wears off, a distinct hazard in water that cold ) can't manage in the illegally hi-jacked area, tough; they - EH - should have asked nicely !