Marine Group and Watchet on Facebook

[PCUK]

There is a lot of new activity on Facebook from the Marine Group talking about what they are doing from today. Chris O.S. will be at Watchet in the near future to talk to boat owners and locals about what will be happening in the near future as well as news of other developments at the various MG facilities. I must admit it looks very promising, but then we have been here before! However, if they are now refinanced maybe things will get better and it is the first time for a long while that they have put their heads over the parapet.

 

[Praxinoscope]

Beware of ‘smoke and mirrors’

 

[TSB240]

There is a lot of new activity on Facebook from the Marine Group talking about what they are doing from today. Chris O.S. will be at Watchet in the near future to talk to boat owners and locals about what will be happening in the near future as well as news of other developments at the various MG facilities. I must admit it looks very promising, but then we have been here before! However, if they are now refinanced maybe things will get better and it is the first time for a long while that they have put their heads over the parapet.

If!

 

[Luminescent]

Sometimes it does take a while for a business to get moving. The Marine Group is not exactly small after all and unfortunately the Watchet problem is not an easy win for them, it's something that's going to take a lot money.

I wonder if it would be worth the watchet community to invest in a DIY dredger, with the Marine Group offering a bounty per 100kg of sediment removed. DIY-Dredge | Dredging by yourself is fun

If enough people take a spoon full of dirt from the mountain, there will be no mountain.

I get that it *should* be down to the harbour to be dealing with this, but...

 

[Praxinoscope]

The Marine Group problems are not just at Watchet, Burry Port had similar if not more extensive problems as does Port Dinorwic,.
DIY dredging may sound attractive, but there are now so many environmental regulations governing the disposal of harbour silt that DIY becomes impractical.

 

[Luminescent]

No solution yet for disposal of Peel Marina contaminated silt Slightly relevant, I guess!

So there appears to be two main route... depositing at sea, or depositing on land.
Dredging
Depositing dredged waste on land

As far as I can tell, dredged material from watchet, assuming all inert, would just need a risk assessment, a marine license... and a boat. But every yachtsman could take a bucket of dredged dirt (as unpleasant as it may be). I'm not saying this will be at all easy but I think there's a DIY route here somewhere.

Well it's that or taking a trip to the local tip...

 

[PCUK]

Using a water injection dredger as per Marine Group machines means no licence required as no physical digging is undertaken. So just getting a similar machine would solve all the problems. Although the marina is the responsibility of Marine Group it is still the towns biggest asset and so looking after it would be of benefit to all as the harbour itself belongs in one sense to Watchet Town.

 

[Luminescent]

Rule lawyering at its finest! Hopefully we'll see some enterprising souls with similar equipment soon.

 

[Allan]

Using a water injection dredger as per Marine Group machines means no licence required as no physical digging is undertaken. So just getting a similar machine would solve all the problems. Although the marina is the responsibility of Marine Group it is still the towns biggest asset and so looking after it would be of benefit to all as the harbour itself belongs in one sense to Watchet Town.

I've said this before. I believe, if pipes fitted with jets were laid in the harbour they could be fed with water from the stream. It would need a dam to ensure enough water at the correct time to go with the tide. It would take a few calculations and some imagination but could be a great subject for a thesis.
It would require the harbour to be dredged before installation to give the system a fair chance of working.
Allan

 

[Praxinoscope]

Water injection dredging in harbours such as Watchet, Burry Port etc. is about as much use as chocolate teapots,
all that happens is the silt is stirred up into the water some gets washed out on the ebb but a good percentage just settles back down to where it came from and builds up again.
A rapidly flowing river or perhaps a regularly opened dammed flood of water into the harbour on the spring ebb, would prove more effective.

 

[38mess]

I used to watch the dredging in watchet harbour. I couldn't see a lot of difference after a few weeks, but I listened to the experts who pointed out the progress that I couldn't see. I thought they knew what they were talking about, but my gut told me different.

 

[Praxinoscope]

I used to watch the dredging in watchet harbour. I couldn't see a lot of difference after a few weeks, but I listened to the experts who pointed out the progress that I couldn't see. I thought they knew what they were talking about, but my gut told me different.

It’s the same old story, ‘experts’ are brought in and their opinions taken as gospel, when it would be far more sensible and considerably cheaper to listen to those who have used or worked there for years.

 

[Allan]

Water injection dredging in harbours such as Watchet, Burry Port etc. is about as much use as chocolate teapots,
all that happens is the silt is stirred up into the water some gets washed out on the ebb but a good percentage just settles back down to where it came from and builds up again.
A rapidly flowing river or perhaps a regularly opened dammed flood of water into the harbour on the spring ebb, would prove more effective.

I think you are correct about the water injection boats. They resuspend the silt in a small area which starts to settle before the tide can take it out. What I'm talking about is introducing a large quantity of 'empty' water to resuspend the silt at the correct time. I use the term 'empty' as, unlike the water that the boats use, it would initially contain no silt.
I believe you have to go back to a basic understanding of what's happening. The silt laden water comes into the harbour and stops moving. At that point many tons of silt drops to the bottom over the entire harbour floor. After the tide turns the water leaving the harbour contains much less silt. If the silt across large areas of the harbour could be stirred up at the right time, the exiting water would be as silt laden as the entering water. It's effectively producing a "rapidly flowing river" but only at the right time. Another analogy is it's a little version of the system they historically used at Porlock, where they, occasionally, held water back to flush the silt out of the pool. I'm saying do something smaller but on every tide. Another, slight advantage may be, if the best timing is to start the pumps before high water some of the silt laden water may be kept out.
Allan

 

[Luminescent]

If I recall I saw pictures of the jets being very effective, but it takes time and consistency. Of course it's not going to be anywhere near as good as pumping it out or digging. Though I suspect with some proper timing and some inconvenience to boat users that much of the return silt could be avoided (close the gates on a rising tide open them on a falling tide on a day on day off basis). The key thing is that people can sail in and out of the harbour, it need not be perfect.

 

[Birdseye]

Watchet always held a lot of silt and needed dredging before the marina was built and when timber ships came in. The marina gate simply ensures that ever more silt is deposited as Allan points out. The stream that used to create a channel through the mud was diverted but it was never strong enough to de silt the harbour anyway.

Previous attempts to maintain a reasonable depth in the marina have failed and I cant see them ever succeeding without the use of a proper dredger dumping mud in the Bristol channel. Even if allowed, would that be financially viable given the small size of the marina and the small income it has.

Cardiff marine seem to have made a collection of dead ducks

 

[Praxinoscope]

Cardiff marine seem to have made a collection of dead ducks

They do seem to have visualised them as a fairground shooting gallery thinking they were all simply in a row, but it isn’t quite so easy, just look at Burry Port which has similar characteristics to Watchet and the problems there.

 

[38mess]

They do seem to have visualised them as a fairground shooting gallery thinking they were all simply in a row, but it isn’t quite so easy, just look at Burry Port which has similar characteristics to Watchet and the problems there.

They wouldn't listen to those old heads.

 

[Luminescent]

Previous attempts to maintain a reasonable depth in the marina have failed

In fairness as I recall the jet washing seemed to be doing a fantastic job. Though it seems that this has stopped or slowed considerably.

Unfortunately it looks what would in an ideal scenario be a huge clean up every few years has to be radically scaled up radically with yearly major clean ups and month maintenance. If it can't be sustained on a profit enterprise, then perhaps it needs to be taken into local charitable ownership.

 

[Praxinoscope]

As Luminescent says it looked as if water injection dredging was doing a fantastic job, unfortunately it’s a bit of an illusion, it looks good for a short time but soon reverts. As neither Watchet or Burry Port have the bonus of a fast flowing river entering the harbour to flush out the silt, the reliance upon the tides to wash out the suspension is unfortunately insufficient.
The only real option with both of these harbours would seem to be a traditional bucket and dump dredging to completely clear the current silt build-up followed by regular (possibly as much as monthly) water injection dredging to maintain the clearance..
Neither harbour is really large enough to generate the necessary income for a private company to maintain such a dredging regime, so it would seem that if the local authorities do want to have an attractive and viable harbour they may have to accept that it is more likely to prove to be a community expense rather than an income generator.

 

[jwilson]

Porlock used to occasionally flush the water from the inner harbour out through the pool, which seemed to work. But Watchet is in much muddier estuary water than Porlock. Maybe more silt comes in every tide there. I sailed the BC for years, never went into Watchet though I've been just about everywhere else from various Pills to Porth Gain and Clovelly. Burry Port used to be a horrible harbour and the town deeply unappealing. Watchet is quite a nice little town (from non-boat visiting) but the harbour has never worked properly.