Portsmouth small craft channel

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mikemacdonald

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Coming back into Portsmouth from Ryde on Wed, using the Small boat channel and keeping to the starboard side as much as possible to allow boats coming out room to pass, got a snotty from a Fisher m/sailor in the narrows who was well over to the port side of the channel.I was running in with the tide, and a large ship was outbound so not too much room to spare.
Noticed at the exit of the channel that the port-hand post says vessels to leave the post as close as possible on portside, surely that puts you in the wrong side of the channel.
Was I wrong or am I missing something? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
I assume that this is the Ballast Pile which replaced the Ballast Bouy off Haslar Marina. It should (and I believe it does) say leave the post to port. (i.e. post on the port side of your vessel) Outbound boats pass to the West and Inbound pass to the East.

I agree that outbound vessels standing out in to the channel are a menace. They should be as close as possible to the Gosport shore; it is plenty deep enough and there is a beneficial eddy on the flood tide. The designated small boat channel is only 50m wide so if I am going in and there is someone coming out who is obviously too far off the shore I pass the wrong side of him.
 
Mike
We are based in Gosport and your experience was sadly common. Half of them don't know port from starboard. We went out Tuesday this week and watched a Fisher ( a big green one ) who was perhaps your friend go down the middle of the main channel then into the inner swashway on the wrong side of the new post.
The notice on the post at the exit refers to boats using the Inner Swashway only. Otherwise it is a standard mark for the small boat channel.
Yesterday , joy of joys, a Bav 40 went straight out along the main channel dicing with the Fastcat, the biggest harbour tug, a navy patrol vessel and the pilot launch. Perhaps he had heard about Bavaria keels and had decided to end it all.
 
Thanks for that. Just reread the QHM notice, you're right , basically the pile stands in the middle of the inbound/ outbound lane I guess, don't think I was really in the wrong, running with the tide does make things rather more fraught especially when people insist on holding their course.Have we had any serious collisions there yet?
 
Mike.. the Ballast pile has plainly had several fairly major collisions so far!! but its reasonably easy to understand the concept of how it works..as you say although its a 'port' marker, it actually sits in the middle of the small boat channel, to be left to port by boats both arriving and departing the harbour.

The Inner Swashway pile is a different matter altogether and is so obtuse as to be thoroughly dangerous! ( IMHO).

I sailed around it a few times(on a quiet day) trying to understand the directions on the plate at the top, in the end I printed off the diagram from tho QHM web site laminated it and keep it with my other paperwork that I keep to hand.

As far as I can tell only boats leaving the harbour and taking the inner swashway have to observe the 'leave to port' instruction... which means that you in effect can have boats passing on both sides!! Boats leaving the harbour and proceeding down the main channel (actually the continuation of the small boat channel) as far as I can see leave it to Stbd.. Given the fact that this Swashway pile is only about 15meters (if that) off the shore (Fort Blockhouse) there is a very real risk of a very dangerous situation happening pretty soon.

I've spent a while trying to understand the logic of that pile being where it is, and now just treat the area with the utmost caution, even if I do understand it correctly, one thing for sure is that virtually no other b##ger does...

All best Nick
 
yesterday, a boat by the name of silver fox took to giving obscene gestures to a wightlink ferry after the ferry had given him 5 blasts ... the ferry captain (on ch11) described this muppet as "inbound, in the centre of the channel" with one of the Pride's and him all inbound at the same time. The ferry took emergency avoiding action into the small boat channel ... shortly after that he lost half his propulsion (so did gosport queen, so not a good day down there) but don't know whether that was connected. I was just bringing my boat in and was tempted to trundle out again and witness the wigging that QHM's bod (a girl) gave silver fox ... the ferry capt sounded both gob struck and exceedingly annoyed if you follow what i mean ...
 
If the QHM female bod is who I think it is then I suspect that Silver Fox slunk off with his tail well and truely between his legs. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif I have been on harbour patrol with said girl and she takes no prisoners. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif
 
The only point I can see to the new outer pile is to stop inbound boats creeping along the Haslar wall inner swash cutting accross outbound boats keeping well into the Blockhouse shore to reach the stb side of the SBC for an inbound boat. Such an inbound boat would be approaching an outbound boat`s stb side so would be carry on vessel but the outbound couldn`t alter to stb without piling up on the shore. Making the inbound boats join the SBC a little further out helps that blind bend. Once it has been explained the logic of leaving the Ballast pile to port in both directions makes sense but the harbour patrol should enforce it and also try to ensure Haslar bound boats pass north of it so as to avoid cutting up outbound vessels: I think it all makes sense!!!
 
Although I can see the logic of the Inner Swash pile, I still can't get past the feeling that someone is tinkering because they've got nothing better to do. We've been without it up till now and I'm not aware of any serious 'incidents' up to now, that would have been prevented by the pile. Indeed the very presence of the pile and, more, the obvious confusion it is causing are likely to contribute to an accident. The volume of traffic in and out of Pompey has not changed very much in the last 5 years or so, no new marinas or mooring areas have been opened up. What's the point?
 
[ QUOTE ]
...and also try to ensure Haslar bound boats pass north of it so as to avoid cutting up outbound vessels...

[/ QUOTE ]

My reading of it is that vessels going to Haslar don't have to go round Ballast - it says on the diagram "Enter or leave Small Boat Channel anywhere on the Western side" although the normal rules for crossing the channel must apply.
 
I was the skipper of Silver Fox, and I am not a muppet. I did not leave with my tail between my legs, and neither did I get a "wigging-off" from the lady of the QHM.

I did give a rude gesture in reply to those that I was being given by two crew memebers on the bridge, and the "finger". I mentioned this to the QHM.

I gave a full account of what happened to the QHM.

Neither did the ferry enter the small craft channel to avoid me! I believe it was to avoid an inbound ferry that I had just given way to.

I was not in the centre of the small boat channel, and neither was the ferry inbound as you suggest, it was leaving the harbour.

There were two other yachts leaving the harbour, correctly, to my port, and infront of the outbound ferry, at one point probably being approx. 50m infront of the ferry. At that point the ferry gave one long blast.

In the main channel was an inbound "Brittany Ferry", just to my starboard.

In your post you have not stated the facts correctly, and if you do not know exactly what happened, you should refrain from writing.
 
[ QUOTE ]
There were two other yachts leaving the harbour...to my port, and infront of the outbound ferry,..... In the main channel was an inbound "Brittany Ferry", just to my starboard.

[/ QUOTE ]

If that was the case, either the outbound ferry was in the small boat channel or you were in the main channel.

Whichever, it sounds very scary.
 
crikey, didn't expect to sir up quite so much mud.
Thanks for the info from everyone, think I have understood the channel rules as well as anyone now, perhaps if that lever that controls the speed was used a little more carefully we would all have more time to transit the narrows safely and carefully and " in-line astern", why try to overtake in a confined channel, there's lots of sea out there to whizz about in.
Multihulls, I love 'em.
 
Errm, in which case you could help everyone on the forum with a concise explanation of what DID happen. I've read your reply, and I'm none the wiser.

dv.
 
Dunno ... we'll be going in tomorrow - but coming through from Main Passage ... so shouldn't be an issue - unless it is a superb sunny day with a nice F2 northely in the morning and a F3 SW in the afternoon ... then we might stop off for lunch ... (wee - there go the pigs!)
 
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