Spitway depths

[christo2024]

Now please dont sue me for what I am about to say and dont use this info without due caution. Thats the HSE bit out of the way.

Travelling daily from B'sea to the wind farm has led me to experiment with depths. My Admiralty chart shows a drying area between the spitway and the first line of turbines. Today I travelled right over it 2 hours after low water and had 3 metres there. There seems to be far more water there than is shown. (I draw 0.9 metres)

We were on site over the last few days where wopping low waters occurred during the spring tides. yesterday was 0.2 above CD. The only bit of the gunfleet that dried out was in the NW corner of the windfarm between rows A and B and turbines 1-3.

Use this data with caution but dont be too scared of being further East of the line of the buoys. Not sure about the Buxey side, never go that way, deliberatley!!!

 

[Firefly]

Interesting as I will be going that way en route Levington to Gravesend in a few weeks time. Hopefully I can be less aprehensive of the Spitway than I thought.

 

[tillergirl]

If you look at charts back 80 years or so, they indicated the shifting nature of the sands in this area. The Spitway then was pretty much due south of Clacton Pier; in fact it was a different swatchway to the one we currently use and is still just about there on todays charts where the Mast is shown - now in the middle of the Windfarm. You'll see the depths at the Spitway last year on the download on my website. I didn't go as far as the 'drying patch' as I was trying to cover the Spitway itself but you can see that depths were reducing as I went towards the location of the drying patch. I guess we can expect the Windfarm to have an effect on the sands. In 1903 the drying heights were up to 10ft around there and 1ft in 1938!

 

[christo2024]

spitway depths

Interesting survey, tillergirl.

If I get a moment I will try and get some more depth data for the area.

Chris

 

[tillergirl]

PM sent