Those New Navigation Light Piles Outside Portsmouth.

[Giblets]

Topcat, when you say "The piles are covered at HWS Tides" I think you are referring to the stubs that have been installed to take the main column structures. If the main columns are covered then there would be a major moisture problem for the whole of the Portsmouth/Gosport/South Coast area!!!!

 

[Daedelus]

... and all other navigation marks, other yachts, most motorboats - really anything smaller than Spitbank fort or a feeder container ship.


Pete

Ever since that banana boat rammed the Nab tower in good visibility I have rejected the idea that size makes it safe from being rammed.

 

[Topcat47]

Stubs, piles call them what you will, the big tubes stuck in the seabed even. The Green mark near(ish) the war memorial is/was the only complete structure (at least it looks complete to me) that I've seen close up.

I think the yellow skeletons would stand out more if they weren't just skeletons.

 

[Fantasie 19]

This book keeps on giving, the monument seems to have been used in transit elsewhere to identify all sorts of spots including Bramble Bank. A sort of general purpose BFC/Spinnaker Tower or the mast on the IOW. Incredible to me now because with all the stuff built around it's actually quite hard to spot these days.

Thanks again F19 for posting that pilot book. It's all so familiar yet written before the first propellor steamship when everyone was charging around in sailing ships.

I think you've both cracked it, NE must be a typo and some or all of Southsea Castle and its adjacent Batteries must be 'Portsmouth Lines'. I've googled for old postcards to find a photo with some trees with no luck, but it doesn't really matter anywhere works fine.

Makes you wonder if Southsea Castle Lighthouse (built a dozen or so years after Nelson's monument) was intended to form the other point on the Transit but the trees were more visible.

Confirmed on your assumption Portsmouth Lines was the seafront.. but not just Southsea castle - also forts and fortifications east and west of it....

From "Portsmouth Lines and Southsea Defences (Solent Papers No.12)" by David Moore

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Portsmouth-Southsea-Defences-Solent-Papers/dp/0957030231

"the Victorian coastal fortifications from Old Portsmouth to Eastney including: Point Battery, Long Curtain, Southsea Castle Batteries, Lumps Fort, the Eastney Batteries and Fort Cumberland."

The only place on the whole front that isn't fortified is Southsea Common - so I'm guessing the trees were between Long Curtain (the fortifications just east of the fun fair) and Southsea Castle??

Anyone know what "N 1/7 E" means? I'm assuming they divide the quadrant by 7, and this is a 7th East of North so compass bearing about 13'??

Not sure NE is a typo as other pilots also duplicate the information - this one is from 1858...

"as the Nab rock lies in this track care should be taken in vessels of great draught when abreast of Bembridge ledge buoy to haul to the northward when Nelson monument is in one with the east end of the trees on Portsmouth lines bearing N 1/2 E which will lead between the rock and the ledge"

I think the NE bit just refers to the general direction of the trees, rather than the leading line between monument and trees.....

Oh and it's here.... https://books.google.sk/books?id=m2...=nelson's monument bearing portsmouth&f=false

 

[prv]

I just reckon things should be well marked in the 21st Century

What better mark could there be than a series of enormous steel towers?!? The entire premise that started this thread was that they are *too* noticeable!

God help you if they ever succeed in putting a windfarm off the central South Coast.

Pete

 

[Seajet]

I'm sure you'd find a wind farm a deeply enjoyable experience in fog, too; off you go, leave a note in a bottle as to how it went...

 

[Lucky Duck]

Something people sailing in places other than lake Solent have had to deal with for quite a while now

 

[Mark-1]

The only place on the whole front that isn't fortified is Southsea Common - so I'm guessing the trees were between Long Curtain (the fortifications just east of the fun fair) and Southsea Castle??

Interesting conjecture. Does seem unlikely that trees would be allowed to grow on top of batteries or directly behind - shells that might have passed over would detonate direct overhead.

Anyone know what "N 1/7 E" means? I'm assuming they divide the quadrant by 7, and this is a 7th East of North so compass bearing about 13'??

I assumed that.

Not sure NE is a typo as other pilots also duplicate the information - this one is from 1858...
"as the Nab rock lies in this track care should be taken in vessels of great draught when abreast of Bembridge ledge buoy to haul to the northward when Nelson monument is in one with the east end of the trees on Portsmouth lines bearing N 1/2 E which will lead between the rock and the ledge"
I think the NE bit just refers to the general direction of the trees, rather than the leading line between monument and trees.....

I guess it must be if it's made it into multiple editions. Could have been stated a lot more clearly! Mind you it all could have been. I can't help but think a few chartlet's would have made 19C pilotage a lot easier!

Oh and it's here.... https://books.google.sk/books?id=m2...=nelson's monument bearing portsmouth&f=false

Another good find, just in time for winter armchair-time-travel-cruising.

 

[prr]

I too am local and have been some what intrigued by the pilots instructions.
Nelsons Monument would line up nicely with Southsea Castle and the adjoining lines to the east of it which would clear the Princessa shoal, Bembridge ledge etc etc.
The only way to get a NE bearing on the monument would be to pick up and carry your boat over the Isle of Wight so perhaps it is a typo.....

Could it be that magnetic north was further west 150 years ago putting the transit just to the east of north or N 1/2 E ?

 

[alahol2]

Could it be that magnetic north was further west 150 years ago putting the transit just to the east of north or N 1/2 E ?

Looks like magnetic north was something like 22 deg west around 1850.
Head hurts trying to think what that means to bearings in a pilotage manual.

 

[Seajet]

Something people sailing in places other than lake Solent have had to deal with for quite a while now

Yes, I have.

What a feeble attempt at an insult.

 

[Lucky Duck]

You have sailed near wind farms in the fog?

 

[Mark-1]

Looks like magnetic north was something like 22 deg west around 1850.
Head hurts trying to think what that means to bearings in a pilotage manual.

I'd assume all bearings were true, but at first glance I can't see anywhere it states that.