Worst Bar/Entrance In Uk?

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Strangford Lough on the ebb. when in a tricky situation I run through a mental list of 'get out' tatics if things should go pear shaped. I think this is the only occasion when I couldn't think of anything.; almost certianly would have ended up on ther rocks. Blowing a F6 Sly, on the ebb
 
RobbieW said:
The Needles channel at the Bridge bar has little to recommend it on the ebb with winds S-W and above about 4/5
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Agreed ! We went out of there in a F5 after a few days of gales, to be met by
the biggest waves I've ever seen - a big wave with another diagonally breaking one on top, straight out of ' Heavy Weather Sailing '.

Salcombe bar is lethal if one gets it wrong - there is a memorial to a lifeboat which tried it.

So is Chichester to a lesser extent, with a Southerly above F7 against a Spring ebb it'll bite hard.
 
dylanwinter said:
I have a theory as to why people you meet in harbour offer such gloom laden advice about the terrors of their own bars.

First of all they get to see them at their worst when the water is boiling and raging around the bar

secondly, the blokes you meet in harbour who have the time to tell you about the risks are the sort who never leave their home port.

I always listen politely to what they have to say and then ask them a few questions about their own seagoing experience. Despite rolling up to me in RNLI issue yellow seaboots, sou'wester and smoking a pipe of old shag some of them will turn out to have done little more than stand on the shore with a fishing rod in their hands.

D
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I have worn out my yellow wellies now D!

I do remember meeting a French singlehander in Caernarfon who was on his way home after going round the top KTL style!

Well probably a bit quicker with fewer stops anyhow!

Poor fellow was very distressed and in broken French I was able to offer him some help.
It turned out he had pitch poled off Holyhead somewhere taking on a lot of water and damage. He had patched himself up at Holyhead and decided to do a short hop to Caernarfon .

He then got hammered with a knockdown on his way in!

I have never seen such a terrible mess inside a boat!

He was adamant that he had not seen such conditions anywhere around the UK in what he felt was good sailing weather!

Just going for shag and check if the lines are still baited...:encouragement:

Steve
 
BlueChip said:
Thanks for posting that clip, brings back memories.
I've got both DVD's somewhere, I must get them out and watch them again. It was an amazing film.
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+1
In the mid-90 I went down the Peruvian Amazon on the remaining one of the two boats that were used for the movie (the other one was destroyed, so they said)

Jhuliana.jpg
 
LittleSister said:
I think there's a particular danger in some of the ones that are not generally the most scary, but the fact they're usually benign means that some don't appreciate how nasty they can be in the wrong conditions - Salcombe springs to mind. The fact that the sailing directions stress how careful one needs to be is a mixed blessing, as if you've read them and then find after 99 entrances nothing to even spill your tea means you start to doubt the warnings of potential doom. Then on the 100th. . . .

At the regularly scary end of the scale, there's few interesting entrances in Brittany that put most of the UK ones I know in the shade.
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Malahide can be like that.
 
From my own experience, Hoy Sound, entrance to Stromness, a big atlantic swell coming in from the West and a strong ebb tide coming out of Scapa Flow. When the channel shallows from 30+m to less than 10m, you get big and very short breaking waves.

Hamnavoe9Jan2014_06.jpg


and
The Approach to Wick Harbour with any strong wind with East in it, the waves bounce off the harbour wall and produce a nasty highly confused breaking sea and you have to turn beam on, to get through the entrance.
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and
Whitehills in a strong Northerly. It's a very narrow channel with rocks on either side. The waves reflect off the rocks and harbour wall and there's a very tight turn to port at the end of the channel.
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Ian_Edwards said:
Whitehills in a strong Northerly. It's a very narrow channel with rocks on either side. The waves reflect off the rocks and harbour wall and there's a very tight turn to port at the end of the channel.
15a.jpg
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Don't fancy that much...

Boo2
 
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