Yacht asking VTS permission to go under the Itchen Bridge?

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prv

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I wonder why?

It was a bruddy great yacht (big shiny Oyster) but surely not big enough to need traffic control :D

Maybe he was listening on ch12 (as is proper in those parts) and thought he ought to join in?

Fair flummoxed the VTS guy :)

Pete
 
r_h said:
IIRC everything over 20m length is supposed to report to VTS at specific points on their approach to Southampton
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Well, they didn't :) First I heard was them asking how much tide there was, second was asking for "clearance" under the bridge. (I thought they were asking about air draft; the VTS controllers obviously didn't know what to make of it, but eventually plumped for "no reported traffic" which the yacht was happy with.) It looked like a big boat from my little one, but it wasn't 65 feet.

Pete
 
First time I went up the Itchen was with a skipper none of us trusted to have looked at a chart. That bridge can look awfully close even with (in retrospect) *loads* of real space between it and the mast. I note also that my navionics android app doesn't seem to give a height for the bridge: I'm not near my chartplotter at the moment, but wonder if it's an omission from the navionics chartplotter version too.

I wouldn't be surprised if your first thought was correct: A little last-minute concern about state of tide and height of bridge: Presumably a big Oyster has a tall-ish rig. Maybe when they didn't get the info they were asking for they just went for it?
 
laika said:
I wouldn't be surprised if your first thought was correct: A little last-minute concern about state of tide and height of bridge
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Actually you're probably right. Never would have occurred to me to ask VTS how much water there was - and a boat that shiny would have enough electronics not just to tell you the tide but to read your mind and tell you before you asked - but it does fit with worrying about getting under the bridge.

If they'd wanted VTS to check for them, mentioning "air draft" and how high their mast was might have got a better result :)

Pete
 
Not like the Nile Cruise we went on. The crew came up to the top deck and dismantled all the sun shades etc. We then stood and watched the bridge get closer and closer :eek: As we went under you had to duck and you could touch the bridge as many others had done before :)

Then the crew just came back and put everything up again :cool:
 
chinita said:
I have been under loads of bridges with hundreds of yards clearance.

I still look up though!
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Do n t look up passing under the Forth Rail Bridge especially if the train going over consists of older type coaches....You never know whether the falling objects are coins of the realm or another form of penny or worse!! :D:D
 
prv said:
a boat that shiny would have enough electronics not just to tell you the tide but to read your mind and tell you before you asked
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You'd think so. Curiously however the Oyster they let me onto at Southampton Boat Show last year was only kitted out with a humble Raymarine C-Series Wide (with, of course, navionics charts). The Ono-Sendai deck was probably in a concealed compartment near the chart table though...
 
chinita said:
I have been under loads of bridges with hundreds of yards clearance.

I still look up though!
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I agree entirely: you can look at the chart, work out tide heights, and be totally confident that there (say) is a good 5 metres clearance between your masthead and the bridge, yet as you approach, from the cockpit it looks as though you won't get through.
 
A certain sail training boat used to regularly go through the Swellies with only a metre or 2 to spare under the bridge. It was an endless source of entertainment.

One trick was to tell a crew member that the manual bilge pump in the cockpit was a hydraulic system for lowering the mast and that his job was to pump as we approached the bridge. Great fun as everyone shouted pump! pump! at him as the bridge approached and hysteria mounted.

On one occasion the lad on the wheel suddenly looked up and saw the bridge, having apparently been in a dream until then. Convinced we were about to hit he screamed, swung the wheel hard over and tried to execute a U-turn.
 
jwilson said:
I agree entirely: you can look at the chart, work out tide heights, and be totally confident that there (say) is a good 5 metres clearance between your masthead and the bridge, yet as you approach, from the cockpit it looks as though you won't get through.
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Many years ago, I went under Ballachulish Bridge into Loch Leven. As with many passages in those waters, it is a one way thing; the tide carries you too quickly to change your mind half way through! Despite very careful checking before going under the bridge, I was absolutely convinced we were going to hit it when we were past the point of no return. Of course, there was plenty of room - but it didn't feel like it when you were at the point where you were going under the bridge, room or no room!
 
Apologies for drift but a few years ago I was having a conversation with a Scouser. He told me about the time when he was taking his motor boat through the French canals.

He was very worried about air draft and calculated that if he lowered all his little masts, took down all antennae, filled all his fuel and water tanks and enlisted the help of eighteen burly French men on deck he could reduce the air draft in order to get through a particularly low tunnel.

After half a day of preparation he slowly entered the tunnel.

And promptly ground to a halt on the mud.


It was hilarious they way he told it!
 
I once worked on a 38 metre Peniche barge on the French canals; it had been specifically built to get through I think the tunnel at Pouilly ( not on our route then ) with low, inwards canted superstructure.

Even so, it was regular to take down the deck umbrellas & scrape the VHF aerial at some bridges; some very large barges / ships on the River Saone had hydraulically raised & lowered wheelhouses, which I always thought must be a possibly comic, more likely tragic, accident waiting to happen !

Re. the OP's mention of the Oyster calling VTS, when on a sailing exam in a real hooley from Ocean Village to Bursledon - as we went past VTS, the examiner asked me to get on the VHF and reassure them we weren't going further afield ( I'd still say it was a good F10 ); whether it was my dodgy VHF discipline or the VTS guy simply thought " Why the hell is a passing yacht calling ? " I can't say, but he sounded totally bemused.

So maybe the Oyster had some students aboard who thought they preferred calling & asking to looking up charts & tides ?!
 
VicS said:
For the record the charted clearance under the bridge is 23m

see http://www.visitmyharbour.com/viewchart.asp?chart=632841A0F1A222902
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The standard Air Draft of the Oyster 56 is 22.68m...without any fitted antennas...
I know because I delivered a 56 into Saxon Wharf just last week and had to time it just right to get under the bridge.
I did all the calcs beforehand, then I double checked the exact tidal height with VTS just before entering the Itchen. They came back instantly with the figure from their digital display.
Bloody scary looking up as we crept through!

Oyster do lots of bigger boats than the 56, they currently go up to the Oyster 82 which needs an airdraft of 32.5m!
That's never going to fit under the Itchen bridge with the mast up!
 
mph said:
The standard Air Draft of the Oyster 56 is 22.68m...without any fitted antennas...
I know because I delivered a 56 into Saxon Wharf just last week and had to time it just right to get under the bridge.
I did all the calcs beforehand, then I double checked the exact tidal height with VTS just before entering the Itchen. They came back instantly with the figure from their digital display.
Bloody scary looking up as we crept through!

Oyster do lots of bigger boats than the 56, they currently go up to the Oyster 82 which needs an airdraft of 32.5m!
That's never going to fit under the Itchen bridge with the mast up!
Click to expand...

the 100 footer recently completed & the 120 ft is in-build
 
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