Category: Archive News

Morning and welcome to Friday’s Ships Blog. The sun is shining and there is nice force 4 breeze in the harbour. Forecast looking good for the weekend although a little cooler than of late. Still it should still be good for getting down to the marina and getting some work done on your boat. Boat movements today in the yard, ‘Arion’ launched, ‘Footloose’ lifted ashore for some maintenance. Plus ‘High Five’ due to be launched by this afternoon. Colin ‘Biff’ Byford one of our lockmasters has been out and about with his brush again, this time its the walkway across the inner gates of the lock that’s been receiving some attention! As a number of you will appreciate we have revamped our website and would like to advise you that this process is still ongoing for another week or two, so please bear with us. Discussions with our website developer have high lighted issues where old browsers such as Safari on PC’s etc are being used. These are more vulnerable to hackers and identity fraud than more modern and up to date browsers such as Google Chrome. Have a good one and enjoy your weekend!

The Vernal Equinox

‘Ah, spring! This season brings increasing daylight, warming temperatures, and the rebirth of flora and fauna.

The word equinox is derived from the Latin words meaning “equal night.” Days and nights are approximately equal everywhere and the Sun rises and sets due east and west.

At the equinoxes, the tilt of Earth relative to the Sun is zero, which means that Earth’s axis neither points toward nor away from the Sun. (However, the tilt of Earth relative to its plane of orbit, called the ecliptic plane, is always about 23.5 degrees.)’

So there you have it, today is the first official day of  spring! The season is pressing on and I guess we all need to think about getting our boats ready for the forthcoming boating season. Its a beautiful day here at the marina, wall to wall sunshine and not a cloud in site. Plenty of wind for today and possibly tomorrow from the south west. Sunshine for Friday and Saturday. New berth holder arrived today by road transport, a Contest 36S called ‘Jouster’ from the south coast. Unloaded by Craig and the rest of the crew.

Morning and welcome to today’s Ships Blog. Bit overcast today in the harbour but should be brighter tomorrow with more sunshine. However there is a bit of wind on the way for the next few days. Here is today’s met office forecast:

Shipping Forecast – Issued: 1030 UTC Wed 19 Mar**-

Wind Southwest 5 to 7.

Sea State Moderate or rough.

Weather Fair.

Visibility Moderate or good

Gibraltar Point to North Foreland Strong winds are forecastFor coastal areas up to 12 miles offshore from 1200 UTC Wed 19 Mar until 1200 UTC Thu 20 Mar

24 hour forecast:

Wind Southwesterly backing southerly later, 5 to 7.

Sea State Slight or moderate.

Weather Fair.

Visibility Moderate or good.

Outlook for the following 24 hours:

Wind Southerly veering southwesterly 5 to 7, increasing gale 8 for a time.

Sea State Slight or moderate, becoming moderate or rough for a time.

Weather Rain for a time.

Visibility Good, becoming moderate, occasionally poor for a time.

Other news around the marina. We had our first Dutch visitor for 2014 arrive late last night having crossed the North Sea from Harlingen. ‘West Wind’ from the De Zeezeiler Sea school is a regular visitor during the year here at Shotley. Also launched today by Andy and Craig was the Harwich Harbour Foot Ferry. Recently we have had the injection dredger ‘Odin’ working in the entrance channel approaching the marina to ensure we maintain the depth at 2m below Chart Datum. 

Morning all and welcome to a cracking morning here in the harbour and the marina. Bright sunshine and mirror calm first thing this morning. Today’s Inshore forecast and Shipping Forecast for your perusal:

Gibraltar Point to North Foreland

24 hour forecast: Westerly 3, backing southerly or southwesterly 4 or 5 later. Smooth or slight. Fair. Moderate or good.

Outlook:  Southerly or southwesterly 5 or 6, occasionally 4 at first. Smooth becoming slight. Showers. Moderate or good.

Shipping Forecast – Issued: 0405 UTC Wed 05 Mar

Wind Variable, becoming southwest, 3 or 4, occasionally 5 later.

Sea State Slight.

Weather Rain later.

Visibility Moderate or good.