Morning all and welcome to the first Ships Blog of 2014. We hope you managed to survive the storms of the last couple of weeks. Over the break the lock masters kept an eye on all of the boats with regular patrols around the pontoons. A number of fenders were collected that had broken free and have been stored here at the Control Tower. If you think you may have lost one then come and see us. Looks like we have a couple more days of wet and windy weather before some respite over the coming weekend. Temperatures appear to be slowly declining over the coming week as well. Everybody is back at work and the yard gang are continuing with haul outs and launches. Low water this morning took the tide level below chart datum by 0.34m, probably caused by the recent strong southerly winds. Richard Ireland our duty lock master took the opportunity to scrub one of the outer marker posts and repaint the depth marks which coincide with those in the lock. Happy New Year!