Ships Blog 23rd August 2023

Morning all and welcome the Ships Blog for the bank holiday weekend. Forecast for the bank holiday looking to be a mixed bag of sunshine and showers, a few may be thundery. Wind strength predominantly force 3 to 4 west or south west. Tollesbury Cruising Club will be visiting us over Saturday and Sunday. We have to advise that we will be experiencing Neap tides over this period so if the lock is busy the marina water level may get quite low at times. The duty lockmasters will be keen to conserve water and will therefore expect to have a maximum number of boats in each lock transition. Please be patient with them as it may take longer to fill each lock with boats. To help mitigate the situation a pump will be used to help maintain water levels. In other news, it is the Clacton Air show this weekend. Your duty lockmasters are Andy Howard days, and Marc Gilbert on the night shift. Ellie will be on front desk. Have a good one.

Ships Blog 9th June 2023

Afternoon folks and welcome to the first Ships Blog of June 23. Weather is warming up for the weekend with wall to wall sunshine. The wind is still in the east or north east and has been in that direction since the end of April! Lets pray for a change by next weekend. The capital dredge that is taking place in the Harbour for Felixstowe Port will continue until the end of July. This has put a lot of silt up in the harbour and has been quite noticeable. The entrance channel to the marina has been dredged three times and is now at two metres below chart datum. Whilst on the subject of dredging we are in the planning stages of dredging the marina over the coming winter. Depending on our MMO license application and dredger availability this could be as early as October 2023 Q3/Q4. As things go along along we will keep you informed. This weekends duty lockmasters are Rob on days and Marc covering the night shift. Ellie will be driving the front desk. Have a great weekend.

Ships Blog 21/4/23

Afternoon all and welcome to the Ships Blog for the 21st of April. Weather forecast a bit indifferent for the weekend. Some sunshine plus a few showers and a nagging North Easterly which doesn’t seem to go away. Hopefully things will change next week! A few boats from Shotley Point Yacht club left midweek for their cruise to South Dock Marina on the river Thames. All being well they return on Sunday. Our entrance channel has been dredged by the Harbour Authority and soundings taken by their survey boat Egret. At the road entrance to the marina the compound and barrier have been removed and in due course the route into the marina will be reconfigured with a new barrier and CCTV camera. As ever please take care when entering the marina site and keep to the speed limit. This weekends lockmasters are Marc Gilbert days, and Richard Whitby night watch. Have a nice one..

Ships Blog 14th April 2023

Afternoon all and welcome to the Friday Ships blog. April is flying past and with this weeks storm ‘Noa’ now gone we are seeing warmer days ahead in the forecast. Trench work through the marina for the water main has been completed and tarmacked whilst the compound at the entrance to the marina has been removed. This means the entrance will be altered in due course with a new barrier and cameras being installed for security purposes. Easter now being a distant memory, a large number of vessels have been launched and thoughts are turning to the Summer Scrub season which starts at the end of May and goes through to September. This weekends lockmasters are Colin on days and Marc on the night watch.

Under parish notices we can advise that one of the old cranes on Felixstowe berth 3 is being demolished today and an exclusion zone has been established whilst this is taking place. As always it is advisable to maintain a listening watch on VTS Channel 71. Finally as you can see from the picture our entrance channel is being dredged be the injection dredger ‘Maverick’. Have a great weekend.