Maritime History > Harbours and Dockyards

Blockships and Boom Defences in Dover Harbour

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Ted Ingham:
Another photo of the Boom Defence vessel RFA Swin or RFA Succor just inside the Western Entrance Dover.
Looks like the Dover Harbour Board tug Dominant in the foreground.

Ted Ingham:
Photograph of either the RFA SWIN or the RFA Succor in Dover Harbour whilst on Block Ship duties.
Interesting to see the old Dover Harbour Board bucket dredger in the background.

MartinR:
The Spanish Prince is still visible on the charts as an area marked "Foul" (in other words there is debris on the seabed.  The foul area is charted just inside the 10m contour.  There is an obstruction to 8.6m which would correspond to the small vessel marked alongside her in the sketch provided by Nemo.  There's a further 8.9m obstruction where the stern of the Minnie Larrinaga was and foul ground stretches across most of the entrance.
A couple of posts seem to have misunderstood chart datum.  Chart datum in the UK is normally the Lowest Astronomical Tide (LAT).  This is the lowest level to which the tide will fall neglecting meteorological effects.  The figures on a chart are the depths BELOW chart datum, to that the 8.6 (shown as 86) means that there should be at least 8.6 m of water over the obstruction at any state of the tide.  If the figure is underlined though (31 for example) it is a drying height and means that the bed there is 3.1m ABOVE datum.  If there's 5m of tide I can sail there, but if there is only 2m of tide I can walk there.

Ted Ingham:
Attached image shows the Bar Class Boom Defence vessel HMS Barford together with the lifting craft LC 10 and LC 11 at Dover Eastern Entrance.
Photographed in the early 1950's whilst raising parts of the block ships in the area. Over the years especially in the 60's 70's the eastern was open to ferries.

Nemo:
My memory is imperfect and the various web references conflict; however, I think she was taken down to a height giving 8.5m clearance above chart datum.  I had also forgotten that she was previously the Knight Batchelor and in that guise did a "Titanic" but survived.

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