VIEW FROM THE TOWER!

While we are still waiting to hear when we can reopen our station, here's a little good news.... ... firstly, the Gosport Community Lottery has raised a wonderful £271 for us in the past year !  Thanks to everyone who supports us through this lottery. ... secondly, the Lottery has announced that this December the BIGGEST EVER Super Draw prize is a whopping £3,000 bonus !  So this is a great time to register and buy lottery tickets, or, if you already play the lottery, to buy more.  Just visit the lottery web site at this address... https://www.gosportcommunitylottery.co.uk/ and nominate Gosport Coastwatch as the charity you want to support. If you prefer to support the National Coastwatch station at Gosport in other ways, please take a look at our web site here  https://www.nci.org.uk/stations/supporting-us-your-donations for other ways to donate.

Following recent heavy weather , we regret to say that the National Coastwatch station at Gosport is closed temporarily.   We hope to be able to reopen soon.   In the meantime, for radio checks on Channel 65 we suggest you call our sister station, Lee-on-Solent using the callsign 'Lee NCI'.

A friend in one of the local sailing clubs sent us this article today; it's very much related to the earlier article here about Signal Flags, and tells the story of a nasty situation that could happen to anyone... I nearly killed someone the other day... We were returning from our spring cruise to Cornwall taking advantage of easterly winds all the way down channel to Fowey and westerly winds all the way home. We had started motoring early morning across Lyme Bay on the leg from Brixham to Weymouth but by the time we were two thirds across it was blowing a stiff westerly F5, blasting us across the Portland Race 2½ miles south of the Bill then swinging us north east to avoid the Shambles, aiming to leave Portland breakwater to port. With the sun out, and the wind on our quarter, it was “champagne sailing” making around 8 knots through the water plus a knot or two of fair tide, giving a SOG of well over 10 knots. We had passed numerous lobster pots throughout the morning and especia

The Watchkeepers of NCI Gosport come from many and various diferent backgrounds.   Unsurprisingly, given the population of Gosport, some come from the armed services, and others have long maritime experience.   Others bring skills honed in industrial or commercial arenas.   But some have seen and done things that the rest of us can only dream about…   as in this article sent in by a Watchkeeper who, for reasons of anonymity, we will call Captain ‘SJL’. Despite his grey hair and beard, he stands more watches that any other Watchkeeper and you may hear him on our VHF Channel 65 from time to time. In Command Of an Antarctic Supply Ship Submitted by Captain ‘SJL’, MBF RD RNR It was in November 1974 that I took over command of the RRS Bransfield, the British Antarctic Survey's (BAS) ice-strengthened logistics vessel supporting the 5 scientific research stations that BAS operated in the British Antarctic Territory. The RRS Bransfield, 4816 grt, 1577 nrt, launched in Leith in 1970,

We were very pleased today to receive a visit from the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Portsmouth, Councillor Tom Coles and Mrs Nikki Coles.  Although our lookout station is in Gosport, and indeed the name of our station is NCI Gosport, we do also serve the City and people of Portsmouth.    We watch all ferry movements from the Camber Dock, all commercial vessels going to and from Portsmouth Port, and keep our eyes on all the beaches on the Western side of POrtsmoth.  Here the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress pose for pictures with station officers Joe and Richard before climbing the steps the go into the lookout to see for themselves 'The View From The Harbour Entrance'.

The nice folks at Express FM in Portsmouth recently interviewed us for one of their programmes; if you missed either the live interview or a subsequent longer recorded one, you might want to listen in to the podcasts. This first one was a live interview by phone https://www.expressfm.com/podcasts/local-interviews/episode/richard-suggitt-of-gosport-coastwatch/?autoplay=1 Chris Pearce, the presenter was so interested in who we are and what we do that we invited him to visit out lookout tower.... and he brought his microphone with him to record a more extensive interview which was broadcast on 21st September. Listen in here... https://www.expressfm.com/podcasts/local-interviews/episode/on-the-lookout-with-gosport-coastwatch/ Please excuse all the 'ums' and 'ahs'... and my forgetting (temporarily) the term 'Mayday Relay'......

Admiral Lord Nelson is well remembered for his flag signal "England Expects...." hoisted before the battle of Trafalgar, but you might think that by now signal flags have gone the way of the dodo.  While it's true that radio, radar, AIS and the mobile phone have caused the use of flags to be much reduced, they have not gone away completely.  And where they are still used, they are important. Maybe you watched a TV programme recently about a company who were undertaking some underwater work in our locality, and who were unhappy that passing vessels were not keeping sufficiently clear of their diver.  They had displayed an appropriate warning flag, but evidently hardly anyone new what it meant.   It's true that the use of flags is mostly confined these days to working and commercial vessels, and they are very seldom seen flying on recreational craft.  However, recreational craft are expected to comply with the instructions that they give.   So lets review the flags that