VIEW FROM THE TOWER!

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 revie...

In this blog we don’t talk much about paddleboarding (if at all)…   even though the sport is becoming ever more popular, we don’t see many in our ‘View From The Harbour Entrance’, and those that we do see do not usually come that close to us.   [Though of course when we do see them we like to make sure they are not in difficulty and are not getting too close to large craft]. However, a recent news item caught our eye; it concerns a paddleboarder who was carried a long way out to sea by the wind and currents, and who was thrown off his board. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-66727915 The bottom line here is that the sea is capricious and will catch out the unwary.   In the words of the victim "I've learned the biggest lesson of my life.   "I want to tell every paddleboarder: check the weather, check the tides, and wear a buoyancy aid. This is so important.".     But we would like to add these important points… this advice applies to every per...

If you are one of the lovely people who support us by subscribing to the Gosport Community Lottery (who donate a proportion of their takings to local charities, including NCI Gosport), then you might like to know about the Lottery September Super Draw .   September’s big Super Draw prize is a whopping must-have  £1,500 IKEA gift card, to give your home a big autumn makeover! The new Gosport Lottery Super Draw also gives you new ways to play – instead of committing to weekly tickets, new players can choose to just buy tickets for the Super Draw week, meaning more flexibility and less commitment, whilst still supporting Gosport Coastwatch.  Existing supporters can even choose to TOP-UP their tickets just for the week of the Super Draw!  There's no need for existing supporters to buy a separate ticket - you will automatically be entered into the special draw, but of course you could buy extra tickets to give you more chances to WIN! Or why not invite friends ...

Are you planning to go ?   The show is on from the 15 th to the 24 th September. If you do attend, please take a minute or two to drop by the NCI stand.   Watchkeepers from various stations will be manning the stand during this ten-day period; on the 19 th it’s watchkeepers from NCI Gosport.   They will be very happy to meet you, swap stories with you, give out information (and perhaps some goodies!), and have some safety tips to share.

Looking back over our records, it’s interesting to note that engine failures and groundings consistently make up almost half of all the incidents that we in NCI Gosport record in our official log.   In 2021, there were 9 were engine fails or groundings out of 19 logged incidents.   In 2022 the figures are 16 out of 36.   For this year so far the figures are 10 out of 21.   These events – which mainly ought to be avoidable – usually put an end to a good day’s sailing or boating.   It makes you stop and think.   How do you avoid falling foul of them ? In the case of groundings, the short answer is to know your position , understand the charts , and understand the effect of tides .   A GPS-based navigation system and a depth sounder are a big help, but to keep it simple, if you don’t stray into shallow water you wont get stuck on the bottom. For engine failures, she short answer here is maintenance and fuel .   We cant know how many of these re...