When The Boat Comes In...

When The Boat Comes In...

With ships seemingly getting ever larger we thought we should find out what repercussions that poses for Dart Harbour Authority. 

When a visiting large ship moors in the middle of the River Dart it is the only visible result of sometimes many years planning. Certainly the cruise ships plan upto three years in advance due to brochure demands and itinerary planning.

Dart Harbour is a member of Destination Southwest, an organisation formed to market to passenger ships wishing to visit ports in the South West of England.  It is entirely self funding seeking support from the ports and the destinations on offer. Of course Dartmouth is fortunate to have not only the most picturesque of vistas, fine restaurants and public houses, interesting shops and galleries, but is also home to Britannia Royal Naval College, has Greenway and Agatha Christie’s house just a little further up river and Dartmoor just a short coach ride distant.  These are certainly attractive propositions to American, German, French and Scandinavian visitors who make up the bulk of the cruise passengers.

Ten years ago, most of the passenger vessels visiting Dartmouth were not much more than 100 metres in length but now due to economies of scale they are steadily creeping up to 200 metres but having said that the manoeuvring characteristics are far superior these days.

With variable pitch propellers, bow thrusters and even stern thrusters together with the fact they are building them much lighter, it is possible to do more with these ships now than ever before. However, as they look more and more like a floating block of flats they do suffer more windage, which has to be taken into account.

Dartmouth's Harbourmaster, David White, admits that the upper limit five years ago  would have been a length of 170-175 metres and certainly the maximum length they can turn on the river just above the higher ferry is 180-185 metres.  Of course to turn ships of that size means work beforehand laying special buoys so that, as pilot, David knows exactly where he needs to put the bow to keep the stern from demolishing half of Dart Marina!  

Also because Dartmouth has no alongside berthing for these ships they rely on the Admiralty buoys mid river and earlier this year David organised alterations to these to make them more acceptable to bigger ships.  In fact, the Braemar at 196 metres, which visited in May 2010 is the longest ship ever in the Dart and was the first to test the new arrangements which were not found wanting!  She had to reverse into the river and a larger tug had to be brought in to get her round the bends but all went well!

Luckily as ships get bigger it does not necessarily mean they get deeper. The Braemar for instance was only drawing 5.7 metres. Some of the warships that visit, although shorter, draw 7.2 metres. So not only is there much forward planning with consideration of length and draft, the time of arrival and state of the tide is all important – it’s no good at all if the day a ship is looking for a port at 8am it happens to be low water!  All these things are of the utmost importance and have to be taken into account. The condominium ship The World is due in 27-29th July and although not the longest at 192 metres she will certainly be the biggest and heaviest overall.  This visit is swiftly followed by Ocean Princess at 181 metres on 8th August.

Our Harbourmaster holds a First Class Masters license and has been a qualified Marine Pilot since 1979 and he guides the vast majority of these ships into the River Dart. Ships take on a pilot for their local knowledge and ship handling experience.  The rule is anything over 50 metres must have one but often ships of a lesser length will not come in without one.  So David finds himself going out of the river to meet them, more often than not frightfully early in the morning, and then having to climb up a very long ladder. 

Many of the ship’s Masters have never been to Dartmouth before and have no idea where they will be tying up, what the tide is doing or where they can turn.

Handling a ship is not like driving a car on a solid surface. A ship has to be in the right place at the right time and nothing can beat experience for this.

The concentration is quite intense and David has to become part of each ship’s bridge management team.  Before every ship arrives, David does a comprehensive passage plan which he takes out with him to discuss with the Master and his bridge team before even starting to make an approach to the entrance of the Dart.

With all of this attention to detail and forward planning I wondered if David had encountered any problems and he certainly does not have fond memories of the Black Prince!  He says ‘Undoubtedly one of the most awkward, as it was impossible to steer at anything less than 4½/5 knots and it only had one rudder and the bow thrusters were, shall we say, a little ineffective!’

Another experience he remembers was when he joined a visiting Russian destroyer together with an interpreter kindly provided by the British Navy. They sailed up river past the town and when David asked the Captain for a turn… back came the reply ‘Niet!’  What had not been passed on in interpretation was the fact that the ship’s starboard engine was ‘broken’ so David had to go to Plan B. Everything had been set up to turn one way and he then found himself quickly having to turn in the opposite direction using the remaining working engine.  As David says, ‘You always have to expect the unexpected!

First published July 2010 By the Dart

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