Humber Estuary
August 24, 2021
24 Aug '21 The Humber - too big to describe!
- The Humber Estuary drains one fifth of England via two great rivers - The Ouse and The Trent.
- There are more ship movements here than any other area of the UK - over 40,000 ships per year.
- The Humber ports include Grimsby, Immingham, Hull and Goole plus many smaller ones.
- More cargo is handled here than anywhere else in the UK - 60 million tonnes. The total value of that trade is £75 Billion.
- There are 127 floating navigation marks. My crew had to concentrate very hard!
- It is compulsory for all ships (and tiny yachts) to request permission on the radio to move anywhere in the Humber.
- There are three zones - each with their own VHF channel and I had to hand draw my passage plan (photo 5) to work out how to navigate this incredible piece of water.
- The river flows up to 5 knots. Even with the tide in our favour we had the engine going at 3,000 revs to gain maximum speed (photo 6).
- The river Ouse is the most surveyed river in the UK. Upstream of the Humber Bridge, depths change so often there is no point in publishing a chart. Our chart plotter was blank! (photo 9)
- One (very tall!) man has walked (not swum) across the Humber at low tide below the bridge.
The Harbour Master who looks after the Humber is Captain Andrew (Fred) Firman. He was very helpful to me on the phone, but understandably a bit too busy to see me.
One gem I learned was that the 500,000 cars imported all sit on the dockside with their keys in the ignition - it was no surprise I was stopped by security several times as I explored the port of Grimsby.
- The Humber Estuary drains one fifth of England via two great rivers - The Ouse and The Trent.
- There are more ship movements here than any other area of the UK - over 40,000 ships per year.
- The Humber ports include Grimsby, Immingham, Hull and Goole plus many smaller ones.
- More cargo is handled here than anywhere else in the UK - 60 million tonnes. The total value of that trade is £75 Billion.
- There are 127 floating navigation marks. My crew had to concentrate very hard!
- It is compulsory for all ships (and tiny yachts) to request permission on the radio to move anywhere in the Humber.
- There are three zones - each with their own VHF channel and I had to hand draw my passage plan (photo 5) to work out how to navigate this incredible piece of water.
- The river flows up to 5 knots. Even with the tide in our favour we had the engine going at 3,000 revs to gain maximum speed (photo 6).
- The river Ouse is the most surveyed river in the UK. Upstream of the Humber Bridge, depths change so often there is no point in publishing a chart. Our chart plotter was blank! (photo 9)
- One (very tall!) man has walked (not swum) across the Humber at low tide below the bridge.
The Harbour Master who looks after the Humber is Captain Andrew (Fred) Firman. He was very helpful to me on the phone, but understandably a bit too busy to see me.
One gem I learned was that the 500,000 cars imported all sit on the dockside with their keys in the ignition - it was no surprise I was stopped by security several times as I explored the port of Grimsby.