Damage to Maryport Marina today 3/10/09

harry barker

Well-known member
At high water today in the solway,Maryport Marina gates have been smashed
off the holding frames.
This caused a a wall of water to rush into the Marina braking away pontoons and bending uprights holding the pontoons D and C in place.My boat is moored on B.
Boats moored up on them pontoons broke away and crashed into other boats sinking quite a lot of them.There is a cat broke in two and yacht masts down and broken
The fire brigade and police as well as local life boat personnel are in attendance and trying to pump out boats and re float them but quite a lot are holed below the water line and some are also overturned.
At the moment no loss of life is reported...... but there is live-a-boards in Maryport marina and we can only hope none are hurt or worse.
My boat is ok at the moment but the conditions over the west coast is horrendous with force 10 winds and very rough sea conditions.
This is very worrying because we have no protection now with the main gates broken off.
This will be a news item just hope there is NO loss of life included in it.
 
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Bloody hell Harry, that sounds really bad, I'm with you hoping there is no loss of life and I hope your boat gets through unscathed too mate. It must be terrible for the live aboards too, not knowing what's going to happen. I will keep my eyes on the news.

Jim.
 
damage to Maryport Marina

damage to Maryport Marina

Thanks,
Yes Im very concerned whats going to happen on the high tide in the early hours tomorrow morning.
As I say because there's no gates then as soon as the tide floods back we have no protection from the rough sea conditions that follows.
The only saving grace is the wind is forcast to decrease but we still don't know what affect this will have.
And when the high water is due it's going to be dark and there's no lighting due to the damage all power lines down.
Latest update..3pm everyone is accounted for thank god !.
Sleepless nights spring to mind!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
The wind is really bad over here Harry so I can just about imagine how bad it is right on the west coast. Hopefully the Marina people will have enough help to keep an eye on things, if not I think their insurance cover will be going up by an immense amount next year. No doubt that cost will be passed on to the people using the marina though :casstet::casstet: as is usually the case.

Best of luck Harry.

Jim.
 
Cheer's for the link Sean, that doesn't look good mind. I hope they manage to keep any more possible damage at high tide down to a minimum. I feel so sorry for anyone that has had their boat damaged in there.

Jim.
 
aye a hope no ones hurt, and hopefully everything will calm down overthere seems to of died off a bit here like in the past half hour
 
Just seen it on the news, what a mess I feel sorry for all the boat owners. The forcast says the winds will die down tonight so hopefully this will help fingers crossed
 
Maryport marina damage

Maryport marina damage

A update on the marina,winds now easing and power has been restored so we have lighting within the marina.
The sea conditions are also improving as unlike the north sea the irish sea falls away a lot quicker once the wind drops.
So things are looking a lot better than midday today the start of getting marina back in control again will start tomorrow but will take some time to get back to normal.
If you would like to see more pictures taken by the berth holders of the damage if you would like to go to our web site.
index you will see the carnage caused by the gales today.
 
bad

bad

Yes your right there mate,you don't normally see things like this happen in the UK,it reminds me of the hurricane season in the USA.
Iv been berthed in Maryport for 5/6 years now and have recorded winds over 90mph but when these wind were at there strongest they were in the south/south west direction this gave the marina protection a bit.
But the winds of today were west so blowing right into the entrance of the marina.
Also the marina detectives(me included) have our thoughts on why the gates failed.
Because of the gales the marine staff decided to keep the gates in the closed position, this keeping the swell out of the marina at high water good idea but if the sluices weren't opened then there was a 3or4 mts difference between water level from outside the gate to inside the marina.If the sluices had been opened then the levels would be equal so not putting pressure on the gates.
As I say we are only guessing as we had to have something to talk about to take our minds off other things....:)old wives:):)
 
Yes your right there mate,you don't normally see things like this happen in the UK,it reminds me of the hurricane season in the USA.
Iv been berthed in Maryport for 5/6 years now and have recorded winds over 90mph but when these wind were at there strongest they were in the south/south west direction this gave the marina protection a bit.
But the winds of today were west so blowing right into the entrance of the marina.
Also the marina detectives(me included) have our thoughts on why the gates failed.
Because of the gales the marine staff decided to keep the gates in the closed position, this keeping the swell out of the marina at high water good idea but if the sluices weren't opened then there was a 3or4 mts difference between water level from outside the gate to inside the marina.If the sluices had been opened then the levels would be equal so not putting pressure on the gates.
As I say we are only guessing as we had to have something to talk about to take our minds off other things....:)old wives:):)

makes sense mate hope yous get sorted soon
 
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