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Pier review, horsing around with sea level

Tuesday, December 18, 2012 17:30

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Bishop Hill has picked up a fascinating horsie tail from The Washington Times written by Soon and Morner mentioning how crowds peering dead horse style drove a pier into the silt. The rising snag for the sea-level paternalists came when the horses didn’t sink into the waves, no event, no pier sink. Reckon 150 tons did it.

Bishop Hill

Foundations count for a lot, either hydaulic/mass counterbalancing or the more obvious based directly on crustal rock but even that is floating.

Sea level gauging is deceptively difficult, what with marine creepy crawlies, waves wind weather, the moon looping, channels scouring, dredging, shipping movements. Technical troubles with variety of schemes used to make a gauge and read it often enough come snow, storm, illness and pay.

Sea level is easy to measure?

An infamous area for strange tides is the Solent.

Fishing people want to know, page for Cowes, Isle of Wight. http://www.tides4fishing.com/uk/england/cowes

The harbour “Tidal flows around the harbour can be exceptionally strong. If the opportunity arises, take a look at one of the Red Funnel car ferries as it approaches Cowes during a strong ebb, you will see the ship crabbing sideways with up to 45 degrees of set, to counter the cross current.” http://www.cowes.co.uk/tidal_flows_in_cowes.aspx

How about Lee-on-Solent where the weather station was featured on the Talkshop. Plot on this page here showing the four tides a day http://www.tidetimes.org.uk/lee-on-the-solent-tide-times

Tide comes up the English Channel and from there the two channels around the Isle of Wight to Southampton Water.

There will be other places like this in the world.

Another fun item are bores (apart from me) where we have the Severn Bore where I hope environmental vandalism will be resisted, no barrage.

There is the second greatest tidal range in the world,15 metres. The tide is funnelled, with the floor of the Severn estuary rising on rock, this trips a wave which is the Severn bore.

Nearby a couple of photos here give an idea on what was the deepest sea lock in the world when it opened. I’ve been there, a gulp, a tide range?

http://www.gloucesterdocks.me.uk/sharpness/olddock.htm

Now here is a reference tour de force for any able to take in whole books, covers an astounding range