Going Over the Water by David Gary

Author:David Gary
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Gosport, Portsmouth, Hampshire, Portsmouth Dockyard, ferry, steam ferry, chain ferry, harbour ferry, ferry boat, nostalgia
ISBN: 9781911105268
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2017
Published: 2017-08-24T00:00:00+00:00

Lilly, stranded in the ice. This photograph was taken in the late nineteenth century: Lilly began her service in 1876

Ask any mariner, and they will rate fog among their chief enemies. For anyone who has not been at sea in a fog, it almost impossible to describe the complete loss of sense, and the silence that surrounds you. The old ferry boats did not have navigational aids like radar, and although the skipper would make the decision to go, it was sometimes not with the best results. One stoker called Jim Cranstone, told the News about being beached just to the side of Clarence Pier in thick fog in the early morning. They had to wait until a higher tide at lunchtime to get off.

Before the advent of radar, ships would use lead weights to establish the depth of water they were travelling in, having little knowledge of where a shoreline was situated in relation to their vessel. Thick fog in Portsmouth Harbour meant that often you could not see the other side, or indeed more than a couple of feet in front of you. In the days of the steam ferries, and right up to the early 70s, navigation in fog was difficult. The threat of running into one of the many moored boats or buoys that are on the route to the other side, or other moving ships was an ever-present danger. Sometimes, a naval ship would telephone the shore office and tell them they were on their way out, and to take care. The Gosport ferry crews had a trick up their sleeves: a bag of pebbles from Stokes Bay. This hi-tech solution was extremely reliable, and saved many collisions. The ferry driver’s mate would stand at the bow, and while the ferry slowly nosed her way forward, the mate would skim pebbles across the water, listening intently. A splash-splash-splash-plop, was safe, but a splash-splash-ping meant something was in the way. But this method could not detect lack of water. In thick fog in the mid 1930s, the Venus set out on her 5.30am crossing but went aground just fifty feet from the power station’s water cooling outlet. The only two passengers onboard were removed by launch, leaving the captain and his mate to await a high tide, which arrived shortly before noon. She floated off under her own power.

In March 1953, the Portsmouth Evening News reported that fog meant that no ferry ran until 11.10am. The queues on the Portsmouth side went from the pontoon up to the main road on the Hard: many people had been waiting since 5.30am and the only thing that was happening was that an enterprising fisherman appeared shortly after 9am, offering to take people over for the fee of one shilling, some seventy-five percent above the ferry’s price. But there were takers, with people saying that they were losing money in any case from their employer, and this price was worth it.

That fog also delayed train services: those years were

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