Taking a boat directly across the Bristol Channel

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Over the horizon 14.20m tide 1 September 2019 at Severn Beach #art #severnbeachart #sailing #severn #bristolchannel

A post shared by Stik Dog (@stikdoguk) on Sep 1, 2019 at 7:17am PDT

Often surprised more city folk don’t do this in London,

The boats are superb for this, esp if you have to go to Canary Wharf or similar.

There already are fast cats on the thames. Comparable to the tube, but nicer. Works well as Molgrips says if you want to get west-east e.g. to Greenwich although crossrail probably diminishes its advantage a bit.

Theres also speed limits on the thames and its obviously meandering so you wouldn’t be much quicker than cycling allong the banks.

In its favour it’s barely tidal too in comparison to the bristol channel both due to geography and the barrier.

As its been mentioned. I live in Burnham-on-sea. Theres been talk of a ferry from here to barry/newport in the past. There’s also some kind of floating bridge/energy project that comes up occasionally from a crackpot wanting investment.

(sidenote: in minehead someone had business with a a massive 6 or 8 wheeler thing that could drove out across the mud into the sea, then “drive” in the sea, and come back. randomly I was there when they reversed it into the supports for one of the listed buildings on the sea front and the service stopped soon after..)

As has been mentioned the Bristol Channel has one of the largest tidal ranges in the world, and its a pretty non-leisure boating area, but there is a yacht club in BoS. You dont stuff like canoes or paddle boards around here for good reason (whereas where my holiday home is in south devon/english channel they’re all over the place..)

A lot of the “beaches” are actually just sinking sand – it being a tidal estuary and all. Thats why week on week through the summer mostly **** from bristol, or **** in hire cars from birmingham watch the expensive shiny bits of metal disappear under the waves after either getting stuck hooning too close to the tide coming in, or parking and buggering off to see the fort on brean down. where they might ignore the no dogs off leads signs and lose that off the side too.. Cars usually get rescued the following day, sometimes dogs bodies are found.

Also, now the severn bridge is free now.. you wouldn’t save money on that either..

A lot of the “beaches” are actually just sinking sand – it being a tidal estuary and all. Thats why week on week through the summer mostly **** from bristol, or **** in hire cars from birmingham watch the expensive shiny bits of metal disappear under the waves

Several years ago, one such from Bristol took his just acquired Discovery onto the beach, and was rewarded by watching his pride and joy disappear under metres of muddy salt water. Muppet.
Going back to ‘79-82, I drove down to BoS and Brean with my then g/f, and we walked along the beach for some distance, and we found the buried remains of four or five cars, there was one sunk up to the top of the doors, with the roof on but no glass, the interior full of sand and mud, the others had their roofs ripped off, and just a mud-filled rectangle showed with a bit of steering wheel.
I live roughly seventy miles from there, and I have an immense amount of respect for the beaches and estuary there, and, despite the innocuous appearance, the dangers; it’s amazing that people who, almost literally, live just up the road have so little knowledge of those dangers.

yup! – and there are lots of big signs!

I’m from taunton originally and we went to brean on an end of primary school trip, which would have been in spring ’87 only a few years after your trip – some clasmates got in truoble for getting mucky climbinbg into a roofless car. i believe they were all removed from the beach a few years later.

I am sure I read on here about someone commuting by light aircraft from Newquay to Swansea.