What is It? for July 19

My condo 100 years in the future....

I know 'cos it's close to home, but I won't say and spoil the fun.

Kevin Costmore tries a Waterworld remake of H G Wells' War of the Worlds!

Del

Obviously they are the amphibious version of the Imperial Landwalker:

Oh, thank goodness. I'm not the only one.

Maunsell Forts Grimsby UK.

Grimsby?????

Curiously I thought, and the link you provide agrees, that they were in the Thames Estuary hence near Del's Essex homeland.

Grimsby is on the Humber which is somewhat to the north but would have been as important a strategic target so its surprising similar structures were not used on that river.

Yup I assumed they were the Thames estuary ones... but maybe they wander around when no one's lookin

The forts in the Solent are pretty cool too... somewhat earlier tho' !

Del

We have one here.

But it's a little older.

Fort Carrol build 1848 Design Robert E Lee

Baltimore Harbor

If we go into Portsmouth harbour itself we can get a little earlier...

Del

I did a lot of my training in Fareham, HMS Collingwood, also in several other bases in the Portsmouth area....that brought back memories.

I am meeting my old shipmates from HMS Devonshire in the UK early in October....probably our last reunion.........

Isn't that on land not in the harbour?

Some structures were used near Grimsby and installed in WWI. However, the Maunsell forts were not and you are correct. I was in Grimsby in May and asked what the structures were and was told they were forts to protect the Humber and harbours. Similar structures just not Maunsell forts. I had read the Wiki info after I posted and suspected someone would correct me. Thanks.

They were used in many river entrances around the UK.....from 1942 onwards I believe....

I thought this actual picture was the Thames, but its only a guess....

Maunsell forts built in WWII to defend Great Britain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunsell_Forts

They are the only thing keeping Angela Merkel out

Del

Interesting tid bit:

They were laid down in dry dock and assembled as complete units. They were then fitted out - the crews going on board at the same time for familiarization - before being towed out and sunk onto their sand bank positions in 1942.^[1]

Pirate radio headquarters....

http://www.offshoreradio.co.uk/album52.htm

They are some of the AA forts, built to shoot down German bombers/mine layers, approaching London in WW2, using the Thames/Medway estuary as navigational help.

They were also later used as an illegal radio station at some point in the 60's/70s.

They actually "walk" slightly as the sand and mud shifts.....very clever design.....

They are called the "Mausell Forts". See here:-

Maunsell_Forts

I have not read further down (assuming that someone else has already posted the correct answer as well!!)

Old British anti-aircraft battery platforms in the Channel, from WWII.

Thats certainly more accurate than I'd be on US geography but it provoked an angels on a head of pin mental dialogue. As noted above the forts are in the Thames Estuary

At what point does the English Channel become the North Sea?

Clearly its the English Channel all along the English southern coast between England and France's NW coast to the Belgian border. Then heading north around the corner of Kent and through the Straits of Dover bringing us round the Kent coast looking out to France / Belgium to the Thames.

Coming down from the north clearly its the North Sea coast for Northumbria, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire all the way down to the Wash. I think that the Anglia coast (for non residents if the UK is a fat bloke sitting sitting down Anglia is the fat ass on the east coast) is regarded as facing the North Sea but does that apply down the Essex part of the coast to the Thames?

I know Del is an Essex boy so perhaps there is our expert?

I'm in Essex now but I was born as far from the coast as you can get, and spent my formative years near Portsmouth (Great place for historical stuff).

Del

Does this help:-

http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/englishchannel.htm

I would say that the map to which you linked is definitely wrong. It stops the English Channel at Dover and excludes the east coast of Kent including Sandwich and Deal - Sandwich is one of the Cinque Ports which were cross channel trading ports in medieaval times but I have seen the Isle of Thanet (on the NE corner of Kent) described as jutting into the North Sea so there is scope for the boundary being along the Kent coast

There is logic in that the map you linked stops the Channel at the Straits of Dover which is the narrowest point for the Channel crossing

http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2011/aug/05/kent-coast-art-summer-holiday

It is I suspect a moveable feast

How about this from Wiki, which is basically the same as I posted before, but it also has the long and lat of all the set points, easy to plot on a map for you if needed:-

The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the English Channel as follows:^[3]

On the West. A line joining Isle Vierge (48°38′23″N 4°34′13″W) to Lands End (50°04′N 5°43′W).
On the East. The Southwestern limit of the North Sea.

The IHO defines the southwestern limit of the North Sea as "a line joining the Walde Lighthouse (France, 1°55'E) and Leathercoat Point (England, 51°10'N)".^[3] The Walde Lighthouse is 6 km east of Calais (50°59′06″N 1°55′00″E), and Leathercoat Point is at the north end of St Margaret's Bay, Kent (51°10′00″N 1°24′00″E).

Found here:-

Limits of the English Channel

St Margarets Bay is about 6 miles NE along the coast from Dover......OK? The rest you can plot yourself I feel...

The places you mentioned are NOT on the coast of the English channel, they are on the North Sea Coast!!! Just as I thought!

I guess thats probably going to be definitive but I suspect the IHO is a French plot (joke )

Re-reading my previous post it suddenly looked far more hostile than I intended. I am not a sailor or a map maker but I have lived in that part of the SE UK most of my life and the limit of the English Channel felt spiritually wrong without anything to back it up. So I would like to apologise if you felt I was overly aggressive in my response.

Naturally I have now felt the need to see if there is any justification for my thoughts and have found a Wiki reference to the Battle of Sandwich off shore Sandwich which is described as being to control the English Channel and a google books listing of The Practical Navigator of 1839 lists Sandwich as being on the coast of the English Channel

https://books.google.co.kr/books?id=JS1FAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA389&lpg=PA389&dq=sandwich+english+channel&source=bl&ots=UDTcontULi&sig=_L_fZl59jJXh_65TgByShfIPz8A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDgQ6AEwB2oVChMIo8G-9q_yxgIVBOemCh36jAyS#v=onepage&q=sandwich%20english%20channel&f=false

I only found these by googling Sandwich English Channel which obviously is a leading question.

When I looked up the Cinque Ports it seems a bit hit and miss on whether they describe them as being on the English Channel. Probably most articles 60% or so just describe them as coastal the others as being Channel ports but that might reflect that the other four (Hastings, Hythe, New Romney and Dover) are definitely on the Channel and is probably why I feel they are all Channel Ports.

Thanks for digging up this info

I suspect the IHO probably had a lot of these issues to resolve where sections of water change name and I can imagine a heated debate over the limits of the various seas with many people just ignoring the international body.

I may now have to go and look and see how they define the boundary between the North Sea and the Atlantic up around the northern tip of Scotland and the Islands

No problem, I can be hostile occasionally too!!

You get used to it either way on CR4!

I am of the belief that many make statements, particularly authors, without checking up on their accuracy. This is nothing new....

Also, there was never a requirement for a Cinque Port to be on the channel, it just had to be relatively close to Europe!! So one is not on the Channel.....big deal!

I did not look up "when" the IHO decided the southern point of the north Sea, something for you to do!! But I would guess the decision is quite old!!

Here is your answer for the north Sea, look further down:-

North_Sea

Have a good day.....and learn how to activate links!!

Whatever the present definitions, there's a case to be made for geological definition. The land bridge between Blighty and Europe has come and gone several times, but here must have been some place which was the last from which a person could walk to/from mainland Europe. There's a nice article here, though it doesn't give an exact answer. If my reading of it is correct, the last place for a foot crossing was Doggerland, placing the limits of tha Channel in East Anglia (!).

I'd suspect that different organizations (Coastguard, European Parliament, me, etc etc) have their own definitioins of the boundary. It's unclear what the Prince of Sealand thinks on the topic.

Doggerland... tee hee

Del

Yeah, and it's just off Essex .

The IHO was formally inaugurated in 1921 (per wiki) pursuant to international conferences of 1889, 1908, 1912 (wiki).

http://gsdemo194.giantsoft.co.kr/files%5C2008_14th/2008_10_english.pdf

Is quite interesting and comprehensive (I like the description of the southern North Sea in a 1611 map as British Sea) and its references to IHO are based on a 1953 document. This appears to be the 3rd Edition of the 'Limits of Oceans and Seas' - 1st Ed 1928, 2nd Ed 1937

Images available for the world maps for both 1st & 2nd Edition showing the same definition for the North Sea (the scale is too small to see the Channel)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Limit_of_Oceans_and_Seas_-_1st_Edition_-_1928.jpg

More recent documents subdivide the Channel with The Straits of Dover (Pas de Calais) getting a separate mention as the eastern end of the Channel.

So this begs the question

Is a decision made in 1928 old?

Hopefully the links work

Russian imperial walkers to invade Ukraine by way of the Black Sea.

A jumping off point for Sutch's album Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends?

I was actually shooting in one of Palmerston's Follies at the weekend!

Del

Thanks for sharing.

Nice "accident" with the curved bow......