Ipswich Waterfront Blog – A Day to day insight into the Ipswich Waterfront
Aleret, if you remember, is the Trinity House Rapid Response vessel. It’s job is to get to any sea borne incident as fast as possible and make sure that the area is marked using buoys for safety.
Here she is coming through the lock.
I got a nice shot of her against the glare of the commercial port.
Then, I always like reflections, when I can get them.
We had a walk along to the Uni Building for a coffee but every one of the cafés were closed. We didn’t get as far as Isaac’s though. Never mind, it was a bracing walk. As you can see, it was somewhat calm and dismal.
Along the way, I checked out the fencing on the undeveloped land next to Anchor Street. Some of this fell down in the previous high winds but the second photo shows some new destruction.
We thought that this was it for the year but last night it all started up again. very high winds whistling around the apartment block and drawing the bedroom window to a close. Not only that but I awoke during the night to the sound of doors tapping. The front door to the apartment was tapping slightly but, interestingly, the bathroom door and the airing cupboard door were both open so the breeze was getting into the block somehow. We are driving to Stratford-upon-Avon on Saturday so we hope that the winds have abated by then!
It appears that we are heading for close to historic lows for barometric pressure here in the UK. The historic absolute low was 925.6 millibars. Here is an interesting discussion about air pressure in the UK.
http://www.markvoganweather.com/2013/12/20/930mb-low-impact-uk-compare-history-snow-xmas-day/
They say (as quoted in Jurassic Park) that when a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon a storm happens somewhere else. Well, we saw that effect yesterday – except it wasn’t so much a butterfly.
Yesterday, it was -34C in Winnipeg (-29F in old money). According to last night’s weather report, the result of this very cold weather in Canada resulted in a very high speed jet stream across the Atlantic – reputedly 200mph at 30,000ft. The result of this on this little island of ours was winds from the south and west at around 60 – 80mph at sea level. We were unable to open our bedroom window, as is our wont, because the wind was howling past. Because of the aerofoil effect of the wind passing close to the walls of the apartment block and the resulting negative pressure,, the window slams shut.
The noise was extremely loud and there were miscellaneous crashing noises. I haven’t gone to look but some of the fence on the University land down the Wet Dock fell down last time and I am presuming that some more has gone.
We were very glad that we weren’t in a boat in the dock as the water was quite rough, even thought is protected by the lock gates.
Our daughter, Debbie, had a nice comfortable 1st Class seat booked on a train from Liverpool Street out to Ipswich this morning. Unfortunately, they cancelled the train and she is now waiting for another one – sometime – to bring her up here for Christmas. Check out this report in today’s Evening Standard. 70mph Storms hit transport across the UK
After having high winds and rain for the last 36 hours, this afternoon turned out very nice. Here is a shot from the hobby room window (on the Patteson Road side of the block).
Her Majesty’s Cutter Vigilant is one of the Border Agency cutters that patrol the seas around the UK. They swap crews every 2 weeks so they often come into the wet dock. They dispose of their “gash”, load up with supplies and change crews (I presume).
I love multiple negatives in a sentance. This one seems to have three so who knows what it means – smile.
Anyway, we were expecting Suntis to go out with the high tide between 12 and 1.30 last night but it was still there this morning. It looks as though they couldn’t close one of the hatches.
I have just noticed that the hatch is now closed so they have fixed the problem. The next high tide is at 13.05 today so Iam expecting it to go pretty soon.
Having lost all of yesterday, they are using two cranes to unload Suntis today. This picture was taken with my iPhone against the sun so it is a nice silhouette .
Around lunchtime, Suntis started dumping its ballast. Perhaps someone can explain why this happens when they are unloading? My thought is that they would take on water when empty to achieve an ideal sailing weight. However, Suntis always dumps water whilst she is unloading, thus reducing weight! Explanation?
Suntis is now sprouting lights and a Christmas tree.
