THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 25 October 1940, Page 6

THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

AN ADDRESS TO ROTARY CLUB An address on the English Channel was given to the Rotary Club yesterday by Captain Darcy Maxwell, who spoke of the Channel as he knew it over 25 years ago. Speaking of his then position as Marine Superintendent of the London South Western Railway Company, Captain Maxwell said that he had been in charge of 15 to 20 ships, and in 1915-16 he had been stationed at Dover, when it had been his job to send over to France barges, etc., destined for the rivers and canals of that country. The tides in the Straits of Dover were very tricky and blended together with varying force with direction constantly changing, so that an anchored vessel’s head might turn to every point of the compare. After describing the various crossChannel routes the speaker referred to the variable spring rises in tide in the Channel, being 18ft at Dover, 17ft at Dunkirk, 21ft at Calais, 28ft at Dieppe, 16ft at Plymouth, 16ft at the Scilly Isles, 40ft at Jersey (Channel Islands) and 40ft at St. Malo. Comparing these big rises and falls with the 14ft at Nelson it could be seen that he had had considerable difficulty in working in with the tidal movements. The speaker compared the tidal ranges he had mentioned with the rise in the Bay of Fundy of 50ft, the Straits of Magellan 42ft, and the Channel Islands of 42ft, these being the greatest he had come across.

A reference was made to Southampton with its two entrances at the Isle of Wight, and the effect of the tide there. The flood coming up the Channel swept in from the Solent and pushed up Southampton Water and caused the first high water, say at noon. The ebb tide from Dover equally pushed through from Spithead and the ebb tide was forced back causing a second high water at Southampton. Thus till four o’clock in the afternoon there was quiet calm water, and this was an important factor for the port as it enabled shipping to come in and out practically at any stage of the tide. The Germans were said to possess barges 150 feet long and self-propelling, continued Captain Maxwell. He could not remember anything as large as that in the fleet that he was in charge of, the largest being 120 feet, and these were not self-propelled, but towed. They had done some extraordinary things with these barges, such as placing three of 30ft length inside one of 120 ft, and this got across safely. Captain Maxwell said that his recollection of statistics proved that strangely enough some of the winter months proved to have more favourable days for the transport of these vessels across to France that during the summer months. In summer there were nearly always sea breezes which caused a jobble in the Straits of Dover. In winter in between the storms there were periods of fiat calm, and thus statistics had shown that it was more favourable to send craft over in winter that summer; though of course as far as they could they had endeavoured to keep the stream of traffic constant.

The salient points of the Channel remained to-day as when he first knew them as a boy over 50 years ago when he had first sailed down the Channel taking a week to go 300 miles. It was then as now named the English Channel and he was certain it always would be.