It basically comes down to 4 things, some of which are more obvious than others…

SAFETY

PRACTICALITIES

COST

LIABILITY

SAFETY & PRACTICALITIES – The River Ribble is a not an easy stretch of water to use and enjoy safely. The local tidal range is large and the river here is only navigable for around 2-3 hours at high tide (when the weather is suitable), and so that means usually only once per day in daylight (sometimes twice in the summer months).

This means all launching, boating and recovery activity would be confined to that 2-3 hour window, in a narrow and shallow river channel….it would be very potentially unsafe – and it would often be chaos! 

But….it would be even worse if people tried to use the river outside the high tide window (intentionally, or unintentionally). Outside of those safe hours the tide runs too fast for safe navigation in small craft, and very soon becomes too shallow and dry….it really would be dangerous.

So…this means a slipway has only very limited times when it could be safely used…..when the weather and light is good and the tide is high….only a few hours on relatively few days of the year.

Mud – Another consideration is the mud and silt – the stretch of the Ribble we are on is very muddy – and all that mud washes in and out twice a day, every day, at high speed – and a slipway would soon become covered in inches of that mud unless it was washed off constantly – who does that and how do they get paid to do it?

Approval – a lot of organisations would need to give their approval….such as Preston City Council, South Ribble Council, the Environment Agency, the Coastguard, the RNLI….and on the grounds of safety as described above it is unlikely they would all agree to it.

What about a slipway in the dock? – A slipway in Preston Dock would not have all of the same implications as one in the river….but it is still unlikely to happen.

In the early days of Preston Marina we did try to see if it was a suitable venue for small craft…we tried ski boats, Personal Water Craft (PWC aka jet skis), windsurfers, dinghies etc….but there are problems with all of them.

The solid vertical concrete dock walls mean that the wakes of high speed craft bounce off the walls and within a few short minutes of high speed activity the water becomes too rough with backwash and unusable…and this would also create a damaging (and unpleasant) environment for the boats tied up to the marina pontoons…and the pontoons themselves. Various methods of baffling and reducing backwash have been considered and experimented with over the years, but nothing so far has proven sufficiently effective or cost-effective.

Also…high speed craft do divide opinion….and many years ago a PWC (jet ski) display team did a display in the dock for an event and there were complaints about noise…and water spray. They were not popular!

Water quality…

Preston City Council, who are responsible for the water in the dock, correctly say that the water quality in the dock is currently not suitable for potential water contact sports like sailing dinghies, kayaks, paddle-boards etc. mainly due to the presence of algae.

The subject of water-quality is a big one, and indeed a national / international issue at many water locations.

We are not experts or marine biologists able to give a comprehensive explanation of the causes of the water quality issues and the solutions – but, in our non-expert view, as long as 15 miles worth of river mud and silt, full of the nutrients the algae feeds on (perhaps from run-off from the agricultural fields along the riverbanks) gets flushed into the still waters of the dock every 2 weeks on spring tides – necessary to keep the dock full of water – the the algae will continue to grow here.

We can’t say this for certain as no-one seems to be sure about how to solve the algae issues here. Many methods have been suggested and some have been tried – but it could be that the city of Preston has a choice…..cleaner water in the dock but permanently cut off from the river and the sea….or we continue Preston’s historic connection to the sea and live with the occasional algae and make the most of it like we have done here since we opened in 1990….but if that is correct then it would be Preston’s choice to make.

Like we say, however, we are not experts, and maybe someone one day will come up with a guaranteed solution to the water quality issues, and that would be wonderful…but in the meantime the dock is regularly used now for RYA powerboat training courses, the Preston Dragons dragon boat club and keelboat sailing.

COST – Building a slipway would be expensive…and given the safety and practical problems identified above we can’t see anyone rushing to make the large investment required to build one, maintain one and operate one. But even if they did…how would that money get returned? Research shows us that many/most people would begrudge paying much or indeed anything to use a slipway.

LIABILITY – And who would be at fault if something went wrong? Slipways make it possible to launch and recover small craft…but, as explained above, the Ribble and the dock are dangerous and/or unsuitable for most small craft for most of the time. So, being responsible for something that is likely to lose money, cause problems and create safety concerns it not an attractive proposition for anyone.

So….because of all of the above…slipways in the river or the dock are very unlikely.

NOTE – All of the above is written purely from the perspective of Preston Marina’s operators Preston Marine Services Ltd. and does not necessarily reflect the views of any other organisations or individuals – and we are not experts outside our field of operating the moorings in Preston dock.