These are dumb barges or lighters and not be confused with sailing barges, although they are included in the barge section for convenience. Eleven of them, probably of the same type as the Breakwater Barges in Walton Backwaters run southeast to northwest. Filled with mud from Bradwell Marina, they were towed out and positioned around 1984 to protect Sales Point from north-easterlies.
Measuring the length from Google Earth, the barges are 26.2m long. As with the breakwater at Horsey Island in the Backwaters, these are fairly inaccessible from land or sea. From photographs they appear to be metal and not concrete as at first suspected.
Nearby is the site of the Roman Saxon Shore Fort of Othona, related to Walton Castle in Felixstowe.
Notes
Thanks to Richard Lewis (https://thecretefleet.com/) for the following information.
I helped fill them with mud dug from Bradwell Marina, we towed them into position with the decks awash, they were anchored until aground and then had holes cut in the sides to sink them, …
Ian Cundy
In 1984 at Marsh House, on the Dengie peninsula, Essex, sixteen old Thames lighters (barges) filled with silt were towed and sunk in a position seaward of the eroding saltings (Leggett and Dixon, 1994). The barges were positioned some 600m offshore and sunk parallel to the shoreline leaving a gap of 10m between each barge. The silt in each barge was covered with gravel to prevent wash-out (and to provide an area for migrating terns to nest). In 1986/87 two rows of stakes with a fine plastic mesh geotextile cladding were driven in at right angles to the coast to meet the lighters at either side and to enclose the area landward of the lighters (HR Ltd, 1987; Packham and Willis, 1997). Note that this conficts with the actual eleven lighters in position.
Dr Simon Bray, ‘Site Analysis for Potential Beneficial Dredge Spoil Use for Restoration and Recharge of Intertidal Soft Sediment Resources within the Solent’, 2009
Footnotes
Image Credits and Sources
- 1024px-Breakwater_barges_Sales_Point_Bradwell-on-Sea: Rwendland, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Breakwater-at-Sales-Point-from-Google-Earth-1: Breakwater at Bradwell, Sales Point from Google Earth