Buncrana Breakwater

crisco10

What ever happened to this I thought they were going to start building around now?

Bligh

Think this is buried in red tape and politics all ****e really, cause at the end of the day the break water is needed to keep the Lifeboat berth from drying out. At Low water on spring tides the Lifeboat could be high and dry when needed, this in effect is puting lives at risk, but as usual in this country someone will have to lose a life before it's realised how important the breakwater is or the other alternative is that Lough Swilly may lose the lifeboat as the RNLI have suggested this in the past. no point having a boat if it can't be used.

What exactly is the Buncrana breakwater, a pier of some sort?

jonnygee

It,s the current established buncrana pier that needs a breakwater to allow the lifeboat to launch all year round, I think!. The pier silts up or something which means the lifeboat has to use a different launch point further out of town. Im open to correction on this,(as usual).

muffler

Something along those lines and i dont really know either (for sure). It has to do with the continual build up of silt with the daily tides that prevents the lifeboat being moored at the pier. I think the idea is to construct some form of a barrier that will prevent the silt from accumulating.

Again Im open to correction on that.

Bligh

Hi Guys

The Breakwater is a large barrier made of large rocks or x shaped concrete that will surround the existing pier. The entrance to the harbour would be through a narrow opening something like the marina entrance.

The reason this is required is to prevent the tide washing large amounts of sand into the harbour and silting up the areas along side the pier as this shallows the area at low tides (particularly spring tides) with the result that the lifeboat ends up aground and unable to launch. There was money allocated for the construction of the breakwater, but for some reason this money was not drawn down and work not started. From what I understand this was because of interdepartmental wrangling.

This link will provide an idea of xbloc breakwater construction some photos if you scroll down the page

http://www.xbloc.com/projects/breakwater-port-oriel-ireland

Hope this helps to explain what a breakwater is.

muffler

Cheers Bligh. That explains it nicely.

muffler

muffler wrote: »

Cheers Bligh. That explains it nicely.

+1 Cheers Bligh!