The Bramble Bank, otherwise known simply as "The Brambles" is an arrowhead-shaped

sandbar In oceanography, geomorphology, and Earth science, geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank (geography), bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body o ...

in the central

Solent The Solent ( ) is a strait between the Isle of Wight and Great Britain. It is about long and varies in width between , although the Hurst Spit which projects into the Solent narrows the sea crossing between Hurst Castle and Colwell Bay to ...

which is uncovered at low water spring tides. At other times it presents either a significant navigational hazard or a useful escape from the strong Solent tides. The bank is moving very slowly westward, but is roughly equidistant between the entrance to

Southampton Water Southampton Water is a tidal estuary north of the Solent and the Isle of Wight in England. The city of Southampton lies at its most northerly point, where the estuaries of the River Test and River Itchen meet. Along its salt marsh-fringed wes ...

in the north and the mouth of the

River Medina The River Medina is the main river of the Isle of Wight, England, rising at St Catherine's Down near Chale, and flowing northwards through the county town Newport, towards the Solent at Cowes. The river is a navigable tidal estuary from Newpor ...

in the south. It is marked at its southeastern limit by the Brambles post

sea mark A sea mark, also seamark and navigation mark, is a form of aid to navigation and pilotage that identifies the approximate position of a maritime channel, hazard, or administrative area to allow boats, ships, and seaplanes to navigate safely. Th ...

and on its western limit by the West Knoll

buoy A buoy () is a floating device that can have many purposes. It can be anchored (stationary) or allowed to drift with ocean currents. Types Navigational buoys * Race course marker buoys are used for buoy racing, the most prevalent form of yac ...

. The Brambles post has comprehensive weather and

sea state In oceanography, sea state is the general condition of the free surface on a large body of water—with respect to wind waves and swell—at a certain location and moment. A sea state is characterized by statistics, including the wave height, p ...

monitoring equipment which is relayed in realtime to a website. The sandbar is known for the annual

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

match held there, when the Royal Southern Yacht Club (RSrnYC) play the

Island Sailing Club An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

Cricket match

Each year, the Royal Southern Yacht Club (RSrnYC) and the

meet on the sandbar for a game of cricket. The match takes place when the bank is exposed but never lasts very long before the tide returns. The undulating surface with large puddles ensures it is more a social occasion than a serious cricket match, and the scoring reflects this - the victor of the game is pre-determined, and the two clubs simply take it in turns to "win" the match, regardless of play. The first match is said to have been played in the 1950s at the behest of pioneering British boatmaker

Uffa Fox Uffa Fox, CBE (15 January 1898 – 26 October 1972) was an English boat designer and sailing enthusiast, responsible for a number of innovations in boat design. Not afraid of courting controversy or causing offense, he is remembered for his ec ...

. The Brambles cricket match has been described as "

quintessentially English The culture of England is defined by the cultural norms of England and the English people. Owing to England's influential position within the United Kingdom it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate English culture from the culture of the U ...

" and has even drawn the attention of a

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

Standing Committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...

, when it was mentioned as a light-hearted example of an event which falls geographically between the boundaries of two different licensing authorities.

Accidents

On Tuesday 11 November 2008, on approaching

Southampton Docks The Port of Southampton is a passenger and cargo port in the central part of the south coast of England. The modern era in the history of the Port of Southampton began when the first dock was inaugurated in 1843. The port has been owned and op ...

for her last visit prior to retirement, the Cunard liner

Queen Elizabeth 2 ''Queen Elizabeth 2'' (''QE2'') is a retired British ocean liner converted into a floating hotel. Originally built for the Cunard Line, the ship, named as the second ship named ''Queen Elizabeth'', was operated by Cunard as both a transatlantic ...

ran aground on the Bramble Bank at approximately 0530 hrs. She required four tugs to pull her clear on the rising tide and arrived in Southampton approximately 90 minutes late. On 3 January 2015 the car transporter was beached on the bank after developing a list. A 200-metre maritime

exclusion zone An exclusion zone is a territorial division established for various, case-specific purposes. Per the United States Department of Defense, an exclusion zone is a territory where an authority prohibits specific activities in a specific geographic ...

was put into in place around the ship until the salvage operation took place, and airspace below 2,000 ft was also closed to aircraft within . She was refloated on the rising tide on 7 January 2015, and was towed 2 miles east of the bank and moored between

East Cowes East Cowes is a town and civil parish in the north of the Isle of Wight, on the east bank of the River Medina, next to its west bank neighbour Cowes. The two towns are connected by the Cowes Floating Bridge, a chain ferry operated by the Isle ...

and Lee on the Solent to await further salvage operations. Shortly before 10pm on 13 February 2016 the container ship ''APL Vanda'' ran aground on the bank. Several tugs and crew from

Calshot lifeboat station Calshot Lifeboat Station is located on Calshot Spit near the village of Calshot, Hampshire,OS Explorer Map, New Forest, Author: Ordnance Survey. Publisher: Ordnance Survey B4 edition (2013). and is on the southern bank of the open end of South ...

attended and, within a couple of hours, the ship was refloated on the rising tide.

In popular culture

Bramble Bank is shown and labelled on maps of the Solent in Ship Simulator 2008 and

Ship Simulator Extremes ''Ship Simulator'' is a ship simulator, a type of vehicle simulation game, vehicle simulation computer game which simulates maneuvering various ships in different environments, although without the effects of wind and current. It was developed by ...

, but doesn't pose any threat to the player due to an absence of low tide in those games.

References

External links

BRAMBLEMET
- Weather Reports from Bramble Bank

{{coord, 50, 47, 41, N, 1, 17, 15, W, type:waterbody_region:GB, display=title The Solent Sandbanks of England