Launched recently is this curious looking craft operated by the Faversham Creek Navigation Company, CIC.
Designed and built by Eric Green, it is hoped that it will help assist in the battle, constantly fought for hundreds of years, to prevent the creek from becoming unnavigable due to silt building up as it is carried up the waterway on every rising tide.
Using a process called agitation dredging, water is pumped at very high pressure through a line of nozzles located in an adjustable horizontal boom directly into the silt. This causes the mud to become suspended in the water enabling it to be carried back down to the Swale on the falling tide.
The not-for-profit company has a licence to undertake maintenance dredging in Faversham Creek, and intends to provide an economic solution to maintaining the navigability of the upper reaches of the creek.
DRY DOCKING-NEAR DISASTER
Recently on Standard Quay an attempt was made to put a boat called the Maxwell into the little-used dry dock. Overestimation of the potential height of the tide and underestimation of the draft of the vessel meant it only managed to get halfway in.
Apparently, the wharf owner was heard to say: “One second we had lots of water and then it mysteriously disappeared – does the creek leak?”
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