New Ross & the River Barrow

Tidal Planning:
Navigation to New Ross must take account of the tides

...... which increase as you travel up river from abeam Creadan Head (to the North of Dunmore East) where they run at 1 to 1.5kts as far as the narrows where they increase at Ballyhack and can run at up to 3 or 4 kts on the ebb after heavy rain.If you are marginal on mast clearance you will also have to take account of the air draft at the Barrow Bridge at the mouth of the Barrow. The Air Draft at the bridge is given as 7.1m (ie above MHWS); if you check the tides for Kilmokea Point adjacent to the bridge you can see that there is a range of nearly 3 meters at neaps so, if you get your timing right; you can sneak under there at LW and take the flood up to New Ross but you would need to be coming down from Waterford (as opposed to up from Ballyhack) to achieve this!

Approach:

The passage up the Suir Estuary to Cheek Point is dealt with in our notes for Waterford and the Suir Estuary. The best time to set off up the Barrow River is at LW but if you are going to need the bridge swung it no longer becomes a factor in your calculations and you only need to allow a couple of hours flood for the trip.

Obviously the third and fourth hour of the flood will be the fastest passage and still allow some flood should you end up on the mud! That may seem to be a pessimistic approach but if you examine the chart, although it is well buoyed, there are places where you need to dogleg between marks to find the deepest water and there is not a lot of room for error, especially if you meet something coming the other way.

New Ross shares VHF 14 with Waterford and you would be wise to let them know that you are on your way up, if only to find out whether they have something coming down!! If you need to have the Barrow Railway Bridge swung you should give them a ring a good couple of hours before your ETA; they are not on radio so even if you have been given a time you may have a hiatus until they notice you are there!

After that it is "just" a matter of following the buoyage but be aware that it takes you too and fro from one bank to another and is, in places, alarmingly close to the bank. A good example of this is at Pink Point where the SHM to the North of it looks as though they've made a mistake and laid a green buoy instead of a red one, it is so close to the headland itself! There are also a series of Yellow markers which are not channel markers but indicate the shallows outside the channel. All good fun!!

The Marina is on the starboard hand as you approach New Ross and is not on radio so you will either have to tie up and go ashore or contact him on the phone on the way up.