Dorset, England

North shore slipway, Poole

Launch — A concrete slipway of shallow gradient.

Parking — Two pay-and-display council car parks, Harbourside 1 and Harbourside 2, sit immediately next to the slipway; an annual season ticket covers boat launching from Harbourside 1.

Access — Reached off Catalina Drive and Labrador Drive at Harbourside Park; the car park is locked overnight, from midnight. There is no way to pre-book a space, and spaces fill at busy times.

Season — A seasonal refreshment kiosk operates near the slipway car park. Poole Harbour Commissioners publish Local Notices to Mariners for any closures or works affecting the harbour.

Regulations — Poole Harbour Commissioners set a 10 knot harbour speed limit (6 knots in the Little Channel, between the Quays and in Holes Bay) and prohibit paddleboarding in the harbour entrance and main shipping channels. A charge applies through the Harbourside 1 car park, which also covers daily harbour dues for boat launching, and an annual season ticket is available.

This slipway sits within Harbourside Park (Baiter Recreation Ground) on Poole Harbour's northern shore, in Parkstone Bay, between Parkstone and Poole town centre.

Poole Harbour is one of the largest natural harbours in the world, a shallow drowned river valley formed at the end of the last ice age, covering around 36 square kilometres with an average depth of under half a metre. It is the estuary for several rivers, the largest being the Frome, and Parkstone Bay is a broad, largely drying embayment on its northern shore, separated from the deep-water shipping channels by extensive shoals.

The whole harbour is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, Special Protection Area and Ramsar site, protecting internationally important numbers of overwintering wildfowl and waders along with saltmarsh and eelgrass beds. Further into the harbour this brings specific restrictions a paddler heading out from Baiter will meet: no landing along Brownsea Island's north shore, and no landing around Arne between October and March.

Nearby

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The Cafe in the Park

Waterside cafe in Hamworthy Park, on the harbour's western shore.

Website

Rockley Park

Holiday park mostly given over to static caravan homes, with a smaller number of touring and camping pitches; a paying, book-ahead site around 2.5 miles from the launch by direct line across the harbour, further by road.

Website

Conditions to check

Tidal flow

Poole Harbour has a tidal range of around 1.5 metres at springs and 0.4 metres at neaps, with a prolonged stand at high water on neap tides and a double high water on spring tides.

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Shallow or rocky

The foreshore around the slipway is mapped as tidal mudflat, exposed at low water.

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Boat traffic

Parkstone Bay Marina, on the bay's shore at Turks Lane, offers pontoon and floating-dock berths and swinging moorings.

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Boat traffic

Salterns Marina works the harbour's adjoining North Channel, with 275 berths including 75 swinging moorings.

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