Waterside Park put-in (Southampton)

Southampton Water is a ria, a drowned river valley reaching down from the meeting of the Rivers Test and Itchen at Southampton to the Solent. It has a double high water: after an initial flood stand of around two hours the level holds near its peak for about five hours in total, before a shorter, faster ebb of roughly three and a half hours. Off Weston Shore the foreshore dries out to open mudflat at low water, so any trip that starts from this slipway is bounded by how far the tide has dropped and how long is left before it turns.

The estuary carries heavy commercial traffic in and out of the Port of Southampton, over 18,000 vessel movements in 2025 including cruise ships, container vessels and tankers typically making 10 to 15 knots, alongside dinghy fleets sailing off Weston from Weston Sailing Club and the clubs at Netley. The foreshore here lies within the Lee-on-The Solent to Itchen Estuary Site of Special Scientific Interest and the wider Solent and Southampton Water Special Protection Area and Ramsar site: its intertidal mudflats are an internationally important feeding ground for wintering waders and wildfowl, among them dark-bellied brent goose, dunlin and black-tailed godwit.

The beach below the slipway still keeps its 1930s Art Deco promenade shelters, and is Southampton's only remaining natural shoreline. The long, gentle high water here makes it a well-known local spot for watching the estuary's double high tide from dry land.