Royal Harbour Marina slipway (Ramsgate)
Ramsgate Royal Harbour is the only harbour in the UK to carry the title ‘Royal’, granted by King George IV in 1821, and was named a Heritage Harbour in July 2024. It sits on the Thanet coast between the North and South Forelands, with berths across an inner basin, the East Marina and a locked inner harbour used by larger vessels.
The harbour is enclosed by stone piers begun in the 18th century: the East Pier, started in 1749, and the West Pier, started in 1752, with inner basin walls of coursed Purbeck stone built between about 1750 and 1790 and capped with granite coping added in 1892. No.1 (Patent) Slipway, immediately west of the East Pier, was built in 1838 to Thomas Morton's patent design, was converted to electric drive in 1914, and remains in use at the eastern edge of the inner basin.
High water at Ramsgate follows Dover by about 20 minutes. The mean spring tidal range is around 4.6 metres and the mean neap range around 2.6 metres, with mean high water springs of 4.9 metres and mean low water springs of 0.4 metres.
The harbour lies alongside the Thanet Coast and Sandwich Bay Site of Special Scientific Interest, Special Protection Area, Special Area of Conservation and Ramsar site, together forming the North East Kent Marine Protected Area. The adjoining Sandwich and Pegwell Bay National Nature Reserve holds Kent's largest population of seals, and the wider Ramsar site supports internationally important numbers of wintering turnstone alongside ringed plover, golden plover, grey plover and sanderling.
Nearby
A year-round touring park about a mile inland from the harbour, taking tents, motorhomes and caravans; a fee applies.
WebsiteConditions to check
The tide sets across the harbour entrance, roughly north-east to south-west, at up to 2 knots.
SourceA dredged east-west approach channel, with a least depth of 7.5 metres, carries cross-Channel ferries, fast pilot boats and other commercial traffic.
SourceOffshore windfarm service traffic works out of the East Marina and is given priority over leisure traffic.
SourceThe East Bank, on the east side of the harbour entrance, dries and is marked by a buoy.
SourceThe low-lying rock outer breakwaters can be difficult to spot from the east, and the north-east-going tidal stream produces an eddy off the head of the South Breakwater that sets south-west.
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