<https://bfenthusiasts.com/bfe/topic/11516-seaborne-freight-to-reopen-ramsgateostende/#comment-177171>
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"You miss my point HT.  I am talking about the intricacies of navigatng around and across sandbanks along the passage, not just piloting in and out of port at each end.  Once out of port confines, the open sea sections of Dover-Calais and Newhaven-Dieppe are entirely free of hazards (apart from other shipping).  There are no other routes for which the offshore underwater topography is as challenging for such a large proportion of the length of the passage as the Southern North Sea off the Belgian coast, and Ramsgate particularly is in completely the \"wrong\" place for a logical route across these hazards from Ostend.  The passage between Ostend and Ramsgate involves numerous course changes to get through little gaps in the offshore banks that are for the most part unmarked by buoys all the way between the outer approaces to Ostend and the northern end of the Sandettie TSS.  The Ramsgate end is a little easier but does involve crossing a long very shallow underwater ridge (called the Drill Stone) at the right point (again unmarked) on the direct route.  The crossing point, which is the deepest part along the ridge, charts at less than 6 metres - the TEF ships used to avoid crossing it at low water and take a longer route around its northern end.\n \n\n\n\tIf you don't know what I am talking about (which in making a comparison with Newhaven and Calais I am assuming you don't) just have a little google of southern North Sea or Ostend charts and you'll see what I mean.\n \n\n\n\tIn essence, the Ramsgate - Ostend passage (at least, the route that enables a 4 hour crossing time that used to be taken by TEF) is really not set up for use as a regular sea passage.  In all of the extensive buoying of the Southern North Sea, the authorities just are not expecting ships to be making passage in the areas that this route involved.  In the days of GPS it is manageable, but it's fiddly (and I wouldn't want to be in the unmarked areas around and between these sandbanks between West Hinder and the Belgian coast without GPS - the area is not known as the Graveyard of the Spanish Armada for nothing!).  The safer, deeper, and properly buoyed route (the one that Pride of Calais used to take) would make the passage time even longer for ships that cannot average 22 knots on passage.  Probably 4 and a half or 5 hours.\n "
<https://bfenthusiasts.com/bfe/topic/11516-seaborne-freight-to-reopen-ramsgateostende/>