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Doesn't the It's man from Monty Python's Flying Circus stagger out of Poole Harbour at the start of the first episode - and if so, is it worth mentioning here?
I also live in Poole, so there may be some bias, however my understanding was that Poole was the largest natural harbour, there is no doubt that Sydney is the largest harbour, but I was lead to believe that it had been extended by man, therefore preventing it from being the largest natural harbour.
In summary, Poole is the largest natural harbour, Sydney the biggest in the world, and most of the other claims to "largness" are false, as they are most likely bays or "sounds" (which have more than one opening to the sea) thus rendering them unable to "harbour" ships.
I should also explain that my judgements are based on my studies, and as a Marine Environmental Scientist, and have had to involve myself in many discussions about harbours and definitions there of, etc so my opinion is based on the facts that are available to me, and other wishing to cite their view on this topic.
Surely the point with SF Bay is that it is a Bay and not a harbour...or is that too obvious? And my experience is that Poole has never been considered the largest in living memory, but rather the second largest after Sydney, a point contended by Cork and Halifax. Ultimately the issue is how we measure the size (surface area, water volume etc), and what constitutes a harbour as opposed to a bay or estuary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.8.155 ( talk) 22:08, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Lamlash harbour on the Isle of Arran has two openings to the Firth of Clyde and has long been used as a harbour, including by Royal Naval vessels during WWII
Poole Harbour is often locally said to be the largest natural harbour in the world, a claim I've never seen actually justified and seriously doubt. This article contains a modified version, stating it to be the second biggest after Sydney. Actually Sydney Harbour isn't that big, and having been to both I'm a bit surprised it is the bigger. But there are surely many much bigger natural harbours than either of these; Port Phillip, Darwin, Hong Kong and San Francisco Bay all come immediately to mind. I think this claim needs to be either justified or dropped. -- Chris j wood 18:55, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Why does Poole Harbour redirect here? Shouldn't this page be the one that redirects to Poole Harbour? It seems somebody got it backwards... -- Idont Havaname 20:43, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I live in Poole so have grown up with the various claims. Just from looking at the tourist/promotional material of the places you mention, only Poole and Sydney make any claim on size - Sydney claiming to be the largest and Poole the second. Many years ago, Poole claimed to be roughly the same size as Sydney but dropped that after substantial land reclamation. The only people who still claim it are the boat cruise operators, jokingly. Falmouth, UK claims to be third - have been there and it's definitely much smaller. King George Sound, Australia says it's 'in the top 6' and Kingston, Jamaica says it's 7th. Halifax, Canada is the only one to have put up any argument, consistently claiming to beat the lot, but everyone else classifies it as an estuary, not a harbour. I suspect the same might apply to the others. It's like arguments over the 'biggest island'. For example I've never heard anyone say San Fransisco Bay is a harbour, it seems far too big and open to be able to 'harbour' or shelter shipping. I've never heard of any other 'disputes' or disagreements on these claims. Unfortunately I can't find any official statistics on actual surface areas etc. The most 'authoritative' mention of the Poole claim I could find is on the official website of the UNESCO world heritage site Jurassic Coast, which starts at the harbour entrance.
Poole is about 5-6 miles across in each direction, with an entrance of less than 500m and an enormous coastline, as it's very convuluted. There are two reasons a lot of people find it hard to believe the size claimed for Poole. First, you can't see anything like the whole harbour from any one point, as there are big islands and peninsulas in the way, and unseen bays leading off it. Most people who think they've 'seen' the harbour have only seen a small fraction of it. Secondly is that it's very shallow, so parts of it go to mudflats at low tide and not much of it is navigable by large ships, so it has a relatively small port. Unless someone can find some official list of harbour surface areas, I think the lack of opposition justifies the claim!-- Purple 01:16, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
It's often said that Poole Harbour is the second biggest natural harbour in the world after Sydney. It seems to be one of these things that somebody somewhere once said or wrote and has been taken as fact. I am not an expert on world harbours but if you want to do something simple to check for yourself then do this - Go to google maps and find Poole harbour. You'll see a scale bar and from this you can get a rough idea of the size of Poole harbour. Now go to Sydney and see the scale bar. Sydney does indeed seem to be larger than Poole. Now go to the harbour directly north of Sydney and you can see it is bigger than Sydney. Go to Melbourne harbour, it is much bigger than Sydney. Is Mebourne a bay or a harbour? Why isn't Poole harbour a bay? Go to Hobart - is it a harbour? It harbours vessels so it must be. It's considerably larger than Sydney. Now go across the Tasman sea to New Zealand and find Auckland. On the west coast, directly north of Auckland you will find Kaipara Harbour - it's big enough to swallow Sydney and Poole harbours several times over. Manukau harbour, directly south of Auckland, is bigger than Sydney. Wellington Harbour on the southern part of New Zealand's North Island is arguably as big as Sydney and bigger than Poole. Brazil - Rio de Janeiro harbour is bigger than Poole and Sydney. Is it a bay? When is a bay not a bay? It's no less harbour-like than Poole. Houston, U.S. - Trinity bay - is it a harbour? It's bigger than Sydney. San Francisco - much bigger. Do your own world tour and it soon becomes obvious that Sydney is a long way from being the world's biggest harbour.
The article was previously very definite that there were exactly eight islands in Poole Harbour. But my OS map shows 10 named islands (the eight listed in the article, plus Otter Island and Stone Island) and several unnaamed islands on the southern shore line. I think that to be as definitive as we were, we need to distinguish between islands, rocks, mudbanks, etc and I'm not sure such a test is easy to come by or indeed worth pursuing. Instead I've simply listed the Islands under 'including'. -- Chris j wood 15:07, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
In order to be classified as an island, there has to be some land showing above Highest Astronomical Tide, otherwise it's a sand- or mudbank (as far as I know there are no rocks in the harbour, but I don't have access to a chart at the moment). But is there a minimum size? -- TyroSailor ( talk) 21:38, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
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Doesn't the It's man from Monty Python's Flying Circus stagger out of Poole Harbour at the start of the first episode - and if so, is it worth mentioning here?
I also live in Poole, so there may be some bias, however my understanding was that Poole was the largest natural harbour, there is no doubt that Sydney is the largest harbour, but I was lead to believe that it had been extended by man, therefore preventing it from being the largest natural harbour.
In summary, Poole is the largest natural harbour, Sydney the biggest in the world, and most of the other claims to "largness" are false, as they are most likely bays or "sounds" (which have more than one opening to the sea) thus rendering them unable to "harbour" ships.
I should also explain that my judgements are based on my studies, and as a Marine Environmental Scientist, and have had to involve myself in many discussions about harbours and definitions there of, etc so my opinion is based on the facts that are available to me, and other wishing to cite their view on this topic.
Surely the point with SF Bay is that it is a Bay and not a harbour...or is that too obvious? And my experience is that Poole has never been considered the largest in living memory, but rather the second largest after Sydney, a point contended by Cork and Halifax. Ultimately the issue is how we measure the size (surface area, water volume etc), and what constitutes a harbour as opposed to a bay or estuary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.8.155 ( talk) 22:08, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Lamlash harbour on the Isle of Arran has two openings to the Firth of Clyde and has long been used as a harbour, including by Royal Naval vessels during WWII
Poole Harbour is often locally said to be the largest natural harbour in the world, a claim I've never seen actually justified and seriously doubt. This article contains a modified version, stating it to be the second biggest after Sydney. Actually Sydney Harbour isn't that big, and having been to both I'm a bit surprised it is the bigger. But there are surely many much bigger natural harbours than either of these; Port Phillip, Darwin, Hong Kong and San Francisco Bay all come immediately to mind. I think this claim needs to be either justified or dropped. -- Chris j wood 18:55, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Why does Poole Harbour redirect here? Shouldn't this page be the one that redirects to Poole Harbour? It seems somebody got it backwards... -- Idont Havaname 20:43, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I live in Poole so have grown up with the various claims. Just from looking at the tourist/promotional material of the places you mention, only Poole and Sydney make any claim on size - Sydney claiming to be the largest and Poole the second. Many years ago, Poole claimed to be roughly the same size as Sydney but dropped that after substantial land reclamation. The only people who still claim it are the boat cruise operators, jokingly. Falmouth, UK claims to be third - have been there and it's definitely much smaller. King George Sound, Australia says it's 'in the top 6' and Kingston, Jamaica says it's 7th. Halifax, Canada is the only one to have put up any argument, consistently claiming to beat the lot, but everyone else classifies it as an estuary, not a harbour. I suspect the same might apply to the others. It's like arguments over the 'biggest island'. For example I've never heard anyone say San Fransisco Bay is a harbour, it seems far too big and open to be able to 'harbour' or shelter shipping. I've never heard of any other 'disputes' or disagreements on these claims. Unfortunately I can't find any official statistics on actual surface areas etc. The most 'authoritative' mention of the Poole claim I could find is on the official website of the UNESCO world heritage site Jurassic Coast, which starts at the harbour entrance.
Poole is about 5-6 miles across in each direction, with an entrance of less than 500m and an enormous coastline, as it's very convuluted. There are two reasons a lot of people find it hard to believe the size claimed for Poole. First, you can't see anything like the whole harbour from any one point, as there are big islands and peninsulas in the way, and unseen bays leading off it. Most people who think they've 'seen' the harbour have only seen a small fraction of it. Secondly is that it's very shallow, so parts of it go to mudflats at low tide and not much of it is navigable by large ships, so it has a relatively small port. Unless someone can find some official list of harbour surface areas, I think the lack of opposition justifies the claim!-- Purple 01:16, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
It's often said that Poole Harbour is the second biggest natural harbour in the world after Sydney. It seems to be one of these things that somebody somewhere once said or wrote and has been taken as fact. I am not an expert on world harbours but if you want to do something simple to check for yourself then do this - Go to google maps and find Poole harbour. You'll see a scale bar and from this you can get a rough idea of the size of Poole harbour. Now go to Sydney and see the scale bar. Sydney does indeed seem to be larger than Poole. Now go to the harbour directly north of Sydney and you can see it is bigger than Sydney. Go to Melbourne harbour, it is much bigger than Sydney. Is Mebourne a bay or a harbour? Why isn't Poole harbour a bay? Go to Hobart - is it a harbour? It harbours vessels so it must be. It's considerably larger than Sydney. Now go across the Tasman sea to New Zealand and find Auckland. On the west coast, directly north of Auckland you will find Kaipara Harbour - it's big enough to swallow Sydney and Poole harbours several times over. Manukau harbour, directly south of Auckland, is bigger than Sydney. Wellington Harbour on the southern part of New Zealand's North Island is arguably as big as Sydney and bigger than Poole. Brazil - Rio de Janeiro harbour is bigger than Poole and Sydney. Is it a bay? When is a bay not a bay? It's no less harbour-like than Poole. Houston, U.S. - Trinity bay - is it a harbour? It's bigger than Sydney. San Francisco - much bigger. Do your own world tour and it soon becomes obvious that Sydney is a long way from being the world's biggest harbour.
The article was previously very definite that there were exactly eight islands in Poole Harbour. But my OS map shows 10 named islands (the eight listed in the article, plus Otter Island and Stone Island) and several unnaamed islands on the southern shore line. I think that to be as definitive as we were, we need to distinguish between islands, rocks, mudbanks, etc and I'm not sure such a test is easy to come by or indeed worth pursuing. Instead I've simply listed the Islands under 'including'. -- Chris j wood 15:07, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
In order to be classified as an island, there has to be some land showing above Highest Astronomical Tide, otherwise it's a sand- or mudbank (as far as I know there are no rocks in the harbour, but I don't have access to a chart at the moment). But is there a minimum size? -- TyroSailor ( talk) 21:38, 7 August 2018 (UTC)