Teignmouth’s Commercial Port on Devon’s South Coast

Teignmouth’s early port, Fish Quay and New Quay by Nelly P.

Learn about Teignmouth Port, located on the Southwest coast of England at the mouth of the River Teign in Devon.

Teignmouth Harbour Commissioners are the Navigational Authority responsible for pilotage, regulating marine operations, ensuring safe navigation, and managing moorings within the harbour and estuary.  

Associated British Ports (ABP) operates the commercial side of Teignmouth Port. They handle various cargoes, including ball clay, animal feed, and other bulk materials.  

The harbour has four berths for general cargo coasters, three on the Western Quay and one on the Eastern Quay. Vessels at Teignmouth are not always afloat but safely aground at low tide.  

Teignmouth Port exports around 150,000 tons of clay and imports 100,000 tons of animal feed per year. Other dry bulk cargoes have also been exported from Teignmouth including stone, blast furnace slag, and forestry products. Cargoes are commonly shipped between Teignmouth and Gdansk, Poland, and Ravenna and Gaeta, Italy.  

Teignmouth Harbour Commission provides ship Pilots to bring ships into the Port safely. They are highly skilled mariners providing navigation through Teignmouth's hazardous estuary.  

Navigating a ship into the River Teign estuary and Teignmouth Port is extremely challenging due to the estuary's shifting sandbar, called 'The Bar'. Additional challenges include the complex and strong tidal currents, limited channel depth and complex navigation through narrow channels with moored fishing and leisure vessels.

The major challenge is 'The Bar' at the estuary's entrance. 'The Bar' changes constantly due to tides, currents, and weather conditions, particularly in strong onshore winds. This means the depth and position of the navigable channel across 'The Bar' can vary significantly, even within short periods. This variability creates a risk of grounding, especially for larger vessels. One such ship was the tall ship 'The Pelican of London' that went aground when leaving the entrance to the estuary in September 2023 after visiting for the Teignmouth Shanty Festival. Fortunately, the Harbour Pilot boat, with assistance from some local mariners managed to push and tow it off the sand bar before the tide fell too far.

Despite the challenges of operating commercial shipping at Teignmouth, the sight of a large ship entering or leaving the narrow channel between Teignmouth Back Beach and Shaldon is always a spectacular one, providing great entertainment for locals and holidaymakers alike.

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Teignmouth Port's operating load line zone is the North Atlantic Winter Seasonal Zone II. The North Atlantic Winter Seasonal Zone II designates a specific area within the North Atlantic where winter sea conditions are expected to be severe. Zone two's Winter period is from the 1st of November to the 31st of March, and Summer is from the 1st of April to the 31st of October. Therefore, ships docking at Teignmouth in Winter must adhere to the "winter" load line markings, which will be higher on the hull than the "summer" markings, meaning the ship must be loaded with less cargo. A ship's load line, also known as a Plimsoll line, is a marking on a ship's hull that indicates the maximum depth to which the vessel can be safely loaded in various water conditions.

Teignmouth Port can take ships with a maximum size of 120m Overall Length (LOA). Docking ships must have a maximum draught of 5.0m during Spring tides and 4m during Neap tides. The draught is the vertical distance between the waterline and the lowest point of the ship's hull, typically the keel, telling you how much of the ship is submerged. Ships at Teignmouth must also be loaded with a maximum cargo of 5,000 tons (DWT). DWT means Deadweight Tonnage and is a measure of a ship's carrying capacity in metric tons.

Teignmouth, New Quay - Wall Art Print by Nelly P.