Kentish Knock

The Kentish Knock is a long shoal (bank, shallows) in the North Sea east of Essex, England.

It is the most easterly of those of the Thames Estuary and its core, which is shallower than 18 feet (5.5 m), extends 6 miles (9.7 km).

It is about equidistant between, on the one hand, the south-west North Sea tidal amphidromic point (place of negligible tides); and splayed on the other the narrowest point and endpoint of the English Channel (the Strait of Dover) (southeast) and heart of the Tideway (southwest) which have by contrast high tidal range.

It is thus among a succession of banks which are aligned NNE to SSW but turn towards the estuary narrowing further west.

In line with the erosion and deposition from each such regular tide, its north – its steepest, narrowest part – veers slightly more towards north-south alignment than its south.