South coast Devon Ebb
Start Point and Start Bay: ten miles of lee shore and one very old shipwreck story
Start Point is the southernmost tip of Devon and one of the most exposed headlands on the English south coast. The bay behind it holds a drowned village at Hallsands, a five-mile shingle bank, and a tidal pattern that makes the difference between an easy day and a hard one entirely a matter of which direction you turn first.
- Distance
- 10.4 nm
- Tide window
- 3.2-4.8 m springs, 1.7-2.6 m neaps
- Wind limit
- 10 kt
- Grade
- Exposed
- Published
- 2 Sept 2026
The bay and its sand
Start Bay is a 5 nm curve of shingle between Torcross and the Dart. Behind the beach is Slapton Ley, a freshwater lagoon separated from the sea by a narrow shingle bar, and the whole system is a National Nature Reserve. The bay is shallow, the beach is steep, and the underwater profile continues steeply for 300 m before flattening.
The consequence for paddlers is that the swell arrives almost undiminished at the beach. In an onshore force 4 the shore break at Torcross is a genuine 1 m dumping wave with a very short period. Launching or landing here in those conditions is the hardest part of the day, not the headland.
Hallsands and the price of dredging
Hallsands was a fishing village of 37 houses that was destroyed between 1904 and 1917 because gravel was dredged from the Skerries Bank to build the naval dockyard at Devonport. Removing the offshore bank removed the beach's protection, and the village was progressively taken by the sea. The ruined walls are still there, half buried in the beach.
There is no landing at Hallsands in any swell over about 0.5 m: the beach is loose, steep shingle with a strong backwash. Look at it from 200 m offshore, and if you want to walk to it, do that from the coast path instead.
Rounding the point
Start Point itself is a low, dark headland with a lighthouse and a set of granite reefs extending 600 m to the south. There are overfalls on the ebb that form on a spring tide and are visible as a line of broken water on the south side of the point. They are not a race on the scale of Portland or the Bitches, but they will stop a kayak dead in a following sea.
The safe line is 500 m south of the lighthouse, and it should be taken with the group in a line abreast so that the leader can see the whole group and turn back if the water is worse than expected. There is no landing between Hallsands and Prawle Point, 3 nm further east, so the commitment is real.
Making the day work
The clean way to do this paddle is one-way with a car shuttle. Launch at Torcross on the first of the ebb, ride the stream east past Hallsands and Start Point, and land at Salcombe or at East Portlemouth, 10.4 nm in total. With the stream behind you it is three hours of easy paddling.
The out-and-back version is only sensible on a neap tide under 2 m, or if you accept turning at Hallsands rather than the point. On a 4.8 m spring, a return from Start Point against the ebb is a two-hour grind into a headwind that builds every afternoon, and the bay gives no shelter once you are past the point.
Plan table
Before departure
- 01
Decide one-way or out-and-back before you leave the car
On springs the return from the point is a genuine grind; the shuttle avoids it entirely.
- 02
Check the swell forecast, not just the wind
Start Bay is a lee shore in anything with south or east in it, and the beach profile amplifies it.
- 03
Identify the overfalls line on the chart
The reefs extend 600 m south of the lighthouse; the safe line is 500 m beyond them.
- 04
Agree a turn-around trigger
There is no landing between Hallsands and Prawle Point, so the decision has to be made before that gap.
En route
- 01
Cross the Skerries Bank area with the tide, not against it
The bank is shallow and the stream over it is stronger than the chart suggests.
- 02
Keep a line abreast past the point
The leader needs to see the whole group to judge whether to turn back.
- 03
Watch for basking sharks in May and July
They are harmless filter feeders but a 6 m fin next to a kayak changes the mood of a group quickly.
- 04
Land at East Portlemouth or Salcombe, not the middle of the bay
The bay has no sheltered landing once the afternoon wind builds.
Key numbers
- 10.4 nm one-way Torcross to Salcombe; 8 nm out-and-back to the point.
- Spring range 4.8 m with a 2.5 kt stream across the bay.
- Wind limit 10 kt, and any onshore wind over force 4 makes the Torcross shore break the hardest part of the day.
- No landing between Hallsands and Prawle Point.
- One-way with a car shuttle is the correct plan on springs.
Bail-outs
- B1 Hallsands beach, 2 nm east of Start Point, landing in under 0.5 m swell
- B2 Salcombe harbour, 4 nm east past Prawle Point
Return leg：Return west from Salcombe on the last two hours of the flood. The flood sets west across Start Bay and carries a tired group back to Torcross without a fight.