Broad Fourteens

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The Broad Fourteens is an area of the southern North Sea that is fairly consistently fourteen fathoms (26 metres) deep (thus, on a nautical chart with depths given in fathoms, a broad area with many "14" notations). It is located off the coast of the Netherlands and south of the Dogger Bank, roughly between longitude 3°E and 4°30′E and latitude 52°30′N and 53°30′N. Compare to the Long Forties.

On 22 September 1914, early in World War I, U-9 sank three Cressy-class cruisers of the sardonically nicknamed Live Bait Squadron within less than an hour there.