Treating moored boats as racing marks

The start to another year and it’s all go again on the harbour. The builders are working away on the Fish Quay, and the Whitestrand showers should be finished by the end of March in their upgraded design with a pitched roof and natural stone elevation: nothing but the best. There is even a scheme to have some of the interior tiles in the showers designed by the children of the local school, so we can look forward to how that turns out.

It was a busy February Harbour Board. One of the issues which turned out to be most controversial was how to respond to ever-so-slightly increasing boat sizes. Most of the harbour’s pontoon berths have a limit of 5.5m, or 18ft in old money. This does not mean a boat with 5.5m or less written on the side, but 5.5m including things like bowsprits and bumkins and, of course, the ever-larger outboard engines when tilted. Many of the boats on these berths are coming out at nearer 6m, sometimes even more, and it will soon be literally impossible to squeeze them onto their berths without their protruding outboards damaging boats on neighbouring berths. But what do you do? Tell people that if they want to keep the berth, they need to get a smaller boat, or engine? Deny them the berth? The issue may have been side-stepped for the moment, but it can’t be for ever. It may not be easy to resolve this happily.

However the Board decided to get tougher over unreported collisions. There are about 10 incidents a year when unreported collisions cause damage to moored boats, in contravention of By-Law 14, which says all collisions should be reported to the Harbour Office. The Yacht Club, ICC and boat hirers have all helped shape the way forward with a number of small changes ranging from making the collision reporting forms much more accessible, to treating moored boats as marks of any racing course, so attracting all the associated penalties for hitting one. With improved reporting we should be able to map just where the problems are most acute.