The Harbour Board takes to the water in July for the annual Harbour inspection. This year we started in Kingsbridge which is, of course, in good shape. But the handover of the Rivermaid has not been as swift as originally hoped and the new owners may well have to operate for much of this season with Peter Moule acting as a pilot/instructor. Meanwhile the Dartmouth ferries are running right up to Kingsbridge on occasions.
As we came through the Bag, we saw that the caps on the piles of the Visitors’ Pontoon are now yellow (rather than white) to make it easier to direct visitors to the correct pontoon. Trinity House had just done its routine inspection of the Harbour and the issue of the leading lights at Scoble came up again. The current feeling is that they are no longer essential as the new buoys at Wolf and Castle rocks turn vessels naturally on to the correct course: but the lights will be kept going as long as possible.
On the recently refurbished Fish Quay we saw the beautiful new Crab café – another place where you can get local crab and shellfish straight off the boats. Egremont is beginning to look a bit rusty although she is better on the inside: in October she goes to Penzance for a refit.
The Bar has shifted to the east, so there is now a wider safe passage. How long it will remain there is anyone’s guess but every little bit helps. The new data will be passed on so that charts and almanacs can be amended in due course. The Harbour Office can provide further information if needed.
At the Board meeting we noted that, again, the Harbour has made a useful annual surplus. The forward projections of the Harbour’s financial position are quite comforting but we will have a pinch point in about 10 years’ time: as all the major infrastructure is now new, in the normal course of events it will all come up for renewal at the same time, so we will have to be inventive in smoothing that out.
The problem of speeding has not gone away. In one day the Harbour Master stopped 15 vessels, one of which was going over 30 knots. I have the GPS Speedometer app on my smartphone and that works well: it’s free so there are no excuses. And no, the Board did not discuss waterskiing.
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