We went to the Channel Islands earlier in the year and this involved passing through the ports of Weymouth, Guernsey and Poole. They are all very different harbours and all clearly well run. What was really remarkable was that in all three harbours boats observed the speed limit impressively – even, in St Peter Port, dropping off the plane at just the right spot.
I was left reflecting why this is not the case in Salcombe. Perhaps it is because Weymouth, Guernsey and Poole all have much more clearly marked harbour limits. In Salcombe you enter the harbour gradually, passing first, yellow buoys at what seems to be miles out; then Bar Lodge, with its 8-knot notice, apparently easily ignored; then the quite long and quite wide stretch up past the Harbour Hotel. You may not get the same sense of being in the Harbour, or needing to observe a speed limit, possibly until you get to Jubilee Pier.
All of which is not good, not least because all over the Harbour there is now a significant number of tiny craft – canoes and kayaks, stand-up paddle boards and the like, as well as small sailing dinghies – often crewed by children or novices. The significant wash which fast-moving vessels generate risks swamping or capsizing them, generally without the offending vessel having any awareness of the damage it is causing possibly several hundred metres astern.
But the Harbour is for everyone to enjoy safely. And just when we thought we might be getting somewhere, there is a highly-publicised campaign for waterskiing to be allowed in the area known as Widegates between The Bag and Kingsbridge. Waterskiing there means powerful high speed boats, noise and wash, right in the middle of a Nature Reserve, outside a bird hide and in the main channel to Kingsbridge.
At the moment this is, of course, just a proposal and no more; and it is by no means clear as yet that it has any support (beyond waterskiiers themselves) by the general public, let alone the Harbour Board. About five years ago, when such a proposal was put to the Board, it was unanimously rejected: it will be interesting to see whether it is any different this time.
But one of the troubles of waterskiing is that it can change the whole character of a harbour and, if speeding were to be sanctioned in Widegates, one wonders whether it would be possible to prevent it elsewhere. Would the hard-won progress over the last few years have been lost?
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