Boat owners angered by marina's state

Angry boaties are setting sail from the Christchurch City Council's dilapidated moorings in Lyttelton Harbour after a severe storm.

Huge waves whipped up by high winds sank two boats and damaged several more at the Magazine Bay marina on Monday.

Two owners with damaged boats told The Press yesterday they were giving up their moorings.

Bert Millin, a forestry contractor of Brookside, near Leeston, said he saved 40 years to buy his boat, a former Northland Harbour Board pilot boat.

A gunnel on the 12-metre boat, which had been moored there for only seven weeks, was smashed in the storm.

"As soon as I get a good weather window I'm out of here," Millin said.

"I'd make it up to Picton or Dunedin – it's got to be better than this place ... [where] you're paying to wreck your boat."

Millin said he was "livid" with the council for not doing more to protect the marina with a breakwater and upgrade the marina.

He spent $1000 on a 20-tonne strength mooring rope yesterday: "If this breaks, mate, it'll take the wharf with it."

Another boat owner, who did not want to be named, said he would put his launch in Cass Bay "probably tomorrow".

"You get nothing for it and they have the cheek to charge you."

Stu Bonell, who had moored his boat at the marina for two years, said six boats had been lost to bad weather in the past two years.

The council should build a breakwater, he said.

However, another berth holder said bad weather should be expected at the marina and some boaties were to blame for tying up vessels that were too large.

Ken Camp, manager of the Naval Point Club which runs the marina for the council, said vessels needed to be moored meticulously otherwise "you get caught out".

Camp said the "dilapidated" marina had had no significant work since the mid-1990s.

The club was not asking for ratepayers to fund a breakwater, which would cost more than $5 million, he said.

Rather it wanted the council to guarantee a 30-year loan and it would raise charges for berth holders.

The council's city environment general manager, Jane Parfitt, said the council was committed to improving public boating facilities at Lyttelton with $220,000 budgeted in 2012/13 and $1.134m in 2013/14.

The council had also committed between $99,000 and $132,000 for each of the next 10 years to improve wharves and jetties, some of which would be spent in the Lyttelton area.

A council working party had spent three years trying to progress the development of a marina and related facilities at Lyttelton. The group was disestablished in February after no agreement could be reached with a private developer, Parfitt said.

The Lyttelton port company was now looking to develop the western inner harbour for recreational use as part of its 30-year vision for the port.

Parfitt said the council would continue to maintain the marina and was open to other opportunities for better boating facilities in Lyttelton.

- © Fairfax NZ News