River Hamble Harbour dues for dinghys.

I sail at warsash sc as I have been for the 10 years since I started sailing.  For anyone who doesn't know it, the sailing club is near the mouth of the river hamble, on which thousands of boats are moored. 

Now since the harbour master was established, all the boats moored on the river have had to pay yearly harbour dues, which is only fair as the harbour master does many things for them such as

• Provide CCTV to ensure security of boats
• Enforce a speed limit to prevent lots of wash, damaging boats
• Clean up pollution left and oil left in the water by engines
• Have the river dredged

Last year though fees were introduced for dinghy sailors on the river.  This seems in no way fair as we lanch from our own pontoon and they don't do anything for us.  They plan to make £6000 a year from us, yet we are very unlikely to see this spend on anything to benifit us.  We never require help from them, cause no pollution and they don't do anything to keep our boats secure, so I really don't see what we are paying for.  Its not cheap either, and has to be paid for each boat you own even though only one will ever be on the water at any given time.  Last year most people from the club didn't pay it and nothing really came of it.  However this year it is being strongly enforced.  Last night as all the boats were lanching for racing they went round and noted all the boats that hadn't payed.  They even spoke to me and said that I had 7 days to pay before they went into our club pound and ceased my boat, then had another 7 days before they sold it.  This surely can't be allowd to happen and has really upset most of the dinghy sailors at our club.

I really wanted to know if anyone at other clubs pay similar fees, and if people think this fee is justified.

 

It shouldn't matter if he is a personal member, presumably the club is affiliated.

A fee for all boats over 4m is being introduced at Brightlingsea this year (by the Harbour Commission).

Mike

Dues are paid by all boats that use Chichester Harbour, even Optimists. It's
only a few pounds, though, and well worth it to sail in such a beautiful place.

The threat of seizing boats sounds wrong - I'm sure they can't legally do
that. Certainly worth getting legal advice.

The same sort of charge is on it's way on the Exe Estuary, I felt the same way about it when they were looking at charging £40 per year for a dinghy, at the time they were looking at £10 for a kite surfer! The dinghy community made it's voice heard through the local clubs and by writing to Exeter City Council and it now looks like the charges will be more like £10 per year for a dinghy, don't know when it's starts however.

This is going to happen all over the place as local councils set up indipendant self funding navigation/harbour bodies to tae over the cost of managing non profitable harbours and ports. If you sail on any bit of water that has a navigation authority but not much in the way of comercial shipping then keep your eyes open and shout if you don't like what is proposed.

H