Mooring piracy - the pinching of other people's moorings – has been "rampant" in Northland this summer, the region's harbourmaster Jim Lyle says. Photo / Paul Estcourt
Mooring piracy - the pinching of other people's moorings – has been "rampant" in Northland this summer, the region's harbourmaster Jim Lyle says. Photo / Paul Estcourt
Northland’s harbourmaster says mooring piracy has been “rampant” this summer.
Jim Lyle said the surge in people tying their boats to moorings they weren’t authorised to use was probably due to the weather.
Frequent strong southwesterlies, especially during the Christmas and New Year’s holiday period, had kept many boaties from visiting the region and had forced others to seek safe harbour they might not have expected to need.
Lyle said boaties should ensure they’ve booked a rental mooring before arriving in the region, which was easy to do through Russell Radio, the Northland Regional Council’s (NRC) website, or various other mooring operators.
It was not okay for visiting boaties to pick up random moorings, Lyle said.
“Occasionally it’s a mistake – people have hired one mooring but pick up the wrong one. However, that’s different to deliberately picking up a mooring you haven’t rented.
“It causes a lot of anguish,” Lyle said.
He gave the example of an owner leaving their mooring to go sailing for a day or two then returning to find a visitor had left their boat on the mooring and gone onshore.
“What is the mooring owner supposed to do with their boat?”
They might be forced to use another vacant mooring and then that owner returns and soon there was a plethora of people all angry and upset about their mooring being occupied, Lyle said.
Northland’s regional harbourmaster Jim Lyle. Photo / NZME
The problem was made worse by the failure of most pirates to comply with a bylaw that requires them to display their contact details and phone number, which meant there was no way of getting hold of them, Lyle said.
“At worst, these situations sometimes end with a mooring owner getting so angry that they just let the [intruder] boat go,” he said.
While there were no reports of that happening this summer there were plenty of mooring owners who threatened it, Lyle said.
He noted there was also a safety issue at stake when boaties used random moorings.
“Someone might have a 40-foot boat but they don’t know what’s on the bottom of the [random] mooring – it might only be suitable for a 7-metre boat.
“So then the wind picks up and their boat’s headed across the bay.”
Weekly rental rates for moorings currently listed on the NRC website range between about $40 and $80. Asking prices for moorings advertised for sale on the site currently ranged between $800 to nearly $20,000.
Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, covering a wide range of issues. She has nearly 20 years’ experience in journalism, much of which she spent court reporting in Gisborne and on the East Coast. She is passionate about covering stories that make a difference, especially those involving environmental issues.
