Dry dock for yachts alarms Devonport

By WAYNE THOMPSON

Babcock New Zealand, which runs the Devonport naval base dockyard, plans to install a huge floating dry dock to refit superyachts.

The company says it needs the lucrative work that the floating dock could attract to compensate for lack of maintenance work from a shrinking Navy.

But its size and shape has led residents to accuse the company of imposing a potential industrial eyesore on a premium part of the Auckland waterfront. The dock would be clearly visible from around the inner harbour and across from the central city.

Residents learned of the plan from company executives at a community board meeting on Tuesday night.

Company chief executive Mike Franklin told the 80 residents that the dock would be moored at the Boiler Wharf in front of Babcocks main office.

It was likely to be about 100m long and 40m wide, with two steel sides and a telescopic roof. The maximum height of the structure would be 26m above the wharf deck at high tide.

Normally, it would be moored alongside the wharf, but when the Navy wanted to moor a frigate at the wharf, the dock would be swung at a right angle pointing into the harbour towards Auckland.

Mr Franklin said fewer and newer Navy ships meant Babcocks was doing only 18 per cent of the naval maintenance of six years ago.

For the dockyard to be viable and to have the skills and capacity to support the Navy fleet when required, it needed to diversify.

The company wanted to diversify into maintenance, repair and refit of superyachts.

It had learned what the market wanted during the America's Cup regatta when the dockyard had a temporary licence to become a marina.

Superyacht captains would prefer to take their $40 million plus vessels out of the water using a submerged lifting platform or a dry dock rather than hauling them out on an Auckland shipyard slip.

The Calliope graving dock, which had handled ships up to 180m at the Devonport dockyard since 1888, was too expensive for long refits of superyachts and was needed for Navy and commercial vessels.

A large floating dry dock would swing the deal for the superyacht set, who were already interested in Auckland's refit charges of $US23 an hour compared with $US55 an hour overseas.

Mr Franklin said the floating dry dock would create 40 jobs.

A coastal permit for the dock was to be sought from the Auckland Regional Council.

The chair of the Devonport Community Board, Paddy Stafford-Bush, said the board would make submissions to the regional council about the proposal.

She said residents were clearly concerned about the visual impact of the dock and the extra industrial noise it would generate.

Concern was expressed that harbour views would be affected from Devonport, Stanley Pt and vantage points in Auckland City, including the Auckland War Memorial Museum.

Mr Franklin said the company was prepared to paint the structure "whatever colour you think is less offensive."

www.nzherald.co.nz/marine