So begins the battle of the buoy, a drawn-out conflict in a gulf war that pits boatie against bureaucrat, boatie against boatie and islander against townie. It's a battle that ebbs and flows. Sometimes the mooring owner holds the seabed only to have hopes and dreams dashed on the rocks of the Environment Court. Sometimes recreational boaties banish the loathed mooring tackle that fouls their anchors only to find it returned by legal manoeuvre.
Some fight dirty, cutting mooring ropes and sinking buoys. Both sides suffer casualties in costs. Chris Ross and Woody Bay mooring co-owner Rod Inglis are out of pocket $62,000. The Auckland Yacht and Boating Association has reportedly spent $25,000 of members' funds and it's not over yet. But, in the ultimate irony, it's possible the mooring has been legal all along and could have been certified for a mere $550.
The story begins peaceably in 1983 when Ross and Inglis buy a 5ha lot with riparian rights overlooking Woody Bay for $30,000. In 1985, preparing to build a bach, they place a swing mooring alongside several others in the bay. A neighbour doing the same has rung the Auckland Harbour Board harbourmaster who advises Rakino is outside harbour limits and not under his jurisdiction.
With the bach completed a few months later, the Ross and Inglis families holiday regularly at Rakino over the next 18 years, sharing the mooring with their respective boats which change in size and shape over time. As keen boaties they remember fondly the America's Cup when, on occasion, there were 130 boats crammed into the bay.
In 1989 they employ Subritzky Shipping to upgrade the mooring, which is regularly lifted and inspected.
The legislative background to the mayhem that follows is the 1991 Resource Management Act and Auckland's Coastal Plan, notified in 1995. Among the plan's aims is to find a balance between mooring areas and recreational anchorages.
For a moment in 2006, it seems the Auckland City Council has brokered an accord, proposing a Coastal Plan change increasing capacity in the existing Sandy Bay mooring management area at the southern end of the island and adding two smaller managed areas in Home Bay and Woody Bay.
But the proposal is overwhelmed by objections from the Auckland Yachting and Boating Association and others. Following a public hearing in 2007 the ARC rejects the new mooring areas, but increases Sandy Bay's capacity to 30 moorings.
The ARC then sends letters to all other mooring owners telling them to either remove their moorings or legitimise them through resource consents. The application fee is $4500 - too rich for most of the 14 mooring owners at Woody Bay who, except for Ross and Inglis, bail out.
A mooring owner around the corner at the less attractive, and therefore less contentious, Home Bay also applies and is granted consent in 2008. But when Ross and Inglis apply - offering to make their swing mooring available for public use for 335 days of the year when they are not there - the hearing is once again swamped with objections.
Many objectors are members of boating clubs affiliated with the association or members of the Gulf Anchorage Protection Society. Despite the objections, the ARC grants consent and promptly bills Ross and Inglis $46,000 for their troubles.
They're gobsmacked. No one told them that, unlike the objectors, as well as their application fee they would have to stump up for hearing costs. Inadvertently caught up in a precedent-setting case, they eventually get the bill reduced to $18,500.
As Ross points out, consent costs like this will scare off most applicants so the objectors have achieved their purpose - protecting the Gulf from the proliferation of moorings.
"I agree multiple moorings in a pristine bay is not a great look, but this is about one mooring and it's not going to ruin the bay," says Ross. "If I don't have a mooring I can't go there. I can't put my boat on the beach - there is nowhere to haul it out. I can't get into the mooring area, because it's full."
The problem from the point of view of the boating association, an umbrella organisation comprising 40 Auckland boating clubs, is the "unknown hazard" of "underwater tackle" - usually railway wagon wheels and admiralty chain. But what is the problem of having one mooring in the bay?
"It excludes the area around the mooring in terms of a possible safe place for putting an anchor for boats that come on a casual basis," says association Chairman Stephen Wagstaff. But it leaves the rest of the bay? "It does, yes," he agrees.
Surely you can have a bit of both? "Possibly, except that ultimately it comes back to the provisions of the Coastal Plan."
It's those provisions that the association uses to overturn Ross and Inglis' consent in the Environment Court which rules the mooring has "an irreconcilable clash" with the Coastal Plan - specifically that there wasn't a compelling reason for a mooring outside the mooring area. Bizarrely, the argument comes down came down to the size of Ross's boat, a 14m motor catamaran.
"Mr Ross chooses to operate a boat that cannot use Sandy Bay, but that does not, in our view, make a compelling argument that a mooring in Woody Bay is necessary, when the obvious alternative of a different vessel is available."
In other words, get a smaller boat. What's difficult to comprehend is, even with a smaller boat, Ross can't moor at Sandy Bay. "It is fully allocated," says Auckland Council Natural Resources manager Ian Dobson. There is also evidence that if Ross' boat has to anchor in Woody Bay, it swings on a larger arc and takes up more space than on its mooring.
Most Sandy Bay moorings are also actually outside the designated area which is incorrectly drawn, partly on land and rocks. Dobson says the problem isn't confined to Rakino and the council is looking to review mooring areas and correct the errors.
After the Environment Court loss, Ross and Inglis have clocked up $22,020 in legal costs. They initiate an appeal to the High Court, but then discover a bombshell, referenced, but not considered by the Environment Court.
"There is a possible argument that the use of this mooring may actually be a permitted activity and thus not requiring resource consent at all." It's an argument the new Auckland Council, incorporating the ARC, buys. Moorings in place since 1991 and outside the harbour limits at the time, and without a licence or permit under the Harbours Act (since none was required) are, and always have been, perfectly okay. So much so that the council has started issuing certificates of compliance - the first granted in January to Ross and Inglis' mooring at Woody Bay.
The association is incensed. "These people are coming with what we regard as illegal moorings, with absolutely no paperwork under any regime, and suggesting that now invokes a clause that says they don't need any more paperwork," says Wagstaff. The association has appealed to the Environment Court for a declaration of the correct interpretation of the Coastal Plan. "It was never intended in our opinion to legitimise moorings that had no paperwork," says Wagstaff.
The boating association may have fouled its own anchor, inadvertently mobilising reinforcements for Ross and Inglis' cause. The council says it's aware of 233 moorings at Waiheke, Pakatoa, Rotoroa, Ponui Great Barrier and Rakino Islands which were outside the harbour limits when they were established.
Of those, it has records for 80 mooring owners and has so far been approached by five seeking compliance. The court has ordered that those who could be affected by the outcome of the hearing set down for November should be notified.
Wagstaff maintains the association regularly checks with club delegates and has support for its actions. But the Weekend Herald has heard from Outboard Boating Club members who disagree and say they haven't been consulted.
Wagstaff says the association hasn't yet decided, should it win, whether it would then go to the High Court to try to overturn Ross and Inglis' mooring compliance. Meanwhile the council has had a dramatic wind shift on the mooring chain - now seeing what it once deemed illegal as legal. Which turns this fight into farce - albeit a very expensive one.
1985
Chris Ross and Rod Inglis place a mooring alongside others at Woody Bay, Rakino Island. The Auckland Harbour Board harbourmaster tells a neighbour with a mooring that the island is outside his jurisdiction.
1985-2003
The Ross and Inglis families holiday frequently at their island bach, using the mooring for various boats.
2003-04
An Auckland Regional Council patrol vessel begins towing moorings out of the bay, the ARC employee on board telling owners they are illegal. He stops doing so when islanders call the ARC office and complain. Owners begin receiving notifications their moorings are illegal.
2005-07
The ARC tells owners they must either remove their moorings or make them legal through a resource consent under the Resource Management Act. The application fee is $4500.
2008-09
Ross and Inglis win consent for their mooring despite objections from the Auckland Yachting and Boating Association (AYBA) and the Gulf Anchorage Protection Society (GAPS). The ARC bills Ross and Inglis $46,000 for the application, which is later reduced to $18,500.
2010
The AYBA appeals to the Environment Court, which overturns the consent, ruling the mooring breaches Auckland's coastal plan. Ross and Inglis' legal costs are $22,020.
2011
The new Auckland Council decides that because the mooring predates the coastal plan it always was legal and issues a Certificate of Compliance. The AYBA appeals again to the Environment Court, which has ordered that other mooring owners who could be affected should also be notified. The development adds $11,227 to Ross and Inglis' costs, which total $62,000 to date, with a further $15,000 expected for the November hearing.
