Anchoring restrictions in New South Wales

[DumnMad]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Well, I could do that! But I've no idea who/what the appropriate minister/ministry might be, nor how to contact them. Any help?

And if I as a lowly Yank visitor can be so moved, how about all the rest of the legions of CFers from NSW?

Jim

Hi Jim. In my experience it never pays to write to the relevant minister. Their officers will gladly offer to handle it. Knowing the wider their powers and the more staff on the ground, the more they are paid, they might even twist your concern into a reason to have another toy boat on the water.

Write to Treasury and/or IRD and say they are losing revenue on account of the incompetance of the ministry in charge of waterways. They might even enjoy asking the "appropriate ministry" for an explanation and employ expra staff of their own to hassle your "appropriate minister."

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

g'Day Uncle B,

No doubt there are various means of influencing such legislation. But as an overseas visitor here, I don't feel that it is appropriate for me to undertake such action. I'd certainly support it, though!

My guess is that it will not be very active except in the Sydney and Pittwater areas*, simply because there is not enough patrol officers in most areas. The threatened data base would mean that simply leaving Pittwater and going to the Clarence, etc, would not get you out of their clutches. What a miserable thing to have to worry about...

* maybe the Lake too...

Jim

Hi Jim, i was actually very surprised at the extent of patrolling that was done in the Tweed river. Maritime presence several times everyday, water police etc.....once got pulled up by what looked like a swat boat, all black, cops in black, i was coming back to the boat with fish & chips in my old walkerbay, 2hp Yamaha..... Very difficult to not tell them how absolutely ridiculous and offensive their actions were.

[Polux]

It seems very positive to me and I would short that 28 days for something like a week or 10 days at least if we were talking about the med.

What you find here on the more sheltered anchorages is lots of boats on anchor or in a fixing mooring for months, sometimes for years.

What right have some guys to occupy a public space not allowing others to use it?

Other guys go for an anchorage and stay there all their holidays. The same problem. That's good for caravans, cruising boats are made for cruising and cruising is moving around not stay on anchor for a week on a place.

I don't know how it is now but in Ibiza, under the protection of the big mole you could stay at anchor but in the morning the police comes and all boats have to go away. Seems to me a good principle.

[catsketcher]

I guess we should get together and join the boat owners association. It irks me that as boat owners we pay the maritime to hassle us.

In NSW we have a shooters fishers party, although I never vote for it it does seem as though they have a fair bit of clout. maybe a micro party for boaties would help.

cheers

Phil

[Seaslug Caravan]

[QUOTE=Polux;2481484

What right have some guys to occupy a public space not allowing others to use it?

[/QUOTE]

I agree. Lets start by getting rid of all those private moorings that lie empty 99% of the time in the Pitwater national park area.

NSW has had live-a-board restrictions for years that haven't been enforced . For the visiting cruiser it can be difficult, if not impossible to find a safe spot to anchor and visit the city, in places like Black Wattle Bay/ Glebe due to all the long term anchorers'.

Its time to share.

[Wotname]

Hmm... thinking more about this - maybe they are trying to move poor cruisers off the water and the rest into commercial marinas (short stay only).

Certainly enforcement could be much easier today than the past.

MSB fella entres you vessel name (or ID number etc) into an app on his smartphone and has instant access to every other time it was entered by any other MSB fella anywhere in the state. No form filling, no calls or other inquiries need to be made. Once your 28 / 90 days are up, he/she has all the times and dates needed to ratchet up the 50 penalty units.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by Polux

What right have some guys to occupy a public space not allowing others to use it?

Originally Posted by Seaslug Caravan

I agree. Lets start by getting rid of all those private moorings that lie empty 99% of the time in the Pitwater national park area.

NSW has had live-a-board restrictions for years that haven't been enforced . For the visiting cruiser it can be difficult, if not impossible to find a safe spot to anchor and visit the city, in places like Black Wattle Bay/ Glebe due to all the long term anchorers'.

Its time to share.

I sorta agree however mostly the "private moorings" have paid dollars to lease the bottom from the guv'mit. Not that much different from leasing a building etc.

[Amnesia II]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Well, Mark, the NSW coast is roughly 625 nmiles long. It has several navigable rivers, dozens of bays, some very extensive, and heaps of decent anchorages.



It is far from unreasonable to spend more than 90 days in a year CRUISING on this coast, anchoring every night. Or to spend more than 28 days exploring Broken Bay. This rule could even affect local marina dwellers, say in the Pittwater, for if they spent every other weekend at anchor they would be breaking the law, even though they kept their boat in a marina the rest of the time.



For those of us with no fixed address, coupled with aging bodies, staying around the Sydney area for access to doctors can take more that a month. Doing normal boat maintenance can take a longish time as well.... all good reasons that one might be "in one place" for more than 28 days.



Should we pay for a berth like you suggest? Not always even possible, for there is a sad lack of marina berths available for transients, and the costs would make your eyes water if you could find a spot.



It is hard for me to understand the downside of our being here. We don't take much from the system and we spend foreign cash into the local economy. We pay at least some taxes, and some of us actually pay some local income tax as well. We don't benefit from many of the excellent Australian social welfare systems, we don't attend schools or send kids to them, we don't drive o n the roads or park on the streets. We do enjoy the parks and the aids to navigation, which are well maintained and plentiful, but there is no incremental cost involved with our usage.



So, w hy are they effectively chasing us out? I don't get it. But go we will, and spread our spending to other states, ones that seem to appreciate us more.



Jim

Totally understand and agree Jim!
Re contacting or writing to Authorities....I'd say keep your head down, don't become a target.

I know I'd virtually given up going deep into Sydney Harbour for anchorage, preferring Manly, Quarantine Bay etc, provisioning in Manly....always a chance to see Toady Abbott in his budgie smugglers near the ferry terminal.

If only Tassie winters weren't so harsh!

Safe sailing.

[drbandy]

I know for a fact that they have a database for tracking individual vessels and anchoring times throughout NSW. They know how many days you are in an area. My local Maritime guy uses the database to chase offenders away, either due to breaching the 28 day "local" or 90 day NSW Statewide rules. I recently had a discussion with NSW maritime about the lack of courtesy moorings in my area, and the damage that anchoring my Seawind 1000XL does to the sea floor compared to the growth and sea life that a courtesy mooring creates. Anyone who dives knows the life generated by mooring blocks. In fact Maritime laid concrete blocks in Lake Macquarie to create artificial reefs. But they seem to be against laying courtesy moorings. This led me ask my contact what is the definition of an "anchor". Can I use a 2 tonne concrete block (IE Mooring block) as an anchor for 28 days? He laughed and said as far as he was aware there is no definition of "Anchor". So I might drop my concrete block anchor for 28 days wherever I like, then sell my anchor to my mate so he can use it! I know this is silly & extreme, but stupid legislation drives me to find workarounds of their ill thought out rules! The question is if a boat is beached above low tide mark, without an anchor out, is it anchored? If not, then if living aboard, you could beach your boat, if suitable like my cat, and only be "anchored" during high tide! Once the boat is settled on bottom retrieve the anchor, then deploy it on the flood tide! Does anchoring only through high tide count as a whole "day"? There 28 day rule could be extended this way if a day counts as 24 hours of anchoring. Or can I have electric motors hold me in position without anchoring at all. Or tie to trees. I'm going to have fun with this! Cheers, Dave. Seawind 1000XL "Kutthara".

[skipperpete]

Hi and welcome to the forum. Since the last post was back in 2017, it’s interesting to hear about the current situation in your particular harbour. I’m just over the border on the Gold Coast and at Southport there’s a one week limit for anchoring in that area BUT the live aboards just move to one of several other anchorages each week. Back in NSW on the Richmond river at Ballina there seem to be no enforced restrictions on how long one can anchor. I seem to recall that way back when the rules were first introduced it was possible to register as a houseboat and avoid harassment??

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by drbandy

I know for a fact that they have a database for tracking individual vessels and anchoring times throughout NSW. They know how many days you are in an area. My local Maritime guy uses the database to chase offenders away, either due to breaching the 28 day "local" or 90 day NSW Statewide rules. I recently had a discussion with NSW maritime about the lack of courtesy moorings in my area, and the damage that anchoring my Seawind 1000XL does to the sea floor compared to the growth and sea life that a courtesy mooring creates. Anyone who dives knows the life generated by mooring blocks. In fact Maritime laid concrete blocks in Lake Macquarie to create artificial reefs. But they seem to be against laying courtesy moorings. This led me ask my contact what is the definition of an "anchor". Can I use a 2 tonne concrete block (IE Mooring block) as an anchor for 28 days? He laughed and said as far as he was aware there is no definition of "Anchor". So I might drop my concrete block anchor for 28 days wherever I like, then sell my anchor to my mate so he can use it! I know this is silly & extreme, but stupid legislation drives me to find workarounds of their ill thought out rules! The question is if a boat is beached above low tide mark, without an anchor out, is it anchored? If not, then if living aboard, you could beach your boat, if suitable like my cat, and only be "anchored" during high tide! Once the boat is settled on bottom retrieve the anchor, then deploy it on the flood tide! Does anchoring only through high tide count as a whole "day"? There 28 day rule could be extended this way if a day counts as 24 hours of anchoring. Or can I have electric motors hold me in position without anchoring at all. Or tie to trees. I'm going to have fun with this! Cheers, Dave. Seawind 1000XL "Kutthara".

Hi and welcome. I do have to ask, how do you think the NSW Maritime dept has the information regarding your location, as far as I can glean there can only be two ways, visually noting and reporting to a "database" which would require daily monitoring of the entire navigable waterways of nsw or the addition of your information as reported by you to a third party organisation, such as marine rescue. For this reason I no longer log on to them when I go offshore, yes I realise that this may impact safety however they can be contacted at any time STSHTF. Similarly the requirement to obtain a radio operators certificate in order to obtain a MMSI, which of course cannot be used for voice communication, only data, is counterproductive for a safety device.
Rant over.

[drbandy]

Just visual as far as I know. Waterways patrols the area fairly often. Last time I talked to him, he was heading to evict a boat from the area who had overstayed the 28 day limit.