Exclusive - Having completed his first nine months as Harbour Master, Captain Mark Cooper reflects on the year so far.
Captain Mark Cooper., Dartmouth Harbour Master
The river Dart and its beautiful surroundings continues to draw in large numbers of visitors on and off the water. However, the number of visitors arriving in small leisure craft continues to fall and this follows a recognised national trend. Our work, carried out in the Spring, to analyse annual mooring waiting lists showed that demand for permanent moorings is also reducing but this can be viewed as positive since this trend should bring down the historically long waiting times for those who are willing to take moorings with less access to services and in less prime locations.
Meanwhile, the increase in demand for water based leisure activities - from cruising boat ownership to personal water craft (jet skis, canoes, paddle boards etc) - is something the Authority will need to address. This will not be without challenges since these smaller craft, that tend to use the river for shorter periods, often require launching, parking (for cars, trailers and watercraft) and changing room facilities.
Attracting Cruise Ships
Another area of river activity that I know brings visitors into the towns and helps the communities financially is the arrival of the larger ships that come into the river or anchor off the entrance. The Authority has also done well to attract larger sailing vessels and other visiting craft that can berth on the town jetty.
Superyachts are harder to attract but I hope that considerate treatment of the owners, guests, masters and crew might have a positive impact on future visits. Although these vessels have smaller numbers of people onboard the effect on the community appears to be very positive as they can be a draw to visitors who will spend in the town.
Despite successful cruise ship visits in 2017, I have failed to gain any detailed information on the effect that cruise ships have on local businesses but did personally conduct a very crude survey of the same four shops during a number of ship visits. During each visit one or two of the four shops reported increased sales over similar days of the week and sometimes takings had doubled on the same day on the previous week. This very crude data unfortunately does not give me the information I need to focus our efforts to attract particular categories of cruise ship. I think we need to do more market research so we can focus our efforts better on attracting future ship visits.
Our Environmental Responsibilities
One of my more tricky challenges is to get a good understanding of the environmental responsibilities of the Authority. The DHNA river team have done very well this year when dealing with a number of vessels that were taking on water. In one case all fuels, toxic liquids and batteries were removed and the vessel was moved to a mud berth to prevent it sinking.
More recently, it was amazing to get so many volunteers to help clean the banks of the river and that we were able to tie these in with the Great British Beach Clean advertised by the Marine Conservation Society(MCS).
The MCS has some great information on organising beach clean events and, with help from the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty(AONB) and South Hams District Council, it was possible to coordinate cleaning events led and supported by locals in Totnes, Ashprington, Dittisham and Dartmouth in addition to an RNLI organised event. The experience showed there is great support for efforts like these to improve the quality of the river and we hope to make them more regular and to harness the interest of the community and local businesses.
As part of this initiative Penny Woollams organised the showing of the film “A Plastic Ocean” at the Flavel at the end of last month.
Certain events this year leave me in little doubt that there are conflicts of interest surrounding some of the river related activities. Even amongst the recognised Authority Stakeholders there are often varied and conflicting viewpoints and I fear I tend to hear the views of those who speak loudest and often from those who have had a negative experience. DHNA is required as a Trust port to take account of stakeholder views and I would encourage those of you with views to provide feedback.
Needless to say, from the feedback I receive direct from customers, I assess that the DHNA team is doing a great job!