Extract from:
Version: Final Submitted: 19/07/2020
Government action on this is ongoing
19 July 2020
The Honourable Liliana (Lily) D'Ambrosio MP
Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change; Minister for Solar Homes
The Honourable Melissa Horne MP
Minister for Ports and Freight; Minister for Fishing and Boating
Mr Neale Burgess MP
State Member for Hastings
Mr Matthew Jackson
Chief Executive Officer - Parks Victoria
Mr Reece Taranto
Area Chief Ranger - Parks Victoria
Dear Honourable Members, Sirs
Warneet North Jetty
The North Jetty at Warneet is a highly-valued structure in regular use by pedestrians and the boating fraternity throughout the year. In June 2020, access to this jetty was closed.
Access closure – really?
Recreational boaters have always relied on the jetty to transfer passengers and provisions safely between water craft and the shore. Slipping and Mooring Maintenance operations run by the Warneet North Boat Club are likewise dependent on the jetty to allow crewing and material transfer in an area of Western Port that is highly sensitive to tidal heights. The impact of the closure on the club’s operations cannot be overstated. Supporting detail is attached.
We urge that the necessary steps be taken to reopen access to this vitally important facility.
Yours faithfully
John Atkinson
Secretary
The case for supporting short-term loading and unloading at the
Warneet North Jetty
OVERVIEW
The Warneet North Boat Club (WNBC) is an active contributor to the Warneet and broader community and has been for many decades. Its primary focus is on boats and draws its membership from a wide field of enthusiasts located from Castlemaine and Lower Plenty in the north to Powelltown and Paynesville in the East, from Lang Lang East and Coronet Bay to the south and Beaumaris through to Mt Martha in the west. And of course, many members come from Warneet and its surrounds and the suburbs of greater Melbourne.
Recreational boating and club slipping and maintenance activity inject significant monies into the local economy via material purchase and specialist outsourcing. Club management looks to the future with optimism and has invested heavily in refurbishing the infrastructure needed to support its operations. Even so, the recent closure of the North Jetty is of major concern and will have a significant impact on operational effectiveness.
The following sections elaborate.
WHO has ..
· populated the seascape with moored boats for over 65 years providing a water-side vista as good as any for residents and visitors enjoying the foreshore facilities beside the North Jetty?
· provided facilities for the slipping and maintenance of an estimated 192 different water craft since its formation in 1954 ? The variety of boats now represented are predominantly wooden fishing boats but also include steel and fibreglass hulled boats, multi-hulls, yachts, trawlers, motor cruisers and a mooring maintenance barge;
· provided a modest place for displacement-boat enthusiasts to meet, discuss and help each other source material and parts or to fabricate the bits needed to keep their vintage craft in sea-worthy and occasionally pristine condition?
· continued to meet its necessary but not extravagant expenses by sensible restraint providing the opportunity for boating enthusiasts of modest means to actively participate in a cherished recreational pursuit?
· established itself as a not-for-profit Incorporated Association to facilitate this?
· none-the-less, directly contributed over $1,000,000 to the local economy since inception and who-knows-how-much via private expenditure by boat owners across this time?
and
· continues to inject some $20,000 per annum directly into the local economy through its on-going operations, an equivalent amount privately from boat owners and further thousands of dollars directly to the Victorian Government from licensing, registrations and related administration charges?
The ANSWER is the Warneet North Boat Club and its members.
and WHO has ..
· provided the Warneet Fishing Club with access to premises to hold Committee and AGM meetings, to facilitate recruitment drives and fishing competitions in concert with the other proximate fishing clubs in the local community and to hold social functions?
and
· provided local branches of the Country Fire Authority with access to club premises in support of training exercises related to on-shore and on-water fire scenarios?
The ANSWER is the Warneet North Boat Club.
In short, the club has been a dedicated and conscientious player in the local community for over half a century and is making every effort to remain so.
WHO externally facilitates ..
· the existence of the club via a generous site-lease arrangement?
The ANSWER is the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) formally established in 2015 with its roots way back in the era of the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE). Local management of the club’s site lease has been delegated to the Warneet Foreshore Committee of Management whose finances are directly contributed to by the WNBC;
and
· the ongoing serviceability of moorings via the establishment of a regime for the Installation, Inspection and Maintenance of moorings in waterways that include the Warneet Harbour?
The ANSWER is Parks Victoria via its creation of the ‘Authorised Mooring Tackle Contractor List’. The WNBC was added to this list over 10 years ago and has continuously remained on it to the present day. The club acquits its responsibilities under this authorisation with both pride and professionalism.
The club’s mooring inspection and maintenance capability is highly valued by its members. Some 40 swing and double-ended moorings are inspected annually using a custom-built barge dedicated to the task. The importance of this capability to club operations is such that club management has invested over $10,000 to-date in the construction and upgrade of this maintenance barge. Figure A1 refers.
Fig A1 - Mooring Barge
The WNBC values this support from external parties and trusts that it will continue.
And internally, WHO facilitates …
· the ongoing capability to slip, move and maintain boats in modest premises specifically established to support this activity?
The ANSWER is the Warneet North Boat Club.
The facilities supporting the slipping and maintenance of member boats have been in continual use since establishment. Like any other facility, they are subject to ongoing wear-and-tear.
Across the last few years, club management has closely examined its key infrastructure and, in concert with ongoing enthusiasm from boat owners to keep the club as an important and viable capability in this part of Western Port, decided to invest heavily in a yard-wide upgrade.
In 2018-2019, the club dismantled its bespoke Slipway Winch for a total refurbishment and refit. The dismantling, transfer and reassembly of the winch together with the oversight of the work were undertaken by club members with the relevant trade backgrounds. The heavy machining and component reconstruction was outsourced to a company in the Yaringa business park specialising in this type of work.
The associated cost was around $11,500. The winch now has an ongoing life expectancy of many decades to come. Figure A2 refers.
Fig A2 - Winch refurbishment
Later that year, the club engaged specialist contractors to remove and replace the Main Slip-Rails connecting the yard with Rutherford Inlet. The money invested in this upgrade was around $20,500 for an ongoing life expectancy of 50-80 years. Figure A3 refers.
Fig A3 - Slipway replacement
Now, just completed in June 2020, the club once again engaged specialist contractors to remove and replace the Transfer Rails running across the yard. These allow boats to be safely moved between the Slipway and the maintenance bays positioned along the length of the yard. This investment is around $16,000 for a similar life expectancy of 50-80 years. Figure A4 refers.
Fig A4 - Transfer Rails replacement
CURRENT STATUS - the North Jetty
This jetty is one of two jetties located at Warneet. It is north of the village and enters Rutherford Inlet roughly aligned North-South.
Figure A5 shows the jetty in 2012, providing boating access via a landing on the outer end with short-stay pens on either side.
Fig A5 - Warneet North Jetty
The Inlet is very tidal. The picture shown was taken about half an hour before low tide. Normally, the tide height is near the landing shown at the head of the jetty but in Spring Tides, water can come up to the jetty planking.
In 2016, the lower landing at the head of the jetty was deemed unserviceable and was removed. Across May-June 2017, the lower landing was rebuilt to reinstate the North Jetty as a safe, reliable and heavily-used part of the Western Port boating infrastructure.
On 23 October 2019, Parks Victoria published an updated ‘Set-aside areas within the local Port of Western Port’ schedule. The schedule indicated that use of the berthing pens either side of the jetty was now prohibited. Use of the jetty-head area was confined to short-term loading and unloading activity only. The following table is an extract from Schedule 1 in this publication.
Table A1 - Areas set aside at the Warneet North Jetty
Across January 2020, Parks Victoria removed some of the ladders located in the berths on either side of the jetty. These are of wood construction and those removed were in poor condition near the seabed.
The club assumed that these were in need of repair and were in the process of being replaced. Our letter dated 3 February 2020 to the Permit and Port Services Officer at Rosebud sought further clarification but, to-date, remains unanswered.
Figure A6 shows the view from the head of the jetty and shows some of the ladders remaining on the downstream side. Ladders on the upstream side have also been removed.
Fig A6 - Ladder removal
In the first week of June 2020, access to the jetty was closed to the public by Parks Victoria using Barrier Tape. Notification of the closure was provided via a telephone call as the closure was taking place. No prior consultation had been offered nor had any advance warning been given.
Subsequently, access was prevented via a steel mesh and gate construction (refer Figure A7) and now, currently, by a fully welded enclosure (refer Figure A8 - with the lighting inadvertently reflecting the current community mood).
Fig A7 - Initial Enclosure
Fig A8 - Current Enclosure
Across the ensuing days, no mention of the closure appeared in the Notices to Mariners (NTMs) on the Parks Victoria website. E-mail query was made on 26 June 2020 regarding the status of the North Jetty and the Parks Victoria intentions concerning it. During a telephone interaction with Parks Victoria on 14 July 2020, receipt of the query was mentioned but the authority saw no need to raise a NTM regarding the closure. No detail on future plans for the jetty was offered.
Seeking further insight elsewhere, the material published on the Department of Transport’s website was examined. In March 2019, the Department had established an entity titled Better-Boating Victoria. One highly promoted initiative is the Port Phillip and Western Port Infrastructure Review aimed at identifying how the management and provision of facilities used by recreational boaters might be better organised and improved. The intent looks promising. External support to help with the review was engaged in September 2019 with the goal of producing a report in early 2020. This report has yet to materialise.
The Better-Boating Victoria initiative is planned to run across 4 years but with no guarantee that final recommendations will be funded or even actioned. Current claims of progress being made point to boat-ramp improvements for the trailer-boating public. In fact, this work is funded and managed outside of the Better-Boating entity.
It remains unclear whether the infrastructure subject to review even includes constructs such as the Warneet North Jetty. The WNBC is left with the view that Better-Boating Victoria may well set the scene for long-term action but is not positioned to address the current closure.
CLOSURE - the Impact on Club Operations
Figure A9 shows a view to the North Jetty approaching low tide taken from the Slipway in front of the club. The picture was taken looking to the west.
Fig A9 - North Jetty downstream from the WNBC
Two important observations can be made.
Firstly: The slope of the seabed is very shallow in this part of Rutherford Inlet and continues to decrease the further you venture upstream. The Warneet Harbour is not alone in this. Indeed, navigating around Western Port as a whole is very tidal-dependent and the skills required to avoid running aground need to be quickly learned.
The corollary to this, however, is that access to actual water is restricted to about 2 hours either side of high-tide. If a boater doesn’t time it right, a 6-hour wait on the mud is the reward.
Looking again at Figure A9, the condition of the seabed looks forbidding.
Near the shore, sand settles and provides a reasonable base for swimming and launching kayaks etc. The window available to access the water over a sandy bottom is around one hour but depends on the height of the tide.
Beyond about 6 metres from the shoreline, the bottom is primarily saturated-mud waiting to consume any footwear that might venture into it. Hauling a tender across it to the water is impossible. Bringing a boat up onto it is courting disaster. The potential for a roll-over into a vice-like grip of the mud and a subsequent sinking is very real.
The jetty extends the length of time that the water can be accessed by creating the 4 hour window across the high-tide.
Secondly: The proximity of the North Jetty to the WNBC is around 80 metres. Transit time by boat between the jetty and the club’s Slipway is about two minutes. Transit time between, say, the South Jetty and the Club’s Slipway is about 15 minutes requiring careful navigation along the channel between the other boats in the harbour.
Now what is the relevance of these observations?
SLIPPING
Suitable Conditions:
All of the boats in the club are displacement boats. The boat weight varies from about 1.5 tons up to about 8 tons. They all have keels and have drafts that vary from about 18 inches to about 5 feet. And they all need water to slip.
Looking again at Figure A9, the depth of the seabed decreases gradually from the end of the jetty as you move towards the shore. A small change in the water depth covers (or exposes) a lot of the seabed.
Figure A5 showed a view of the Slipway taken from the boundary of the yard looking north into Rutherford Inlet. The slope of the Slipway is a little steeper than that of the seabed shown in Figure A9. The need to position a boat about a metre above the highest water-mark once it is in the yard and limited Slipway length drive this.
Timing:
Bringing a boat off the water is never attempted after about 30 minutes before high-tide. It is certainly not considered on a falling tide. In practice, the 4 hour window provided by the jetty above is reduced to a maximum of 1.5 hours. The bigger the draft on the boat being slipped, the smaller this window becomes. Other factors such as wind strength and direction, wave height, tide times and ambient weather conditions all play a part but the water depth and ability to quickly utilise the available window are key.
Returning a boat with a large draft to the water can usually be attempted in the hour preceding high-tide. If the boat has a shallow draft, it can be returned to the water from about 2 hours before high-tide to perhaps 1 hour after it.
Crew embarkation/disembarkation:
Slipping-days are days of intense short-duration activity requiring good planning and quick responses. If possible, the club tries to undertake multiple boat-movements into/out-of the yard on the same day. With the larger boats, this is not generally possible.
Crews are drawn from club members. Because of conflicting obligations, they frequently arrive close to slipping-time. Crews access the boat being slipped (or leave a boat returned to the water) using the North Jetty. They undertake preparation activity in the yard and, once the conditions are suitable, can get on-board the boat within 5 minutes.
The short-stay area at the head of the jetty only has capacity for one boat at a time. As a consequence, short-stays are usually very short with 5-15 minutes being typical.
For Slipping, the North Jetty greatly increases the window available to access the water and to do so more safely. Its proximity to the club allows members to react quickly and be more responsive to the conditions at hand.
RECREATIONAL BOATING
Typically, boaters spend recreational time on the water in the company of others - family, mates, visitors etc. And they all bring provisions and possessions with them. Transfer using a boat’s tender is possible, albeit less desirable and often requiring multiple trips, but not without access to the short-stay area on the jetty.
For Recreational Boating, the North Jetty provides a good window of around 4 hours duration to access the water and undertake the required transfers between shore and water craft in a safe manner. This is particularly important where children are involved and when demand on the short-stay facilities in the harbour is at its highest.
CREWING and SUPPLIES - the Mooring Barge
Mooring Inspection and Maintenance work is initiated from the club’s yard. Supplies are loaded onto the barge dependent on the workload scheduled and the anticipated repairs needed. Crew-members then climb on-board and the barge is launched.
Inspection and maintenance work is generally carried out across a low-tide. Occasionally, repair work might require a piece of tackle not carried on-board. Access to the short-stay area of the jetty allows a needed supply to be retrieved from the yard and the repair work to be finished. Once the scheduled workload has been completed, the mooring barge can be taken to the jetty short-stay area to await sufficient water to bring the barge back into the yard. In the interim, crew members can return to shore and await retrieval or disperse as appropriate.
For Mooring Work, the North Jetty provides a means for the quick retrieval of additional supplies and to gain early access to the shore once the planned work is completed.
EMERGENCY SUPPORT
Sporadically, boats fail. They can sink or vital equipment within can become unserviceable. Access to a proximate short-stay facility can prevent an unfortunate incident becoming a disaster. Ironically, the shallowness of the North Jetty seabed can be a benefit under some circumstances.
Having a short-stay capability in the North Jetty location is a key facility to have available should an emergency arise.
PERMANENT CLOSURE - unintended consequences
Should access to the North Jetty remain closed or should a decision be taken to remove the jetty completely, a number of unintended consequences will likely occur. Possibilities are:
· operations at the WNBC will become less viable;
· club membership will falter;
· the boat population in the harbour will decline;
· the quality of the seascape available to shore-based visitors will be reduced;
· the attractiveness of Warneet and its foreshore areas as a destination will dissipate; and
· hopefully never, club existence could be threatened.
These possibilities have not been quantified.
POSSIBLE OPTIONS
Financial Restraints:
The WNBC recognises the impossible position the current pandemic has placed the Government, its Departments and the general population in. Every organisation and most people will be cash-strapped for many years to come. Large budgets and big expenditures will be few and far between.
Emotional Capital:
Money may indeed be in short supply for the present but investing in people’s emotional capital presents an enormous opportunity for the government and should not be easily dismissed. The WNBC believes reopening access to the Warneet North Jetty is fundamentally important to the well-being of Warneet residents and the wider community and should be on a ‘must do quickly’ list. The practical reasons for doing this have been addressed in-part above.
In Short:
The North Jetty structure consists of metal and wood. The jetty is held above the high-tide level by metal pylons. Some rust and corrosion is evident in the metal components and some rot is evident in some of the wooden components. The jetty was designed to only support pedestrian traffic.
The jetty has been in service for many decades. Areas within it have been cyclically repaired across the years. The short-stay area at the head of the jetty has been recently refurbished, is fully serviceable and remains in heavy use. For practicable purposes, the short-stay area only has capacity for one boat at a time. Berthing areas of either side of the jetty, judged in need of repair but little-used, have been taken out of service.
The need to regularly inspect the jetty is a given. But, with pedestrian-only traffic and a limit of one boat at a time in the short-stay area, the WNBC believes that the jetty is NOT in danger of imminent collapse and is still able to perform the vital functions it was designed for.
Possible options are pragmatically identified below.
Option A: Reopen and leave as is
Relevant steps:
· have faith that the jetty could be used for the next 5 years;
· leave the restrictions contained in ‘Set-aside areas within the local Port of Western Port’ schedule published by Parks on 23 October 2019 in place;
· remove the barrier preventing access at the entrance to the jetty;
· add additional signage as appropriate;
· advertise the actions taken and receive accolades for doing so; and
· plan for a substantial audit of the jetty after 5 years to assess what might be continued or what might need to change.
Option B: Reopen with minimal interim repairs
Relevant steps:
· undertake the steps of Option A;
· conduct minimal interim repairs; and perhaps
· extend the hand-rail on the upstream-side towards the head of the jetty.
Option C: Reopen with selective refurbishment of the berthing pens
Relevant steps:
· undertake the steps of Option B;
· replace access ladders to a limited number of berths (suggestion 2-4 only) on the upstream side of the jetty but not beside each other and commencing one or two berths in from the head of the jetty; and
· publish an update of the ‘Set-aside areas within the local Port of Western Port’ schedule.
Option D: Reopen with comprehensive refurbishment
Relevant steps:
· undertake the steps of Option B; and
· more extensively refurbish commensurate with budget.
Option E: Replace with a modern design to specifically support short-term boating access.
This is one creative possibility for the long-term plan.
SUMMARY
The closure of the Warneet North Jetty was unexpected and of great concern to the Warneet North Boat Club.
This club has been an active participant in the Warneet community for over 65 years and has provided an excellent facility for boating enthusiasts to slip, maintain and moor their boats at the north end of Rutherford Inlet. Club operations have made significant contributions to the local economy and continue to do so.
The club has invested heavily in its supporting infrastructure and it will remain a viable entity for many decades to come. Integral to its operations is the wider window of access the North Jetty provides to the water. If loss of access continues, the effect on operations and a broader impact on the local community will bring other unwarranted losses.
Moving forward, a number of options present themselves. Given the inevitable fiscal restraints about to befall the government, a simple, pragmatic, reopening is advocated.
Access to the Warneet North Jetty should be reinstated in the immediate future with the intent of a further review of its condition and use in 5 years.