COWES PORT HANDBOOK 2014 - 2015
Harbour Master’s Welcome
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Welcome to the 2014 edition of the Cowes Port Handbook - a guide to
our harbour and to the two towns that share it. I hope that you will find it
both interesting and informative, whether you are a yachtsman, a visitor,
or a commercial harbour user.
As Cowes Harbour Master for the past 15 years, I believe that this year
has heralded some of the harbour’s most notable achievements. Work has
begun on the construction of a new detached breakwater, to make Cowes
a truly sheltered harbour, giving greater protection to vessels within it
and premises and businesses alongside it, with completion set for autumn
2015. Within the breakwater construction area is an exclusion zone for
all vessels not involved in the construction, this has been marked off with
buoys, as per the diagram on page 18. For those of you who wish to see
the plans in more detail, please do visit our website, the details of which
are on the opposite page, or come to the Harbour Office on Town Quay,
where they will be on display throughout the summer.
Another significant development has been our successful application to
obtain ‘Powers of General Direction’ for Cowes Harbour. This enabled
us to replace our byelaws on 1st April 2013 with a new set of General
Directions, ensuring that our harbour regulations are fit for purpose,
for the safety and benefit of all our harbour users. Future revisions to
General Directions can be made after consultation with harbour users,
or ‘stakeholders’, rather than by application to the Secretary of State,
thus making the process more efficient and effective. An example of this
process was the introduction of the 2014 Chain Ferry General Direction.
The consultation process which preceded the introduction of the new
General Directions, and revisions introduced on 1st January 2014,
demonstrated the great value of the Cowes Harbour Commission
Advisory Committee. Comprised of representatives chosen by each of
our key stakeholder groups, the Advisory Committee worked closely
with the Commissioners to refine the proposed directions, ensuring
that stakeholder concerns were addressed. As part of that process, the
direction to replace the byelaw governing the Cowes Chain Ferry was
postponed until January this year, this and other amendments brought
in on 1st January are fully explained on pages 18-19 in this Handbook.
The Commission, as a Trust Port, reinvests all profits from our operations
including those from our marine services, at Shepards Wharf Marina,
Kingston Wharf, and Cowes Harbour Fuels, back into the harbour, for the
benefit of all our stakeholders. This reinvestment programme continues,
and alongside the breakwater project, we shall also be investing in
improvements to the wharfage at Kingston, where the Island’s fuel
and much of its aggregate requirement is brought ashore. We are also
proactive in supporting an initiative to bring the Cowes yacht clubs and
other local commercial businesses together, in order to improve the total
offering of the two towns and to ensure that the visitor experience is a
positive one, to the benefit of all.
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