Holyhead Marina

Some boats that were lifted out on Shell Island were also blown over and others damaged in the same storm.
I do not know if this has ever happened in an Easterly Storm before but I might find out soon.
Must be very upseting for the owners in both places. My heart goes out to them.
 
peteK said:
I was wondering if any other areas facing east suffered damage such as Beaumaris.
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All in top end of Strait out on land and well apart from one boat which leaned on its neighbour which was probably due to way propped. At Holyhead still masts sticking out of water and Council clearing beaches over a large area of the polystyrene that has broken up.
 
Mister E said:
Some boats that were lifted out on Shell Island were also blown over and others damaged in the same storm.
I do not know if this has ever happened in an Easterly Storm before but I might find out soon.
Must be very upseting for the owners in both places. My heart goes out to them.
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I was across the lagoon at Mochras on the Llanbedr side for 8years: locals always said the storms they feared most were from the east. The Rhinog mountains inland would cause the wind to come down in massive squalls. Also the wind would funnel down the Artro valley and directly across the lagoon. Wind speeds briefly in excess of 100mph have been reported there on bad easterlies. Sorry to hear of the damage, rotten for the owners.
 
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Just an update

Note to Editor Stef on YBW. Could you help get some more support for these owners in your own press ?.....3 weeks gone and virtually no progress on recovery.

It appears that the majority of the sunken boats have still not been recovered from the remenents of the marina. Relationships between boat owners and the Marina have sunk to an all time low. (pun intended) .

Many are still trying to get their boats and personal possessions recovered.

A new Open Facebook Group has been started and has just posted that an interview on ITV Wales may finally give some help to the many owners who 3 weeks after this disaster have no idea when their boats will be recovered.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1783651691942748/


To quote from Eila Wilkinson and Sue James post
"It is interesting the consensus of opinion is that it is logistics that are holding up the recovery process.

It is interesting how the fact that insurers and solicitors are denying permission to continue is never mentioned or not known."


 
TSB240 said:
A new Open Facebook Group has been started and has just posted that an interview on ITV Wales may finally give some help to the many owners who 3 weeks after this disaster have no idea when their boats will be recovered.
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It's not very clear from the FB posts - which understandably assume that you know everyone involved by name - but am I correct in thinking that a consortium of boat owners have hired a private recovery team of divers and crane, but that the marina won't let them move sunken bits of pontoon in order to lift boats?

It must be horribly frustrating for the owners, but I can see that implications for both financial and H&S liability must be very complicated, and I am not surprised that it is taking time. On the other hand, I'd have hoped that the marina and its insurers would have made arrangements to recover all the boats themselves asap.

Best wishes, sympathies and good luck to everyone directly involved.
 
JumbleDuck said:
It must be horribly frustrating for the owners, but I can see that implications for both financial and H&S liability must be very complicated, and I am not surprised that it is taking time. On the other hand, I'd have hoped that the marina and its insurers would have made arrangements to recover all the boats themselves asap.

Best wishes, sympathies and good luck to everyone directly involved.
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I am just a local observer and on recent visits I have seen recovery has been confined to boats and or broken away pontoons that were washed up and easily lifted by crane onto the Breakwater or onto the marina car park. Some have been refloated and taken away for repair or lifted onto the sailing club car park.

As far as I can ascertain none of the sunken boats have been recovered.

The management and recovery action of the sunken boats is the sole responsibility of the Marina and its insurers. The sunk boats are not deemed to be wrecks in the legal definition. Just lost property at the moment!
The local authorities have played their hand in pollution control with booms and industrial sweepers recovering polystyrene debris
My observation of collected polystyrene in open topped IBC bags blowing in the wind back out to Sea does not fill me with much confidence that this has been managed with any quality or urgency! Streams of Diesel out of sunken boats remain a considerable pollution hazard.

The Marina claimed to have a major disaster action plan in place surely by now this would have meant a recovery operation of sunken vessels would have started by week 3!

I hope to learn more from the ITV Wales recorded interview of the leading active owners who still have to recover their lost boats. Perhaps their story could be part of a YBW news item also?

I don't have any personal connection or axe to grind. I share the frustration and personal loss that both the Marina and boat owners must be feeling but this is multplied by a considerable factor when little or no progress is visible.
 
savageseadog said:
Surely the sunken boats are very low priority? They're sunk and there won't be much of value to recover.
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Harsh and probably true.

Insurance wont pay a bean to any owner of a sunk yacht until it has been recovered and its write off value assessed and agreed.

If it is leaking diesel and you have a care for the environment is it a low priority?

If it was your home at the bottom of the harbour would you think it should remain a low priority?
 
TSB240 said:
Harsh and probably true.

Insurance wont pay a bean to any owner of a sunk yacht until it has been recovered and its write off value assessed and agreed.

If it is leaking diesel and you have a care for the environment is it a low priority?

If it was your home at the bottom of the harbour would you think it should remain a low priority?
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Are all the boat owners dealing with the marina's insurance rather than their own, and leaving the insurance company to get the money back from the marina?
 
TSB240 said:
If it was your home at the bottom of the harbour would you think it should remain a low priority?
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Problem is, we don't know what's happening behind the scenes and who may be claiming from whom. Quite likely sunken wreckage has to stay put until liability has been established and it's known whose insurer(s) will be funding recovery.
 
The salvage of the sunken boats will not be a priority for the insurers, marina or harbour authorities. The pollution control effort will focus on the larger commercial vessels with significant quantities of fuel on board plus the recovery of the broken up polystyrene. To salvage those boats that sunk on the pontoons will have to wait until the pontoons have been removed before anyone can realistically attempt to move them. It's going to be a hazardous business doing that and trying to prevent additional damage to sunken boats will, I suspect, not be top of the priority list: it will be a clearance operation rather than a "what can be saved one".
I have immense sympathy for all those who've lost boats in this incident but for the boats still remaining in the water I'm afraid that they will be regarded by the insurers as constructive total losses. They will be written off and the wreckage removed at the lowest possible cost.
 
oldharry said:
I would have thought it was the various owners insurance companioes doing the negotiations, which is probably why its all taking so long?
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I think the insurance companies will pool the claims and deal with it through one set of Surveyors, Solicitors etc
 
savageseadog said:
I think the insurance companies will pool the claims and deal with it through one set of Surveyors, Solicitors etc
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I spoke to Mike Fox, well known surveyor up here, when I was there, a good bloke and up there with the best so I suspect he will be a leading figure.
 
12 Year Plan B-) said:
We seem to have drifted off topic here. Does anybody have intel on what Anglesey boaters might hope to find at Holyhead in the coming years?
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No direct Intel but I reckon there is virtually zero chance of the Marina being rebuilt as it was and where it was. Short term HHSC is probably the best resource if you want to stay there in the future. They have 10 visitor moorings and operate a launch service. There has been absolutely no progress made in the recovery of 60 sunken boats yet. IMHO It is as much of a mess there as it was a day after the storm.
 
TSB240 said:
No direct Intel but I reckon there is virtually zero chance of the Marina being rebuilt as it was and where it was. Short term HHSC is probably the best resource if you want to stay there in the future. They have 10 visitor moorings and operate a launch service. There has been absolutely no progress made in the recovery of 60 sunken boats yet. IMHO It is as much of a mess there as it was a day after the storm.
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BBC Wales did a piece on it last night. Confusing messages received - the marina say that recovery of the sunken yachts is the responsibility of the owners but the Facebook page says the equipment hired by the owners for recovery was prevented from being used by the port owners. The equipment being used by the marina is only recovering the pontoons as far as I can understand.

https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=holyhead marina disaster
 
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