.: Chris Davies MEP (Liberal Democrat - North West England)

Approached  Chris Davies MEP  on  6th July 2008 via e-mail with a letter of introduction and again on 10th July 2008, also via e-mail,  with an apology for technical site problems.

We received the following e-mail from Danny Langley on behalf of Chris Davies on 17th July 2008:

Dear Mrs Woods

Thank you very much for your e-mail about live-aboard sailors and the problems with safe havens on Europe’s coastlines.  I am responding on Chris’s behalf.  I understand you have also contacted the other 10 UK Liberal Democrat MEPs, whose offices I have liaised with before replying. 

I have read the details on your website and praise the work you have done this far on the behalf of liveaboard sailors.  Certainly yours has been the only correspondence we have received regarding this issue and I for one was not aware of the problem.

The solution you have proposed would certainly help liveaboard sailors but on the face of it I’m not certain how workable it would be.  Also the suggestion that sailors could dock at specific Marinas for long periods of time at no cost would, I suspect, be opposed by Marina operators.

My advice at this stage would be to encourage other sailors to join in your campaign and collectively to show to non-boaters how this is becoming a problem: focusing on specific areas where there are no ‘safe havens’ for example and showing how sailors are genuinely in danger of not finding anywhere to land.  The argument that landing is becoming expensive is unfortunately not in itself enough to warrant the reforms you are seeking.

I would also suggest that in the first instance you might write to some of the authorities and national agencies for the places in which the
disappearance of safe havens are becoming a problem.  It may well be that they are happy to meet to discuss your concerns and to recommend a way forward.  I suspect this would be easier for all concerned then the establishment of a sea pass, which would need to be administered and paid for and could of course be subject to forgery or manipulation even if any agreement could be reached with both public and privately owned ‘havens’ around Europe on recognition of such a pass.

Yours sincerely

Danny Langley

 
Danny Langley
Political Officer
Office of Chris Davies MEP

87a Castle Street
Stockport
SK3 9AR
United Kingdom

Telephone:+44 (0) 161 477 7150
Fax:+44 (0) 161 477 7007
www.chrisdaviesmep.org.uk

We replied, via e-mail on 17th July 2008 as follows:

Dear Mr. Langley,

Many thanks for your response to our email.

It is not too surprising that you were unaware of this problem as it is one that might be said to be in it's infancy. Our very reason for tackling it now is that it will be too late to do anything once public money has been spent on laying down moorings in large numbers of safe havens and the precedent of collecting large sums of money for the use of a lump of concrete on the end of a piece of rope has been established too firmly to budge. The custom of putting moorings all over a natural safe haven and charging hefty fees for the use of one, denying anyone the right to ignore the buoys and use their own ground tackle plus insisting on a maximum of a few days' stay, is a relatively new one but it is, from reports we have been receiving, on the increase and this campaign exists to try and ensure that this practise does not end up turning yachting/boating back into something that only a wealthy elite can afford to contemplate.

Clearly, my communication skills need polishing up as I appear to have given you the impression that we are suggesting that marinas are somehow involved in our proposals. On the contrary, it has been accepted by the vast majority of sailors of our acquaintance that, although berths in such places used to be affordable, they have long since become beyond the means of most ordinary live-aboard sailors, excepting perhaps for a few days each year, to fill up water tanks or haul boats out and anti-foul their undersides. This is understandable - a great deal of money has been invested in the creation of marinas and that investment must not only be recouped but, in most cases, must also turn a profit. Apart from which, staying in one is somewhat akin to how one imagines it would be to live in a car park...

No, our proposals involve only natural safe havens, joint property of all the citizens of the countries in which they are found and, by extension if I have understood the purpose of the concept of Europe, therefore, to all Europeans jointly, although some individual governments may labour under the illusion that they 'own' the land and sea around them...

Whilst, unfortunately, we are not in a position to be able to afford the luxury of travelling all over Europe to meet the authorities involved we do not believe it would yield much by way of encouragement. On the only occasion that we attempted to discuss the matter, with the harbourmaster of Torrevieja, on mainland Spain. who had decided that anchoring outside the marina was to be abolished and had, apparently, managed to get a legal decree to that effect, his reaction to being asked about it was to slam down the telephone and send the police to threaten us, and the two other vessels, a small family sloop and a medium-sized catamaran anchored in a perfectly unproblematic spot (i.e. not in the way of anyone or anything and in an area clearly marked with the anchor symbol on nautical charts) with being cast adrift if we did not leave 'his' harbour within the hour. The marina staff had been instructed to slash all our tenders (ribs/inflatable dinghies) to stop us going ashore, even though we were not using the marina as a place to tie them up! How do I know  who destroyed our tenders? The retired couple on the catamaran arrived from the shops with all their provisions just in time to see the dirty deed being done and were assured by the staff that they were acting under instructions from the harbourmaster although none of us had ever been advised before that day that we might not anchor there nor go ashore. This left three sets of live-aboard sailors in danger and with no means of going ashore unless taking a berth in the marina. We agreed to take a berth in the marina and the harbourmaster announced that none was available for a boat as large as ours so we must just get out! Immediately, regardless of weather conditions.

The sloop, owned by a family unable to afford marina fees, had two small children aboard and the police deliberately caused the boat to come close to capsizing, almost drowning the children, as a result of which, the head of the family tried to take his boat out to the nearest safe haven down the coast. Long story short, his boat was destroyed and his family left homeless. Our parrot had a heart attack and died during the harassment received from the waterborne police and we nearly lost our boat just outside the harbour. The retired couple living aboard the catamaran were terrified, having never encountered this sort of hostility. One member of the police force was actually filming the situation on a video camera until I said that I hoped that if his parents ever decided to visit my country on a boat, they would be better treated than this, at which point he put the camera away while his colleagues jeered.

So you, see, Mr. Langley, whilst I think you may have hit upon a good idea and will certainly try to contact as many European authorities as I can, it may be safer to talk to them from a distance!

We do not have the means at our disposal to do a great deal that is not possible via e-mail and the website but will certainly take your suggestion on board as best we can and are, indeed, encouraging everyone who has an interest in the matter to become members of the Free Sea Pass campaign.

We acknowledge your fears of forgery and manipulation but those possibilities exist with all documentation and a database would allow authorities to check passes quite easily in this day and age of computerisation, don't you think? We are uncertain of which countries allow the private ownership of bays around their coastline. In the case of Spain, there is no such thing and it appears to be local authorities who are looking to rake in some extra loot by spreading their activities beyond the shoreline... we have received reports of similar activities in other countries but, as this campaign is less than a month old, we have not had time to do a great deal of research into these details yet.

Once again, many thanks for your kind attention,

Linnet Woods