Recently, I sailed past the old pilot's wharf at the east end of the Spit, across the harbour entrance from Harington Point. I had often travelled that same way and I haven't seen a boat tied up to it for years and years.
Forty years ago, I tied my little keeler Caravelle to the wharf for lunch. Because of the wash from passing marine traffic and the incoming ocean swell, it was an uncomfortable and unsuitable berth. I felt my yacht would be damaged banging against the piles.
I stayed but briefly and moved across the channel to a calm anchoring in 3m of water off the site of the old military jetty on the south side of Harington Point.
The pilot's wharf was built so the marine pilots, who lived in the two houses at the end of the Spit, could easily be picked up by the pilot launch and taken to an incoming ship. The two houses were sold to private owners many years ago, and now the pilots go out to shipping from Port Chalmers.
There were many jetties around the harbour whose days of usefulness have passed.
They, too, have rotted away or been demolished.
Because the pilot's wharf is no longer needed for its original purpose, it is practically never used by boaties and is an unsafe location for tying up boats, I see no reason for it to be maintained, repaired or rebuilt. It is an eyesore in a stunning pristine environment and needs to be gone.
The road from Aramoana village to the old wharf, through the sandhills of the Spit, is partly over the beach, which is covered with salt water for part of the tide.
Launching and recovering a tinny from the sand of Spit Beach would be fraught with problems. Although a new wharf would be to the advantage of some of the residents of Aramoana, I cannot see it is of much use to other members of the boating fraternity of Otago.
Racing sailing dinghies seldom go that far north.
Runabouts normally launch and return to Careys Bay and can beach at the Spit. Trailer-sailors can anchor and people can wade ashore and keelers would normally anchor off and sailors would go ashore in their dinghies. There is no need for a wharf and if there were one I doubt it would be used.
If it were to be part of a cycleway with a crossing from Otakau wharf to the Spit so cyclists could do a round trip of the harbour, the answer may be in the cycle barge I saw near Nelson. It ran from the north end of Rabbit Island across the northern entrance of Waimea Inlet to Port Mapua. It was like a small navy landing barge with a drop-down bow door. With a stern anchor laid out, it ran up on the beach and discharged its load of cyclists. It also had water ballast so the trim could be adjusted for the load. The owner had built three of them.
Whatever is done, the cost would either be borne by ratepayers or some other worthwhile project to improve our boating experience on Otago Harbour would not be built.
I have been sailing the Otago Harbour for 67 years. I built my own 7ft "P" class in 1945 when I was aged 16 and have been sailing in six yachts since then.
I know the harbour as well as anyone, and although there are a few improvements I could suggest to enhance the sailing experience, repairing or rebuilding the old pilot's wharf is not one of them.
- Bill McIndoe lives in Careys Bay.
