This port notice from the Niue Yacht Club.

Published 8 years ago, updated 6 years ago

To all of our cruising friends in the South Pacific who have plans to visit Niue on your voyage across the South Pacific.

Please note we have a restricted number of moorings at this stage in the season. This is due to previous tropical storms that have buried some mooring footings and upended others.

As at 5th May, we have 11 moorings operational with a further four deployed this afternoon if all goes well. As some of these moorings are in 30 metres of water, it is a major and costly task to employ divers to dig these out.

World ARC have 24 yachts arriving during May, split into two fleets, so mooring space will be extremely “tight” from 25th May until 30th.

Niue Yacht Club asks cruisers to plan to arrive after the 30th May if possible.

This situation is now further compounded by the following notice from the Government of Niue regarding emergency repairs and replacement of the wharf winch.

The Ministry of Infrastructure wishes to advise the Wharf will be closed from Wednesday 10 May to Friday 19 May 2017 to undertake emergency derrick repairs. The Govt Ministry apologizes for any inconvenience caused but must ensure that the safety and reliability of this key asset for all users are put first.

As previous cruisers to Niue will know before they arrived, that all tenders have to be lifted out onto the wharf deck. This is because of the open nature of the port and the conditions that often exist in the channel approaching the wharf steps.

Although some emergency measures are being considered to lift fishing vessels and dive operators boats in and out of the channel, movement of yacht tenders is going to be severely restricted.  Any yacht arrivals in this period will need to organize a water taxi to drop crew off at the wharf.

This emergency repair programme has also put a halt to the placement of our final moorings in Alofi Bay.

My apologies to all cruisers for such short notice that may affect your plans, however, it is a major safety issue for all users of this vital facility.

Nil desperandum!

Keith
Commodore
Niue Yacht Club