More than 2,000 people enjoyed tours and/or diving off the tall ship Hawaiian Chieftain April 9-13, but it”s unlikely the unique sailing/trading educational vessel will be back soon. This is not the first or the last vessel to be discouraged from using the harbor by a rolling ride through a narrow chute of a harbor opening.
“Ask a captain to take a million dollar boat that weighs 120 tons and put it through a slot that gives you 15 feet of safe water on either side with ocean swell behind you, complicate that with wind, and or fog and it is an intense crossing,” said Senior Capt. John Morrison.
Was he scared going in and out with waves bouncing the big boat about?
“As a vessel captain I like to think that we don”t get scared, we just get more intense as tolerances get tighter, and the Noyo Harbor bar/break water is a place that makes the intensity go to 11,” said Morrison.
Breakwater
The narrowness of Noyo Harbor”s entrance combined with the big waves that regularly batter boats using the entrance, has greatly limited its ability to participate in serious trade.
During the Clinton Administration, the federal government made the last of several major efforts to upgrade many of the nation”s small and medium sized harbors. The federal government provided $30 million for a Noyo breakwater but local agencies were never able to come up with $1. 5 million in matching funds so the proposal died.
“There have been a number of proposals to improve Noyo Bay,” said Kevin Michel, secretary /treasurer of the Noyo Harbor Commission.
“There have been several breakwater design concepts, proposals to blast or otherwise remove some of the rock formations on the south side of the harbor approach. I am not aware of any efforts to increase the width of the current harbor entrance. If a vessel is too large to use the current entrance, it would be too large to safely navigate the river channel,” Michel said.
A breakwater at the outside edge of Noyo Bay was part of the original federal-state and local harbor plan. However, the original breakwater was nixed in 1962 when its design was determined to be faulty.
The U.S Army Corp of Engineers spent the next 40 years considering and promoting plans for a breakwater. Congress authorized and funded the work in 1976. Other plans were finalized but never acted on in the 1980s and 1990s.
Mooring
A breakwater could provide many benefits to commercial and recreational boaters.
At April”s monthly meeting of the Noyo Harbor Commission, Dwight Harris proposed keeping his boat in the ocean beyond the sandbar. He has been on the waiting list for a spot in Noyo Harbor”s mooring basin for a year and a half, but nothing has come up. He”s kept his sailboat at Dolphin Isle Marina for the past two years, meaning he can only use it when the river is deep enough due to tides.
“It draws 4 feet, which limits when I can take it in and out. I”d like to be able to have a mooring out in the bay and access by rowboat,” said Harris.
There is currently a boat that has been moored in the river for three months. Nobody has proposed mooring out in the ocean in this century. Harris said he knew it would likely be a lengthy process, but thought he would get the ball rolling.
Dusty Dillion, a member of the Noyo Harbor Commission, told Harris the idea isn”t new.
“It showed up in the Noyo Harbor Plan in 1985 as a development along with a taxi service,” said Dillion.
“Historically, prior to the jetty in 1948, all the boats that couldn”t be dragged across the bar were left at anchorage. I have [historic] photos showing 40 or 50 boats anchored out there,” Dillion said.
Some harbors do allow such outside mooring, but developing such a regulatory regime usually involves multiple agencies and years of permitting. For example in several (much larger) Southern California harbors, the county sheriff issues mooring permits and regulates the special mooring area in the outer harbor. Without a major developer on site, and with the huge wave heights that batter the Noyo entrance regularly in the winter, any such proposal seems farfetched at the moment.
“We are investigating what the process is to develop a mooring field in the bay but I am pretty sure that there would not be enough revenue generated to cover the cost of developing, managing and maintaining a mooring ball program in the current bay,” Michel said.
Breakwater
The harbor entrance often has rollers of 20 feet, meaning only the bravest and biggest boats would want to moor in the manner proposed by Harris. Longer term, there are some possibilities.
“If there was a breakwater built, then it would be a different calculus. With calmer conditions it might pencil out with higher utilization,” Michel said.
Even if a breakwater was built someday that would allow an underground debris wall to reduce wave action, that entrance tube is unlikely to get much bigger.
The Hawaiian Chieftain has a very wide keel that allows it to land on a beach and not become stuck or tip over, to unload even without a harbor and just wait for the tide. The ship was created to use and innovate the technology of the past in service of a future dream of the return of local trade and localization. For now, it”s used for educational purposes by a harbor in Washington.
The ship can sail without fuel, or use fuel in modern engines. It can be tied up like any ship or make a spectacular beach or sandbar landing, thanks to its width.
That width also made navigating the entrance challenging. Morrison describes what that was like.
“At low tide there are rocks visible 25 to 30 feet into the channel from the cement break walls, reducing the navigable channel to very skinny if you assume that the rocks are at a 60 degree to 45 degree angle as they are piled up on the way to the bottom. With Hawaiian Chieftain I observed the rocks at lower water, and felt safe crossing the bar knowing that when I was on range there was approximately 15 feet of navigable water on either side of me as I crossed the bar. However, Hawaiian Chieftain”s beam and width at depth (18 feet wide at 5.5 feet) makes the crossing very intense,” Morrison said.
1994 report
During the Bush and Obama administrations, infrastructure upgrades have taken a back seat but the plans for a rubble breakwater are technically still in the master plans of the Corps of Engineers.
A harbor breakwater would likely bring more boat traffic to a harbor that is already booked with boats. It would need some channel upgrades if heavy trade was going on in the entrance area.
A breakwater would fit well with any development that might happen on the former mill site.
“Improvements at Noyo River and Harbor would result in the reduction of boat and harbor damages, a harbor of refuge for vessels during storm activity, increased commercial fish catch, and increases in recreational boating. The project construction would employ local (currently unemployed) labor and enhance area redevelopment. The improvements should also improve overall commercial fishing operation, thereby contributing to the local economic base,” a 1994 Army Corps of Engineers report states.
