By Richard Evans
Copyright dailypost
A jet ski was recorded travelling at a “bonkers” 35 knots (40mph) through the middle of Conwy harbour over the weekend, says the council’s harbour master. On another occasion, a jet ski attempted to swamp a dinghy carrying a child by doing “doughnuts” around the boat, filling the vessel with water in an estuary with fast, powerful currents.
The incidents were described by Conwy’s Harbour Master Matthew Forbes at a Harbour Committee meeting at the council’s Coed Pella headquarters yesterday (Wednesday) evening.
“We’ve had a really fraught summer with jet skis this year in the (Conwy) harbour. We’ve had a number of complaints from people in Deganwy and people out on the river,” Mr Forbes told the committee. Sign up for the North Wales Live newslettersent twice daily to your inbox.
“The difficulty we have is whilst we’ve got a by-law, which is a maximum speed of 10 knots, in order to prosecute we need to prove the bylaw has been broken beyond a reasonable doubt, so that’s the same burden of proof as if you are bringing a criminal conviction.
“So the trouble we have is pinning a particular rider to the jet ski, to the speeding because we need CCTV footage, a witness statement – we need to catch the rider basically getting on and off the jet ski, and then we have to get the personal information, and sometimes they give false information. So it is not as easy as people might think for us to prosecute.”
Mr Forbes said he had hoped to show footage of a jet ski incident at the meeting but was prevented by data protection laws.
“But at the weekend we had a jet ski going 35 knots through the middle of the harbour,” he said.
“Now that is just absolutely bonkers-dangerous because if you’ve got somebody in a dinghy coming out from behind a yacht and you’ve got a jet ski going at 35 knots, you don’t need to be a mariner to work out what the potential dangers are.
“We’ve also had issues with jet skis trying to deliberately swamp boats, so doing doughnuts around and creating waves, again with a child in a dinghy, which is again bonkers.”
He added the council is seeking advice from other harbours to improve enforcement. “So it is something we are aware of. I had today some correspondence with the Harbour Master in Chichester,” he said.
“They have a very good record of prosecution there and there are some tips which we are going to try and implement in Conwy, to see if we can take it further and actually get a successful prosecution, because I think that would send a message out to people.”
He added: “We have been working with local police officers. Where possible he has gone and spoken to people where we’ve been able to get registrations, and we’ve seen the reckless behaviour, but the council do have CCTV, both at the harbour office and other cameras, but again it is a case of getting the cameras at the right place at the right time to capture it.”
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