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From: (no name) (no email)
Date: Thu Mar 01 2001 - 11:33:20 EST
In the Bay Area, we have the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development
Commission, which is a state body that regulates most marinas, yacht clubs
and other waterside facilities. The BCDC, as it is called, enjoys the same
esteem among boaters as the ACLU does among conservatives.
Its policy is that no marina can have more than 10 percent of its slips
occupied by liveaboards. Usually, a liveaboard is defined as someone who
spends more than three nights out of seven aboard a boat. And if a marina, in
the BCDC's judgment, is not suitable for the 10 percent -- lacking sufficient
pumpouts, for example, or poor tidal flushing action -- it will restrict the
marina to a lesser percentage or prohibit liveaboards altogether.
It enforces its dictums by threatening to cancel a marina's operating permit,
which means that the marina can be forced out of business. So the marinas
acquiesce in whatever nonsense the BCDC promulgates simply to stay alive.
Here is an example of that sort of nonsense: Our marina has a zero-discharge
clause in its permit, meaning nothing can be pumped over the side. I called
BCDC to ask whether this meant that one could not leave an automatic bilge
pump operating when one was away from the boat. I was told that this was
prohibited. I then called Sea Horse Marine, which is the underwriter for many
boat policies, and was told that such a rule would render any boat in a
marina uninsurable (since most boats that sink do so at the dock).
Mike Fordyce
M/Y Fortissimo (Chris-Craft Roamer 56)
S/Y K. 361 (C&C 40)
Vallejo, Calif.
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