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NRC on fan worm


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Interesting article on the stuff website about biofouling and commercial shipping. 

 

I personally think it is stupid that individual regional councils set the rules locally, rather than a nationwide directive.

 

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/111015084/biosecurity-threat-sees-dirtybottomed-boats-ordered-out-of-new-zealand-waters

That is a very insightful story. The sub story explains how all these marine pests got here in the first place, and the primary means of them getting from port to port.

Nothing to do with yachts.

Does give some insight into the costs of control...

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sometime that happens because there is a lack of nationwide directive and at a local level "doing nothing" is not considered a reasonable option.  For anything in relation to ships, big or small, moving around the country its usually not a good approach.....

 

Interesting article on the stuff website about biofouling and commercial shipping. 

 

I personally think it is stupid that individual regional councils set the rules locally, rather than a nationwide directive.

 

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/111015084/biosecurity-threat-sees-dirtybottomed-boats-ordered-out-of-new-zealand-waters

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Interestingly with the recent departure of the leopard seal I went for my first westhaven swim in ages the other day.

 

I believe there is considerably less fan work in the area around my berth than when I last swum around my boat in the berth (summer 17/18). Not scientific and I don't have photos for a comparison, but it was over run before and now there are only a few. Not sure if Auckland now has something worse that has overgrown the fan worm or what.

 

Interested to see if anyone else here has noticed the same?

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Really smart rules ! Give them 24 hours to leave after they have arrived .Duh. The bad things have already been delivered. Might have thought that the ship has to deliver a clean hull certificate to its next port before it leaves for NZ just like NZ yachts plying between marinas. Oh that's right the Regional Councils can only get at us through Marinas. Otherwise its the wild west with an occasional arrest by the Sherrif .

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Oh that's right the Regional Councils can only get at us through Marinas. Otherwise its the wild west with an occasional arrest by the Sherrif .

 

And moorings.  That's where my boat is and they found fan worm on it.    The silly thing is,  is that whangarei harbour in contaminated with fan worm and they want me to clean my boat because it has fan worm on it.  

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Interestingly with the recent departure of the leopard seal I went for my first westhaven swim in ages the other day.

 

I believe there is considerably less fan work in the area around my berth than when I last swum around my boat in the berth (summer 17/18). Not scientific and I don't have photos for a comparison, but it was over run before and now there are only a few. Not sure if Auckland now has something worse that has overgrown the fan worm or what.

 

Interested to see if anyone else here has noticed the same?

 

Out of interest, what antifoul are you using?

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Romany - it's gone north. Last I heard was a week or so ago it was in Marsden cove. After stops at wieti and gulf harbour to eat some dinghies. Details in the leopard seal thread here on crew.

 

Out of interest, what antifoul are you using?

 

we use a hard international antifoul, I forget the name, micron something. I've never seen fanworm on our hull, but we keep it clean for racing. But the marina itself used to be covered in fanworm on the piles and piers and now there are much fewer.

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Where has the bloody thing gone?

As someone said, Owha got to Marsden Cove Marina.. and the smaller leopard sea has turned up in Parua Bay now. The only good thing about it is that Westhaven fenders and inflatables are now safer I guess.

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Raz88, yes def noticed the change, believe it is the parore that eat parts of the worm casing, but were gobbled up by the apex predator that has no place in a marina

Come to think of it, while i still see mullet or similar all the time, I haven't seen a parore in ages, and they used to be everywhere in westhaven.

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 I did that classics regatta a couple of weeks ago and  the boats were moored where the MRXs are. I was surprised to see a whole school of mixed juvenile fish  in  there including small parore. It was like looking at tropical fish in a big tank or like Fiji there were so many.

 That seems healthy to me, good to see.

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I see Auckland Council (inevitably) are getting in on this.

There was a lady from NIWA on behalf of AC handing out flyers at our marina yesterday and it sounds like they had reps at other marinas and boat ramps as well.

I asked her about the fact that all these pests had been brought in on overseas vessels and what were they going to do about that. She had no answer.

AC have published this

https://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/environment/plants-animals/pests-weeds/Documents/biofouling-and-invasive-marine-pest-species.pdf

which you can just see will lead to hull inspections like the North already has

We can provide feedback here altho of course whether anyone actually takes any notice is a moot point

https://www.bionet.nz/control/marine-pests/marinepests/

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There doesn't seem to be a lot of point in assessing boat hulls when the marinas are crawling with fan worm.  Was in Gulf Harbour and if we didn't have fan worm when we arrived, we would have had it by the time we left.  I haven't heard any news about what requirements are being placed on marinas and other floating structures, only about what the hoops we are jumping through due to no fault on our side.

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