Sports Comment with Nick Tolerton | Canterbury Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Canterbury

When salts look over the latest in boats, motors, and chandlery at the Christchurch boat show this weekend, some larger questions are also sure to be chewed over. Our small boat facilities are in the spotlight again as the city council's new Lyttelton marina working party prepares to meet yachting and boating interests.

What is clear if you talk to any yachtie or boatie, is that they do not want to wait a decade or more to see the council's cherished Covington scheme go ahead before facilities are improved.

There are three significant issues, but all can be progressed long before Covington's high rise towers over the tank farm if the working party is prepared to listen to the users.

Issue one, probably the easiest and cheapest to address, is a tidy-up of the reclamation.

At the end of next summer Lyttelton will host its biggest-ever contest, with 250 boats expected here for the Optimist nationals. Most of them will be visitors, some from overseas. God knows what they'll make of Little Baghdad.

Issue two is the inner harbour moorings, where teetering, rotting piles accommodate about 68 boats at present.

If the Port Co replaced the piles, the inner harbour could berth up to 100 small craft. A beacon of light here the company says it's going to talk to berth holders about ways of improving the management and maintenance of the moorings.

Issue three is the future of the marina and a small boat harbour at Magazine Bay. Boat owners, be they Naval Point racing sailors or recreational powerboat owners, feel there is no reason why a safe smallboat harbour cannot be developed there, using money the city council has already earmarked for public facilities for breakwaters and improvements to the public ramp.

That would give users the safe harbour they have a right to expect. And building that as soon as poss should not affect any future development by Covington.