Historic Mercury Bay Boating Club caught in bind as Cyclone Hale storm surge undermines building

Wednesday, 11 January 2023

Cyclone Hale forced the Mercury Bay Boating Club to decide whether to put in unapproved weather protection or obey the law and risk losing the building, commodore Jonathan Kline said. Video first published January 11 2023.

Armed with headlamps and saws, the members of the Whitianga-based Mercury Bay Boating Club were at the ready on Tuesday night to save their clubhouse by sacrificing the building’s deck to the ferocious seas whipped up by Cyclone Hale.

Club Commodore Jonathan Kline said the situation was grave, and after high tide at 10:40pm accelerated efforts were being made to relocate the club’s premise further in inland.

Dawn broke on Wednesday showing the deck significantly undermined and it was craned off the site about 8am.

The Mercury Bay Boating Club sacrifices its deck after storm surf from Cyclone Hale undermined the building overnight.

Kline said on Wednesday morning that Hale had created “devastating waves that undermined the earth underneath our beach deck”.

“We lost approximately another two and a half metres. We finished the high tide cycle with part of the decking hanging in the air and all efforts this morning have focussed on removing the deck and protecting the building.”

A high tide earlier on Tuesday had scoured away large chucks of earth from the foreshore in front of the historic club. The club, to which Sir Michael Fay belonged, was instrumental in the push to challenge for the 1988 America’s cup.

Commodore Jonathan Kline on the beach before last night’s high tide that undermined the club’s deck.

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That challenge was a “David and Goliath” battle said Kline, much like the efforts to save the club’s building.

In the past the club had “been monitoring diligently the recession of the land in front of us,” but like his volunteer committee who joined him to witness the process unfold that evening, hadn’t anticipated it would occur so quickly.

“We thought we had a couple of years to do it. But here now, in the space of two weeks, we don’t have those couple of years any more.”

Sections of the unprotected shoreline were more severely eroded.

Over the last three to six months, Kline said the club had witnessed “an acceleration in the loss of the bank. As a committee we explored all options with council … It was determined that council would not support financially any sort of hard structure, like the breakwater.”

Kline and his committee had been liaising with both the Waikato Regional and Thames Coromandel District councils to ascertain whether the club’s plight could trigger an emergency response that would see a temporary defence of concrete blocks placed on the foreshore to prevent the worst of Tuesday’s abnormally high tide.

Delivered by truck from Paeroa on Tuesday morning at a cost of between $6000-8000, the blocks were intended to prevent a capitulation to the sea.

Instead, the blocks sat idle as the sea tore soil and sand from beneath the clubrooms. The reason, said Kline was the legal grey area in which the club’s circumstance exists.

“We are in a funny area. We are a private dwelling, on council land. We do not own the land, we lease the land. So, we cannot choose to do whatever we want to do out in front.

“We did not want to be the renegade club that put down a defence system without the support and without the endorsement of the authorities … We were informed we don’t fit into the law that allows those blocks to be placed in front of this club. For them to give that okay to us.”

Kline and his committee were left between the devil and the deep blue sea. Either arrange the defences without council consent and risk repercussions, or let the waves do their work.

“It is extremely disappointing, we have a potential solution sitting right there, but we cannot make the decision to put them on the beach for fear of the repercussions,” Kline said.

However, on Wednesday the blocks were lowered in place and sand in geotextile bags were lowered into place as a temporary sea wall.

So what changed?

The regional council said due to improving sea conditions the temporary placement of the blocks is likely to have minimal environmental effects.

The future of the Mercury Bay Boating Club is uncertain as its building teeters on the edge.

In a statement, regional consents manager Amy Robinson said such measures do have the potential to exacerbate beach erosion in the vicinity of the hard structures.

'The advice we provided to the boat club [on Tuesday] related mainly to the emergency provisions of the Resource Management Act that may be available to TCDC. At that time, we told the boat club they needed to consider the possibility for enforcement risks if putting the blocks on the beach caused adverse impacts.”

It also said it was unaware the blocks had been used until they were informed by TCDC on Wednesday.

After a notable absence on Tuesday night, Thames Coromandel District Council staff were on hand on Wednesday to support temporary coastal defence measures.

Mayor Len Salt said in a statement that the club was the only site of significant damage in the district.

Council has been having ongoing dialogue over a number of years about hazard management and relocation of the facility as the only practicable long-term solution.

The statement went on to say council had a request from the Boating Club to place sixty 600kg concrete blocks on the beach as a protective barrier. A discussion was had regarding council taking responsibility by using Section 330 of the Resource Management Act, however the provisions under this section are designed for public works and utilities.

“It was suggested in the short term that the Club could look to remove the deck, which would buy some time so they could continue progressing their longer-term solution of moving the building,” the statement said.

“This is the situation the Club is now dealing with … which our Council is assisting with. This includes helping with the removal of the deck, storage of property and supporting a plan and fundraising efforts to assist with moving the building.

“Under the lease conditions, which the Boating Club are aware of, the building was constructed in a way that it could be moved, if the site became impacted by coastal erosion.”

The district council confirmed the club made its own call on placing the blocks on Wednesday.

The club’s vice commodore Simon Rawlinson said he was glad the council were in attendance on Wednesday. “I’d rather have them on side than offside.”

Plans have expedited to find a contractor who can relocate the remainder of the building to a location further away from the crumbling seashore.

Estimated to be in the range of “$140,000-$200,000” to move what remains of the building, the club has said they will require as much support from the community as they can get.

The plan now is to prevent any further erosion, and in turn provide sufficient land to stage a jack-up of the building to transport it to higher ground.