Boating and slipping regulations.

[Ozzie]

I was talking to a neighbour recently who owns a keeler. He sails regularly with a crew in club races and the subject of this years haulout came up. He told me of the new and now more rigorous enforcement of established regulations that are making it almost uneconomic for the average keelboat owner to perform DIY maintenance on their boat.

Three decades ago, in our first year of big boat ownership we had our Swiftcraft on the hard locally while I rebuilt my trailer and arranged a mooring. If you wanted to work on the boat you just rocked up. Things of course have evolved over time for good reason. But my neighbour told me slipping these days requires more and more additional costs to the point of making yacht ownership almost beyond the means of Joe Blow.
To wit.(not all new)
All persons on site have to have a work card (green?)@ $150 per person.
All persons inducted onto the work site. ($??)
All electrical equipment must be tagged.(not cheap)
Chemical sheets covering all chemicals with safety info.
All chemicals including polishing creams, cutting compounds etc even your coffee have to be labeled (ok, I made the last one up)
Tarps to catch removed material for disposal
Tarps hung to contain dust.
Probably more he didn’t mention.

Nobody would argue that these have not been introduced over time for good reasons for the most part. I’m very careful with safety, dust and disposal of material at home, as I’ve riffed on here before, but it’s just another good reason that owning a trailerable vessel makes makes more sense as things get worse regulation wise.

I’ve no idea where this will go in the finish but it may well destroy the viability of keelboat ownership other than for the well heeled and scrap many seaworthy and otherwise viable old boats.

And that would be a shame.

In the end my neighbour worked out it was getting closer and closer in cost to getting the job done professionally so he’s opted for that this year and his crew are chipping in but, he’s unsure how far in the future this will be viable. Ever increasing insurance costs are also beginning to bite and that’s covered on here elsewhere. I’d also add that the word “professionally” is somewhat subjective in certain cases, not meaning just boat stuff here of course, but who doesn’t have a story of “professionally “ done stuff needing to be redone.

I’m Interested In anybody having experience with this.

[Watto]

There’s less and less places that even allow you to DIY.

[Andrew]

Seem to be the way of the world these days. At least a TS can get around this by trailing it ashore somewhere to scrape (onto a tarp) and antifoul.

Not sure what the reg's are up here now. In 1989 i was allowed to DIY scrape and antifoul my keeler in Rosshaven boatyard (Townsville) without any red tape or extra costs. In NZ yachts were all DIY on at least one Boat Club slipway i saw in action recently. No tarps, just remove it with a shovel and bucket. Different countries , different states and councils, smaller towns, probably all have different rules and levels of strictness compared to the big Cities?

Careening between tides is the cheapest way to scrub down, repair and antifoul https://www.tomrobinsonboats.com/blog/careening-arana
This guy was in Peru and he found a "Secret little beach"

[Ozzie]

https://www.practical-sailor.com/blog/t ... f-boatyard

Further reading on the subject. USA site but scan down to the comment section below and there are two comments from Sydney based Yachties relevant to the problem here. Hang onto your 563, as yachts become the things only millionaires can afford to service trailer sailers may triple on value