A BRIEF HISTORY OF MAYFLOWER BOAT OWNERS ASSOCIATION

In 1983 the area of the Cattewater skirting the Barbican looked very different to the area today. No marinas. no pontoons, just many dozens of  swinging moorings, most owned and used by Plymouth residents with their small boats. Then came the plans for the first of the large marinas that now form part of the Plymouth waterfront. Plymouth CC granted planning permission for Queen Anne Battery (QAB) marina and the boat owners were told they no longer had moorings.

The boat owners realised that as individuals they lacked cohesive power and so the Mayflower Boat owner’s Association (MBOA) was formed in 1984. The 60 strong Association negotiated with the Cattewater Harbour Commission and Plymouth City Council and they were given an area once used for swinging moorings off Commercial Wharf to be re-laid as trot moorings thereby accommodating most of the displaced Plymouth local small boats. These moorings were managed and serviced by the boat owners themselves who were able to acquire one of the fishermen’s sheds on the Commercial Wharf as their base. The Association  restricted the moorings to seasonal use so that they could be brought ashore, serviced and stored over winter to protect them from the ravages of the winter storms.

In 1992, the RAF vacated RAF Mount Batten. Another large marina was slowly being developed off Turnchapel and once again owners were losing their long held moorings.  MBOA was approached to see if they would expand their Association to include a number of swinging moorings to the north and east of the Mount Batten peninsula. In 1993, in addition to the 60 trot moorings for boats up to 26 feet off Commercial Wharf MBOA took over the management of a further 27 swinging moorings. Almost all the swinging mooring owners in the area joined the Association.

Access was from slips at  Turnchapel, Oreston , Elphinstone and Commercial Wharf. Although the same Association, the two sections each looked after their own areas, getting together as one only, for their AGM and pre-winter meetings.

This continued until 2000 when the Mount Batten Water Sports Centre was completed around what had once been the RAF Sergeants Mess and access was permitted from the two slips. MBOA negotiated with MBWSC  to allow three tender racks to be built, for 18 tenders and located at the top of the main slip.

In 2005 came a body blow to the Association, the news of the decision to develop a commercial pontoon running parallel to the Commercial Wharf right in the middle of the trot moorings, The 60 trot mooring users of the Association were warned that they would have to give up their moorings within two years. The Association fought long and hard against this second eviction but there was no way of changing the developers’ minds.

In 2011 the MBOA base is one of the store sheds at  the MBWSC. MBOA  has  68 swinging moorings  off  Mount Batten in 5 rows A to E, in water depths from  0m at mlw Springs to  up to 3.8 m for the outermost moorings, The Association has outside tender rack spaces for 31 tenders  and in store space for a further 17 tenders. It is still, 4 years after the moorings were co-located,  striving to get the blocks positioned to minimise the possibility of boats touching. One solution to this is to reduce the number of available moorings. The Association is loathe to do this since there is sufficient space for that number if only the blocks are in the correct positions.

Extracts from Dave Pawley’s potted history