"Getting the builders in" is a challenging prospect on land at the best of times. Add in the sea, and it's then a challenge-plus. Thus when you're working on and in the waterfront to implement a project within a busy fishing/sailing harbour which has found itself becoming something of a cult tourism magnet, the problems are magnified tenfold for contractors and harbour users alike.
Certainly, this is the prospect at Howth, where this week Sisk the Builders will be starting to move in to set up a new operational site on the Middle Pier. This will – in just 13 months, it is hoped - provide a completely new 135 metres of proper quay wall along the currently rock-armoured west side of the Middle Pier, with dredged material from the new "long berth" being deposited in a revetment-retained infill on the Middle Pier's East Side, thereby providing much-needed extra shore space for vehicles serving the boats using the new berths.
Part of Howth's attraction for visitors is the colourful but often very crowded scene along the main fishing boat area on the West Pier. It's entertaining to be feasting off seafood at one of the many characterful restaurants along the pier, as forklifts with fishing gear go buzzing closely past. And every so often, a seemingly enormous fishing boat makes her stately way across the quay in slow style on the Syncrolift trolleys to receive the attentions of Johnny Leonard and his skilled staff in the shipyard. There's never a dull moment. But there are times when it's all just too much of a good thing. A safety valve of alternative berthing and extra shoreside space was becoming urgently needed.
Howth's Fish Dock may provide a colourful setting for a quayside array of characterful seafood restaurants along the West Pier, but extra berthing space is urgently needed. Photo: W M Nixon
Down along the west side of the Middle Pier was the only option. This would be simple enough if everyone was game to close off substantial parts of the harbour to let the contractors have a free run at the job. But it says everything about the spirit of Howth that this doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone. From the beginning, the assumption was that virtually all of the harbour's activities could continue with as little interruption as possible, and Harbour Master Harry McLoughlin and Howth Yacht Cub Commodore Ian Byrne, together with representatives of other interests, set themselves the task of facilitating the contractors while keeping the floating show on the road.
As Ian Byrne became our "Sailor of the Month" back in May for deciphering the multiple rules for exiting the first Covid lockdown in a way which was comprehensible to all sailors, he was ideal to speak for the consumers, while Harry McLoughlin - a widely-experienced harbour master who has a real vision for Howth - ably filled the role as the human face of officialdom. Between themselves and the contractors, they worked out a viable scheme despite having to include extra elements made necessary by the space requirements of COVID-19
Site plan showing (red line) the agreed limits of the boundary of the works. This will enable much of the harbour – including the public slipway beside the Lifeboat Station – to continue to function, but inevitably there will be some reduction in car parking spaces.
Of course, those who know Howth well appreciate that while this new project will – if all goes according to plan - give the fishing fleet a very welcome and useful Christmas present at the end of 2021, it is just the beginning of a process in which the long-overdue dredging of the harbour – more needed in some parts then in others – is steadily moving up the agenda.
But if this scheme goes according to plan in a spirit of harmony, it will, in turn, create the atmosphere in which other mutually beneficial works can be undertaken with an attitude of realism and a mood of mutual respect. And if by some happy chance the pandemic subsides and visitors are allowed back to Howth in their previous numbers next Spring, well, the fact that there's an interesting bit of maritime contracting work underway will give them something extra to look at, for the main attraction of Howth Harbour seems to be that people on holiday enjoy nothing more than watching other people doing unusual work…
By the beginning of November (COVID permitting) this end section of Howth's Middle Pier will be a hive of activity with the rock armour on the Fish Dockside being converted into a quay wall.
