It will be the first of its kind on a Bay of Plenty river and will open a raft of opportunity for water-based recreation in the coming year.
Bay of Plenty Coast Rowing Club is on a mission to create a pontoon for rowing boats, canoes and the community on the Wairoa River.
The pontoon project has been in the pipeline since 2016, says master rower and project manager, Charlie Burns and was raised due to safety concerns.
'At the moment we've got kind of a slippery muddy bank that we go down and launch the boats from a little beach,” says Charlie. 'I've fallen over on the [bank] carrying a boat – so originally the idea was because we need a safer way to get down to the water so people don't hurt themselves.”
For everyone
The whole project will include a concrete slipway for coach boats, a ramp and pontoon for rowing boats, and retaining to secure the riverbank.
'The pontoon is to make the river accessible to recreational water users, so it's not just for us. We've got a canoe crew up there, people like to swim there in the summer so anybody will be able to use it.”
The pontoon itself will be about four metres wide and 20 metres long, says Charlie. 'The whole thing costs just under $525,000. It's unbelievable.” When the project was first planned seven years ago the estimated cost was about $140,000, says Charlie. 'The project timing was unfortunate. The global pandemic held us up quite a bit and had a dramatic impact on cost.”
Charlie says typical rowing pontoons are manufactured overseas. 'We've just had an engineer join the club and he's quite keen to see if he can construct the pontoon domestically.”
Charlie says the club is still fundraising and currently has $385,000 raised from different grants. 'If we get enough funds we'll be able to import something from overseas.
'If we don't then we're going to have to figure out how to do something more home-grown.”
Home-grown hopes
Charlie says rowing pontoons are all over New Zealand but there isn't enough to manufacture them in our country. 'The nearest [river pontoon] that we went to look at was out in Hauraki…they've made that themselves.”
Whether imported or home-grown, the club is aiming to kick off construction between August and February, after whitebait spawning season has finished. 'We can't disturb the riverbed during the whitebait spawning season so that ends in August and we're trying to get all of our ducks in a row so we can do it late this year.
'Everyone's pretty excited of the prospect of us pulling it off before Christmas – so fingers crossed!”