The Haines Borough is taking the first step toward a downtown municipal boat yard, a facility supporters say will help keep money in town during the winter.
Harbormaster Phil Benner said as many as 12 boats can be stored in a vacant, beachfront lot south of the ice machine during the coming winter. The borough has purchased 60 metal jack stands for supporting vessels on land, using $8,000 from the harbor fund.
As many as 25 local vessels are stored each winter at a similar facility maintained by the municipality in Skagway. “We want to be competitive with Skagway,” Benner said, especially considering boats there are from Haines.
Space will rent at 20 cents a square foot or about $60 per month, he said, and revenues will go toward paying off the jack stands.
Commercial gillnetter Norman Hughes, chair of the borough’s Port and Harbor Advisory Committee, said space will be made available to recreational boats and the area will augment a small area for boats at the borough’s Lutak Dock. “It’s great. Boats won’t have to be going to Skagway and won’t be sitting in the harbor, being worried about for shoveling snow off. The public expressed interest to Phil about winter boat storage.”
Benner recently graded and graveled the lot and is looking to extend temporary electric service to the area, which would allow boat owners to do minor work on boats, Hughes said, adding that he’d like to see a permanent location in town. “I’m a proponent for having a boat storage or work yard in the (downtown) basin…This is an experiment. We’re getting our feet wet. We’d like to see how it works.”
The boat storage yard was a topic at an informal meeting last week between borough officials and harbor users.
Harbormaster Benner said after the meeting that other topics important to fishermen include one to add stairs to the harbor grid (serviced now by only a ladder) and the waiting list for boat slips. Some boat owners support waiting list preferences for residents or commercial fishermen, but because the facility is paid for with outside sources of funding, such restrictions can’t apply, he said.
“I wish we could make locals and fishermen a priority, but because of where we get our money from, we can’t,” Benner said.
Benner said the harbor will be the first in the state to be lit exclusively with LED lighting. He also said the borough has received four fish gut traps aimed at maintaining the health of harbor sea floors by diverting fish waste.
A migratory salmon grant of $38,000 paid for the four traps. Three will be located at the end of floats in the downtown harbor. One will be stationed at Letnikof Cove.
Benner said he hopes to hold at least two informal meetings per year with harbor users similar to last week’s event held at the American Legion Hall.