Magazine Bay #2: Reclamation and marina saga
Continuing the story of Magazine Bay...
By the first decade of the twentieth century the port of Lyttelton had outgrown the confines of Erskine Bay. Christchurch businessmen complained about the high rail charges to the port and the increase in wharfage charges to pay for the new programme of dredging. The idea of a port at Heathcote and a canal into Christchurch had been gaining favour since the 1880s. In the end cost, and the problems associated with a river as opposed to a deep water port, scuppered the proposed plans. The idea of further reclamation on either side of Erskine Bay was taken up instead.
The reclamation at Naval Point began in 1909 with the building of a protective embankment from the western end of the mole. Suitable stone was hard to come by and, once in place, suffered from subsidence (up to 40ft at one point) and from the battering of southerly storms. In 1913 the new suction dredge Canterbury began dumping spoil behind the embankment. The reclamation, which wasn’t completed until 1925, changed significantly the relationship of Bakers/Magazine Bay to the town and port of Lyttelton. The popular swimming beach at Sandy Bay was lost to the reclamation.
By the first decade of the twentieth century the port of Lyttelton had outgrown the confines of Erskine Bay. Christchurch businessmen complained about the high rail charges to the port and the increase in wharfage charges to pay for the new programme of dredging. The idea of a port at Heathcote and a canal into Christchurch had been gaining favour since the 1880s. In the end cost, and the problems associated with a river as opposed to a deep water port, scuppered the proposed plans. The idea of further reclamation on either side of Erskine Bay was taken up instead.
The reclamation at Naval Point began in 1909 with the building of a protective embankment from the western end of the mole. Suitable stone was hard to come by and, once in place, suffered from subsidence (up to 40ft at one point) and from the battering of southerly storms. In 1913 the new suction dredge Canterbury began dumping spoil behind the embankment. The reclamation, which wasn’t completed until 1925, changed significantly the relationship of Bakers/Magazine Bay to the town and port of Lyttelton. The popular swimming beach at Sandy Bay was lost to the reclamation.
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| Sandy Bay, Lyttelton c. 1890s. Archives NZ/ECan |
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| Sandy Bay, Lyttelton with its shark-proof fence, about 1901. Archives NZ/ECan
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The notion of a boat harbour was raised at various times from about 1919 onwards. In 1923 the Canterbury Yacht and Motor Boat Club built a clubhouse and deck on the shore in the inner harbour. A slipway with two trolleys on rails led steeply to the water at the west end of the clubhouse. Once boats were landed they had to be carried across the railway lines and stored clear of the tracks. Room for expansion was limited. Magazine Bay was considered as the site for a marina but a 1931 engineering report stated that the bay was unsuitable for the development of a boat harbour because the material available was insufficient in quantity and quality to build a boat harbour breakwater. The pressure continued, no doubt compounded by the establishment of the Banks Peninsula Cruising Club in 1932. In 1937 the harbourmaster reported that “every available mooring at Dampiers Bay, on the western side of the inner harbour, is occupied and there is a waiting list.”[8]
The club gradually migrated southwards across the reclaimed area. In 1956 the area where the Naval Point Club now stands was leased from the Lyttelton Borough Council. A large rocky point was levelled, a clubhouse built in 1957 and a slipway constructed by club volunteers into Magazine Bay. In 1960 a wharf was built for the club by the Lyttelton Harbour Board.
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| The Canterbury Yacht and Motor Boat clubhouse marked with arrow. Naval Point Club archives
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| First stage of the new clubhouse, 1957. Naval Point Club archives |
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| Clubhouse extensions 1964. Naval Point Club archives |
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| Working on the concrete slipway, 1957. Naval Point Club archives |
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| Building the slipway 1957. From left, Dave Smith, Barry Bowater (standing with shovel), Merv Holland and Graham Mander (holding the wheelbarrow). Naval Point Club archives |
It wasn’t until 1981 that a proposal for a marina in Magazine Bay was submitted to the Lyttelton Harbour Board. The design featured a floating tyre breakwater which would cost considerably less than a conventional rubble breakwater, given the depth of mud in the harbour before a solid rock bottom was reached. The floating breakwater would protect finger jetties with stern mooring piles made from hardwood beams and piles and recast concrete deck planks. The initial provision was for 74 berths with allowance to increase the facility to a maximum of 345 berths.[9] Many prospective boat-owners refused to purchase a mooring because of what they considered to be the exorbitant cost for an unnecessarily fancy development. Others warned of the danger from southerly storms and argued for an inner harbour marina which the Port Company was resisting.
Whilst appreciating the need for further facilities I believe the site chosen to be unsuitable if relying on anchored floating breakwaters for protection from the S.W. If the floating structure fails under extreme conditions the resulting damage to boats will be enormous.[10]
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| The Independant, 6 September 1996 |
The new marina opened in 1982 with boats moored in the lee of a 300-metre long floating breakwater made from 33,000 old tyres filled with polyurethane foam and chained together in pods. However the floating breakwater did not offer sufficient protection from southerly gales and in June 1999 it was removed and a new concrete and polystyrene structure assembled at much greater expense. On 10 October 2000 the Lyttelton Yacht Marina was sold to a local syndicate for $3.3 million. Two days later a fierce southerly storm wrecked the new breakwater and created havoc in the marina. Floating breakwaters of polystyrene coated in concrete disintegrated. Polystyrene blocks littered the harbour. The walkways buckled and broke up. Yachts were torn from moorings and dashed against marina structures and each other. Thirty-two vessels sank.
Yachts to go down included Argo, which was scuttled by firemen to prevent it damaging other vessels; Alchemy, which was pummeled to bits between a floating jetty and a walkway; the classic cruiser Waikiri and Banks Peninsula Cruising Club commodore Brian Weenink’s $130,000 vessel Simply Irresistible.[11]
Writing at the time of another bad storm in 2010, a local boat owner recalled:
Aparangi's story typifies events. Her bow crashed up and down on the concrete finger and opened up a hole. As she took on water, the weight pulled her ever closer to the sharp-edged finger, where the forestay chaffed and gnashed, until the mast bent. Down she went, vertically. Five days underwater tends to waterlog kahikatea.[12]
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Press, 13 October 2000
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Years of litigation and inaction followed. The Canterbury Yacht and Motor Boat Club and the Banks Peninsula Cruising Club amalgamated in 2001 to form the Naval Point Club. Now, in 2019 we have the new Te Ana Marina, built by the Port Company in inner-harbour Dampiers Bay, and finally action to remove the remnant skeletons from the doomed Magazine Bay Marina and further develop the area.
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| What remains of the Magazine Bay marina, June 2019 |
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| Dredge removing piles, June 2019. Jane Robertson |
[1] Lyttelton Times, 27 February 1867
[2] The New Zealand Maritime Record, NZ National Maritime Museum, http://www.nzmaritime.co.nz/thornycroft.htm
[3] Star, 27 April 1885
[4] Lyttelton Times, 30 March 1886
[5] Lyttelton Times, 2 April 1886
[6] Star, 16 April 1895
[7] Christchurch City Libraries Blog, https://cclblog.wordpress.com/tag/lyttelton-harbour/
[8] Press, 7 December 1937
[9] Lyttelton Harbour Board, Magazine Bay Marina 1979-1981, Archives NZ
[10] Lyttelton Harbour Board, berths for proposed small craft facilities at Magazine Bay, Archives NZ/ECan
[11] Press, 13 October 2000
[12] Lyttelton's bad Friday, 9 October 2010. http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/4214523/Lyttelton's-bad-Friday
[12] Lyttelton's bad Friday, 9 October 2010. http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/4214523/Lyttelton's-bad-Friday
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