After waiting for over 12 months to get out of Lake Macquarie Because of never ending lies and promises regards to the silting of the Swansea channel.
and then further held up by so called environmental impact studies , it has come to my attention the exact Same play book is happening at little box head central coast even though it has been dredged countless times over the years.
If we are not careful with this Trojan horse VOICE TREATY they are trying to put into the constitution we won't be going anywhere in our boats.

That doesnt sound good. Is the Lake Macquarie channel impassable?

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Trek said..
That doesnt sound good. Is the Lake Macquarie channel impassable?

Last I heard it can be done on a good tide using the (now officially marked) alternate "airport" channel for a draught of about 2 m perhaps with a bump or two on the sand at the Eastern end. They host a regatta for Northshore yachts on the lake and the locals manage to get visitors in and out albeit with a bit of trickery like pulling the mast over.

I found myself beached getting out a couple of years ago after paying a supposed expert from Mark's Pt marina to get me out the traditional channel. Not fun.

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MAGNESIUM said..
After waiting for over 12 months to get out of Lake Macquarie Because of never ending lies and promises regards to the silting of the Swansea channel.
and then further held up by so called environmental impact studies , it has come to my attention the exact Same play book is happening at little box head central coast even though it has been dredged countless times over the years.
If we are not careful with this Trojan horse VOICE TREATY they are trying to put into the constitution we won't be going anywhere in our boats.

Mate dredging has got nothing to do with the constitution or recognition of indigenous folk. Take ya political view elsewhere. And if you can't float your boat out you could put it on a truck

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woko said..

MAGNESIUM said..
After waiting for over 12 months to get out of Lake Macquarie Because of never ending lies and promises regards to the silting of the Swansea channel.
and then further held up by so called environmental impact studies , it has come to my attention the exact Same play book is happening at little box head central coast even though it has been dredged countless times over the years.
If we are not careful with this Trojan horse VOICE TREATY they are trying to put into the constitution we won't be going anywhere in our boats.

Mate dredging has got nothing to do with the constitution or recognition of indigenous folk. Take ya political view elsewhere. And if you can't float your boat out you could put it on a truck

OH yea of little foresight, take a long hard look at so many of the claims of some that support the voice and PERHAPS you may be enlightened.

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MAGNESIUM said..
After waiting for over 12 months to get out of Lake Macquarie Because of never ending lies and promises regards to the silting of the Swansea channel.
and then further held up by so called environmental impact studies , it has come to my attention the exact Same play book is happening at little box head central coast even though it has been dredged countless times over the years.
If we are not careful with this Trojan horse VOICE TREATY they are trying to put into the constitution we won't be going anywhere in our boats.

What? How on earth do you confuse the Voice with dredging issues?

Why do you call the Swansea issues "so called environmental impact studies"???? Are you saying they don't exist? I'm not sure because I don't trust third-hand tales, but I've been told that the Swansea channel was put in an un-natural place by my grandfather when he was in charge of building Mannering Park or one of the other power stations on the lake and they barged the generators in and through a channel dug over a route that Grandfather had (dishonestly) been told the natural channel took. I'm far from sure that it's right, but if so it may be that we need studies to work out where it should go so it doesn't need to be dredged all the time.

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UncleBob said..

woko said..

MAGNESIUM said..
After waiting for over 12 months to get out of Lake Macquarie Because of never ending lies and promises regards to the silting of the Swansea channel.
and then further held up by so called environmental impact studies , it has come to my attention the exact Same play book is happening at little box head central coast even though it has been dredged countless times over the years.
If we are not careful with this Trojan horse VOICE TREATY they are trying to put into the constitution we won't be going anywhere in our boats.

Mate dredging has got nothing to do with the constitution or recognition of indigenous folk. Take ya political view elsewhere. And if you can't float your boat out you could put it on a truck

OH yea of little foresight, take a long hard look at so many of the claims of some that support the voice and PERHAPS you may be enlightened.

Uncle bob you would be surprised at how enlightened on this subject I am. But this is not the forum for that discussion.

Putting politics aside, it is a shame how so many councils and/or "responsible" bodies treat our waterfront and waterways as a liability rather than an asset. There are some enlightened bodies around, however they are few and far between.

Just to show how hypocritical this environmental propaganda is there is a huge fight brewing on these wind turbines off Port Stephens , hundreds of non renewable wind turbines which are full of oil which they leak.
smack bang in a blue Marlin breeding ground.no environmental survey there.
and just to keep this on track to sailing , there is going to be exclusion areas around them so there goes your coastal cruising and fishing grounds.

Back to dredging, ideally the spoil could be sold to recover the cost of the operation but that requires a extraction licence ie mining, so the spoil is usually put close by and makes its way back to we're it came. Of course it could be dumped at sea but that's added cost financially & environmental

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woko said..
Back to dredging, ideally the spoil could be sold to recover the cost of the operation but that requires a extraction licence ie mining, so the spoil is usually put close by and makes its way back to we're it came. Of course it could be dumped at sea but that's added cost financially & environmental

Funny you say that , marine rescue was just going on about how they are dumping the spoil on the beach at Lake Macquarie on the inside , not as they used to outside so they expect it to silt up quite quickly

I am a greenie but I can understand that the dredging problems seem a little silly, the dredging has been done over many years. The sand looks good when I swim around there. The new channel (towards Wangi) may be more like the original channel and less likely to silt up.
As for the wind turbines, I for one would be very happy to see them when I sail offshore.But I have a cat, so the lack of dredging doesn't affect me - my boat draws about 60cm with the boards and rudders up. Maybe the lake could become a cat haven.

Let's look at the facts, as they are presented on the TfNSW website ...
(I spend some of my day-job doing stuff like this, so have some experience with REFs and the like)The TfNSW website says that dredging started in July 2023 and aims for completion November 2023. www.transport.nsw.gov.au/projects/current-projects/swansea-channel-dredging. So, the fact that it has not finished yet should not be a surprise.

The dredging will take place in the channels on the lake-side side of the entrance. A quick skim over the documents indicates that the dredged sand will be pumped to the shore and dewatered (allowed to drain). This means the early stages of the project might look like nothing is happening, because the contractor is setting up the land-side part of the operation. The land-side stuff has to happen before any activity happens in the channels.

The REF (Review of Environmental Factors) is standard procedure, and its intent is to make sure nothing happens until the environmental factors have been considered and risks managed and mitigated. See www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system/files/media/documents/2023/swansea-channel-dredging-minor-works-ref-2023-06.pdf

The REF looks at Aboriginal Heritage, as well as other environmental issues in a kind of tick-box format (the intent is to ensure that everything gets addressed, even if the questions are not appropriate for the proposed development or activity). Again a quick skim over the section on Aboriginal Heritage (Chapter 3.5) turns up the following ...

* Would the proposal involve disturbance in any area that has not been subject to previous ground disturbances? Answer - No
* Has an online Aboriginal Heritage Information Management System (AHIMS) search been completed? Answer - Yes
* Is there potential for the proposal to impact any items of aboriginal heritage? Answer - No
* Would the proposal involve the removal of native trees? - Answer No
* Is the proposal consistent with Roads and Maritime procedure for Aboriginal Cultural heritage consultation and investigation (PACHCHI)? Answer - Yes (further explanation given in the REF).

Which all means that Aboriginal Heritage has been considered, but it has not stopped or delayed the works. The works might be delayed for other reasons (e.g. inclement weather) and I can understand the OP's frustration. However, what we are seeing is due process and works proceeding as expected. If the channels are still not open in November, then that would be the appropriate time to ask questions.

Archernar,

using the TfNSW website to determine the "facts" is a futile exercise.

l live on Lake Macquarie, and have been unable to get my 2.1 m draft boat out of the lake since June 2021. Since that time TfNSW have made rolling promises that the channel will be dredged with the first promises around Christmas of 2021. Dates get promised, then rolled back when not meet. As recently as May this year we were assured that the channel would be dredged by July, so November is just another roll back of previously promised dates. The levels of incompetence demonstrated by TfNSW over the last 3 or 4 years have been extraordinary. Not much point running through the details here, but historically it took about 6 months to arrange a dredging, that has blown out to 2.5 years!

However, I understand that there have been changes in TfNSW that will improve delivery, the dredge has now arrived on the lake and I am hopeful that the November promises will be met. The earlier comments that management of the channel may somehow become worse if the Voice referendum is passed make no sense at all.

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LMY said..

l live on Lake Macquarie, and have been unable to get my 2.1 m draft boat out of the lake since June 2021.

Yeah, same here. I'm 2.2 & haven't been able to get out since about then either.

You are spot on with your comments re the promises!! I'd say you are like me & study every bit of info that comes out re the "proposed" dredging,

I think we should see some action very soon though - I was moored adjacent to the dredge getting prepared last night so fingers crossed it will start happening soon!!!

I last transited the Swansea channel feb- March 2017 , at that time a dredge was working lake side of the VMR with good depths to seaside. So if you've not been able to transit since 2021 that make the dredging work only viable for 4 years. Possible the only long term cure would be training walls, but I recon those days are long long gone, and not a cure all proposition if the Richmond river is an example, but it has another completely different set of siltation issues.

I had my 28'er in Lake Mac back (gulp) in the 1990s and even then boats like Beneteau First Class 10 Metres and Adams 10s (quite similar designs) would run aground getting in and out when we were doing offshore races, so it's not as if it's always been deep. Way back when in the '60s, the biggest boat in the lake, the 53' ketch Ruthean, was stuck inside for years on end from what I can recall reading in my old magazine collection. The "big boats" on the lake used to be boats like 30 Square Metres that didn't draw all that much.

We've kept the 28'er and the 36'er in two spots that were too shallow for the big boat but OK for the little one (Batemans Bay and Lake Mac) but as far as we can see WE created the problem by buying boats that are deeper than the natural channels. Dredging is expensive - does society really owe it to those of who choose to buy deep boats to pay big bucks to allow us to get our boats in and out easily?

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LMY said..
Archernar,

using the TfNSW website to determine the "facts" is a futile exercise.

l live on Lake Macquarie, and have been unable to get my 2.1 m draft boat out of the lake since June 2021. Since that time TfNSW have made rolling promises that the channel will be dredged with the first promises around Christmas of 2021. Dates get promised, then rolled back when not meet. As recently as May this year we were assured that the channel would be dredged by July, so November is just another roll back of previously promised dates. The levels of incompetence demonstrated by TfNSW over the last 3 or 4 years have been extraordinary. Not much point running through the details here, but historically it took about 6 months to arrange a dredging, that has blown out to 2.5 years!

However, I understand that there have been changes in TfNSW that will improve delivery, the dredge has now arrived on the lake and I am hopeful that the November promises will be met. The earlier comments that management of the channel may somehow become worse if the Voice referendum is passed make no sense at all.

WA just passed a law called the Heritage law, which because of the embarrassment it created and reflected on the referendum on the VOICE it was the shortest law ever passed as they where forced to put it on hold until they try to get the voice passed .
Because of the Heritage law I made the comment you refer to .
Both the Heritage law and the Voice will have huge impacts into our freedoms on our water ways and freedoms to move in Australia.

Take it elsewhere

Hey Magnesium, take your Liberal party lies and propaganda elsewhere.

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Chris 249 said..
I had my 28'er in Lake Mac back (gulp) in the 1990s and even then boats like Beneteau First Class 10 Metres and Adams 10s (quite similar designs) would run aground getting in and out when we were doing offshore races, so it's not as if it's always been deep. Way back when in the '60s, the biggest boat in the lake, the 53' ketch Ruthean, was stuck inside for years on end from what I can recall reading in my old magazine collection. The "big boats" on the lake used to be boats like 30 Square Metres that didn't draw all that much.

We've kept the 28'er and the 36'er in two spots that were too shallow for the big boat but OK for the little one (Batemans Bay and Lake Mac) but as far as we can see WE created the problem by buying boats that are deeper than the natural channels. Dredging is expensive - does society really owe it to those of who choose to buy deep boats to pay big bucks to allow us to get our boats in and out easily?

Chris,

I can understand your point about our choices, but we live in a society where our governments spend large amounts of money on things that are optional in our lives and support to recreational boating is another one of those items. If you accept the argument that government has no role in dredging then you could easily extend the argument to include maintenance of navigation marks, provision of launching ramps, maintenance of parks to set up your windsurfer from etc etc. Do you really want to head down that path but focusing on the single issue of draft?
I also do not see a 2.1 m draft as particularly deep, for many years the channel has been dredged to around -3.5 AHD, so somewhere around 2.5m effective depth at lowest tides. Take a walk around the boat show one day and see what sort of draft we will all be dealing with if we stay in the sport long enough.
The NSW government accepts that it has a responsibility for dredging ant Swansea and has for a number of years identified Lake Macquarie as a "Prime investment location" for dredging. I purchased my 2.1 m draft boat with an understanding that this would be delivered. Is that an unreasonable expectation? I simply ask them to do what they have said they will do, in a timely manner.
Your should also understand that there is very little about the current channel that is "natural". Seawalls at the bar, restrictions on water way width at Swansea bridges, the sand islands were created by dredging. Channel route was changed during power station construction etc etc. Historic charts show the entire Swan Bay Area open to the lake.

i am on the Hacking. Where we have just had dredging carried out over a few months...

i draw 1.7 and have to cross my fingers getting in and out of the river across numerous shallow areas that i know were dredged at anything below a .7m tide...for the unfamiliar skippers that follow the channels and do not know the 'deeper' spots of channels this is a hazard and risk....prior to the dredging there was not really much of a difference apart from one particular area that one would rely on day time passage and been able to see the shallow spots!

i am sure our local council payed alot for this dredging but really it should be a 'every 2 year' thing (but that is not the case)

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sudsy said..
Hey Magnesium, take your Liberal party lies and propaganda elsewhere.

Has nothing to do with politics, and everything I said was based on fact so your propaganda accusations are unfounded.
what I do care about is the future of my grandchildren to have the freedom to sail or camp wherever in the country,
our ANZAC fought to give us thatFreedom which is being given away at an alarming rate .
If it's not environmental assessments on channels that have been dredged for years or having a white card to work on your own boat , those whose eyes are open can see the writing on the wall .

Don't be so insulting as to claim that those who don't share your politics have their eyes closed. There are many people who have spent a lot of time learning about things like ohs and constitutional law - probably far more than you have - who have their eyes wide open and either disagree with you completely or partly.

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LMY said..

Chris 249 said..
I had my 28'er in Lake Mac back (gulp) in the 1990s and even then boats like Beneteau First Class 10 Metres and Adams 10s (quite similar designs) would run aground getting in and out when we were doing offshore races, so it's not as if it's always been deep. Way back when in the '60s, the biggest boat in the lake, the 53' ketch Ruthean, was stuck inside for years on end from what I can recall reading in my old magazine collection. The "big boats" on the lake used to be boats like 30 Square Metres that didn't draw all that much.

We've kept the 28'er and the 36'er in two spots that were too shallow for the big boat but OK for the little one (Batemans Bay and Lake Mac) but as far as we can see WE created the problem by buying boats that are deeper than the natural channels. Dredging is expensive - does society really owe it to those of who choose to buy deep boats to pay big bucks to allow us to get our boats in and out easily?

Chris,

I can understand your point about our choices, but we live in a society where our governments spend large amounts of money on things that are optional in our lives and support to recreational boating is another one of those items. If you accept the argument that government has no role in dredging then you could easily extend the argument to include maintenance of navigation marks, provision of launching ramps, maintenance of parks to set up your windsurfer from etc etc. Do you really want to head down that path but focusing on the single issue of draft?
I also do not see a 2.1 m draft as particularly deep, for many years the channel has been dredged to around -3.5 AHD, so somewhere around 2.5m effective depth at lowest tides. Take a walk around the boat show one day and see what sort of draft we will all be dealing with if we stay in the sport long enough.
The NSW government accepts that it has a responsibility for dredging ant Swansea and has for a number of years identified Lake Macquarie as a "Prime investment location" for dredging. I purchased my 2.1 m draft boat with an understanding that this would be delivered. Is that an unreasonable expectation? I simply ask them to do what they have said they will do, in a timely manner.
Your should also understand that there is very little about the current channel that is "natural". Seawalls at the bar, restrictions on water way width at Swansea bridges, the sand islands were created by dredging. Channel route was changed during power station construction etc etc. Historic charts show the entire Swan Bay Area open to the lake.

I agree with a lot of what you wrote, but imho there's a limit to what we can expect the taxpayer to fund for us when our requirements are the result of our own choice in luxuries - and boats with 2m draft are luxuries in my book. If I moved to the lake and decided to buy a TP52 I wouldn't think the taxpayer has to fund digging a deeper channel for me. I know the government funds a lot of sporting facilities but the money spent on dredging often doesn't seem to compare well with other sport funding in terms of cost/benefit ratio. For example I'm told that the fourth biggest sport in Oz, in terms of participation, currently has no Newcastle or Lake Mac venue at all. The money going into dredging could get them a facility. In a similar vein, at Batemans they spent a fortune on dredging that mainly helped the yachts but the same money could arguably have been far more productive if spent on dinghies or other sports. This is a topic in which I can also see your point of view

We bought our East Coast in to the lake on one of the biggest tides last year, just before Christmas. We used the 'airforce channel', which had been marked and was about 1.7 deep at the top of the tide .We still touched as we had to pass a Cat, but we were prepared with buckets on the boom.
I had previously used the main channel earlier in the year, being tipped over by Marks Point Marina in the dogleg. Depends who you get on the day, first time was good, second time we had tell him what to do, which at $300 was not good value. Depth on the dogleg has been down to 1.2 with power boats running aground regularly.
I am treating the TfNSW web site with very little confidence in its accuracy. .

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MAGNESIUM said..

LMY said..
Archernar,

using the TfNSW website to determine the "facts" is a futile exercise.

l live on Lake Macquarie, and have been unable to get my 2.1 m draft boat out of the lake since June 2021. Since that time TfNSW have made rolling promises that the channel will be dredged with the first promises around Christmas of 2021. Dates get promised, then rolled back when not meet. As recently as May this year we were assured that the channel would be dredged by July, so November is just another roll back of previously promised dates. The levels of incompetence demonstrated by TfNSW over the last 3 or 4 years have been extraordinary. Not much point running through the details here, but historically it took about 6 months to arrange a dredging, that has blown out to 2.5 years!

However, I understand that there have been changes in TfNSW that will improve delivery, the dredge has now arrived on the lake and I am hopeful that the November promises will be met. The earlier comments that management of the channel may somehow become worse if the Voice referendum is passed make no sense at all.

WA just passed a law called the Heritage law, which because of the embarrassment it created and reflected on the referendum on the VOICE it was the shortest law ever passed as they where forced to put it on hold until they try to get the voice passed .
Because of the Heritage law I made the comment you refer to .
Both the Heritage law and the Voice will have huge impacts into our freedoms on our water ways and freedoms to move in Australia.

Eh?..bull****. Go take your political rant elsewhere, this is a Watersport forum.

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[b]peterowensbabs said.

Eh?..bull****. Go take your political rant elsewhere, this is a Watersport forum.

So you responded first with "bull****"(your opinion) and then remind the guy it's a watersport forum.

Go figure?

Well, I've just been doing some sounding at the entrance to the Myall River. About three years ago the local council and state government spent $1.7mill dredging at Winda Woppa to open up the entrance to small boats and ferries. Now I recorded down to 0.6m depth, which is pretty much zero when corrected. Nature is hard to manipulate.

The Council spends $6.8 mill per year on its 26 sporting complexes, 3000 hectares of public land and cemeteries. That means that, annualised, the Council would spend about 5% of all it spends on sport and recreation on keeping just one channel open if it didn't get help from the state government (which pays half the cost). Even with the council spending 2.5% of its sport and rec. budget that still seems to be a disproportionate amount for something that is largely a convenience to a few boaties.

I know this example doesn't apply to many yachts, but it's something I was pondering when I was sounding the entrance today. The numbers for most dredging projects indicate that they represent an arguably disproportionate spend.

And then there's waterways that are so choked up because of ag land use and haven't been dredged except for some minor sand harvesting for decades, and when a major rain even occurs, it's effects are amplified. Take the Richmond for example, once steamers could easily navigate to Lismore where a fork in the river facilitated the turning of vessels around, now soundings are closer to 2m than than 20m. Cost is a major contribution to the reluctance of councils to take on a dredging operation and if a waterway runs through more than one council area like the Richmond then the issue becomes even more complicated.

daggerboards up a little, sail on gents.