by the Curious Scribbler

I wrote in August about the two boats beached at Tanybwlch, the second of which remained un-rescued and acquired a council notice for its removal under the terms of the Aberystwyth Harbour Act 1987.  It was no surprise that notwithstanding this enforcement notice the boat continued to sit stranded on the pebbles.  It was an old  fibreglass boat with its cabin closed off with a piece of hardboard and we speculated it had been abandoned.

The two boats beached in early August

On Monday it was still there, its mast clearly visible from the car park. But today things are different.  The shell of the hull is now in two pieces and fragments of fibreglass and other detritus litter the shore line for a considerable distance.  There has been a high tide and a good swell is rolling in, so the pieces have probably been knocked around a bit.  But the critical observation is that the aluminium mast, the rudder and keel  and much of the other metal work of the hull have disappeared.  It has been cut in two.

The fibreglass remains of the Hot Toddy

There is even a neat pile of less important metallic odds and ends sitting on the shore waiting to be collected. And an empty fuel can which probably powered the tools used to dismember the boat.

Small items of salvage left behind on the upper shore

I think that some opportunistic salvage, perhaps by moonlight, took place this week.  Certainly nothing of any scrap value remains.  The fibreglass hull is is a negative asset –  it would be very costly to recycle and would be treated as landfill waste. However its removal from the shore is even more pressing as the eroded fragments break down to release fibres damaging to all forms of filter-feeding marine life.

There is an urgent need for  a beach-clean to remove the many fragments already scattered along the upper shore.  I shall be happy to take part.  But the broken halves of the hull need professional disposal as soon as possible.

The wreckage of the Hot Toddy

Too many people view our rivers and seas as waste disposal units.  Only yesterday on facebook  several people also recorded three men dumping planks and other trade waste from a trailer into the Rheidol River in Penparcau.  There are some folk who don’t deserve a good night’s sleep.

Planks tossed into the river at Heol Tyn y Fron

The perpetrators’ load.