Around the time that WHAM was established, many visitors' moorings were being laid by the Highland and Islands Development Board (HIDB) on the advice of consultants who knew very little about yacht cruising and had not consulted those who did. The consultants thought that the ideal place to lay moorings was in the middle of the designated anchorages, with no thought for yachtsmen who arrived when all the moorings were taken and so needed to anchor! WHAM was very worried about this and produced a paper "Visitors' Moorings : The Future". The paper was fully supported by RYA (Scotland), RNLI (Oban) and others and it was hoped that HIDB would take note and correct the mistakes made. But it was too late, the budget had been spent and no more money was available. Only in 1998 did local councils and others fully recognise the problems of maintenance cost and those arising from selfish fishermen and yachtsmen appropriating visitors' moorings for their own use.
Argyll and Bute Council finally decided that the moorings must be taken over and maintained by local groups or they would be lifted and sold off. This policy was successful at Tobermory and other groups are gradually following this lead. RYA Headquarters at Eastleigh, having read the above paper, asked permission to use it as a basis for an RYA policy paper on Visitors Moorings and this was published in February 1999. Copies of the WHAM paper can be obtained from the Secretary.
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