| 37 T T Hugh de Lacy Improving facilities for local boat-owners The present main cradle can accommodate boats of up to 100 tonnes and a length of 23m, while the new cradle, expected to come into service next year, has a 150t capacity. Carey’s Bay Marine Services “Our main work is our marine pile-driving and wharfbuilding, and we have our own specialist barge that we had Dunedin’s Siteweld build for us three years ago.” REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT The chronic shortage of berthage in Otago Harbour for Dunedin boaties is behind Carey’s Bay Marine’s efforts to build a 22-berth marina adjacent to its offices, workshop and slipways in its home bay. At the same time, Carey’s Bay Marine, which is more than 100 years old and has serviced boats as far back as the whaling years, is in the process of upgrading one of its five slipways with a new cradle. Its present main cradle can accommodate boats of up to 100 tonnes and a length of 23m, while the new cradle, expected to come into service next year, has a 150t capacity. Bringing boats up its slipways, two of which give direct access to the extensive, leased-out workshop area for owners and contractors to work on them, is just one part of Carey’s Bay Marine’s operations. “Our main work is our marine pile-driving and wharf-building, and we have our own specialist barge that we had Dunedin’s Siteweld build for us three years ago,” Carey’s Bay Marine’s owner, Eldon Donaldson says. “It’s got a pile-driver and a five-tonne crane on it, and we had it built so it could be transported by road, giving us the ability to take on pile-driving work even up in The Lakes District, though our main work comes from local bodies round the harbour.” Eldon’s a diesel mechanic, who did his time with Gough’s Caterpillar and at Oceana Gold’s MacRaes mine in West Otago, completing it in 2007 and working mostly on the gold mine’s fleet until he bought Carey’s Bay Marine in 2016. He’s since been re-structuring the company from an original staff of 14 in response to changing market conditions. Among the recent projects the company has completed was a gangway for the Dunedin City Council at Wellers Rock/Te Umu Kuri, once one of the Weller Brothers’ several whaling stations in Otago Harbour. Carey’s Bay Marine’s job was to replace the old gangway to a tethered pontoon that boats pull up to. It involved sinking six new piles and replacing the steel trusses between them, installing two large support beams and then the decking and the hand-rails. “The old gangway was past its time and what we did essentially was to pull it all out and then put it all back,” Eldon says. He’s currently in the throes of making his application to the Otago Regional Council to put the new marina out the front of his existing premises, and he’s confident he has a good case for it. “Despite the harbour’s size, there are relatively few places where recreational boaties can find permanent berths, and the sort of thing we’ve got planned here could be very helpful,” he says. But he’s not forgetting his company’s core business of providing facilities for non-transportable boats to be hauled up on the dry for hull maintenance. “There was a demand among commercial boat-owners for a heavier capacity cradle, and next year we’ll have one to meet it,” he says. Dunedin - Ph: 03 477 1999 Proudly Supporting Carey’s Bay Marine Services Transport Ltd • General Cartage • Trombone Trailer • Container & Artic Work • Fly Jib • Crane Trucks with Winches & Man Bucket 021 762 734 WWW.DIVEPRO.CO.NZ ROB@DIVEPRO.CO.NZ PROUDLY SUPPORTING CAREY’S BAY MARINE SERVICES YOUR COMMERCIAL DIVING EXPERTS OTAGO BASED DIVING PROFESSIONALS FOR OVER 60 YEARS EXPERIENCE � SAFETY � EFFICIENCY
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