How should motor boats be rated for harbour dues? The old-fashioned method for all boats was by length. But that doesn’t work well for modern craft: sailing boats (apart from multi-hulls) are long and thin, whilst motor boats are short and fat: so if length alone is the determinant, sailing boats pay relatively more than motor boats of similar value or capacity.
Gradually harbours began to adopt a rating for motor boats which was a combination of length and engine size. Salcombe decided that craft with an engine of 40hp or over should pay more than lesser-powered vessels, which may have been fine 30 or 40 years ago, when even a moderately-sized sailing yacht could have had a 10-15hp engine. However many yachts today have at least 40hp; so the high-powered threshold, once set to catch only whizz-kids, now covers everything from a sailing yacht to 2000hp super speed boats.
The simple answer might be to update the threshold from 40hp to (say) 100hp and the job’s done. But it’s not as straight-forward as that: Salcombe is a municipal port so is not allowed to trade at a profit. Moving a threshold has unpredictable effects on revenue and cannot be done if it generates more income.
Fortunately it is easier to decide whether to put a new threshold at (say) 100, 200 or 300hp. Quite a number of boats would be caught by 100hp; but there are not many boats at 200 or even 300hp, so there is probably little point in going that far. However, whilst there might appear to be a lot of exactly 100hp boats, when the owners look at their instruction manuals, many will find it is actually 97 or 98, so will write in claiming that their “100hp” engine should not attract a higher charge. Better to set the threshold at (say) 96hp as all engines will then be unambiguously above or below that line.
So, in order to reduce the risk of generating too much (or too little) income, the safest course might be to freeze the 40hp charge, set another threshold at 96hp and gradually increase the charges for having more powerful engines – perhaps until you can make 5hp or less (the current limit for tenders) free. Over time that could have an impact on the type of boats we see in the Harbour: however, none of his may ever happen.
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