WELLFLEET — Harbormaster Mike Cavanaugh and his assistant, David Dalby, have proposed a series of amendments to marina regulations that would significantly change the way boat slips are assigned and waitlists for vessels seeking long-term dockage at Wellfleet Harbor are maintained. The changes were discussed at a contentious meeting of the marina advisory committee on March 17.
Though the harbormaster’s office has long maintained waitlists for slips that applicants could join for a fee, that informal arrangement isn’t mentioned anywhere in the regulations, Cavanaugh told the Independent.
The current regulations, which have not changed since 2016, give the harbormaster authority to reassign slips, berths, and moorings “for best utilization of Marina and Harbor resources.” They grant the marina advisory committee sole authority for reviewing and approving transfers of commercial slips, provided that applicants are licensed residents with no outstanding debts to the town.
The proposed regulations set fixed procedures for assigning new slips and maintaining spots on a waitlist, which applicants will need to renew annually. The rules also prohibit slip holders from transferring them by any method other than the waitlist, except to a spouse.
Cavanaugh said the changes were needed to ensure fairness. “We have waiting lists that go back to the 1980s, and people on the list pay every year to have a shot at the next available slip when they come to the top,” he said. “It’s important to make sure that we’re following fair and ethical practice, and that people waiting get a shot.”
Demand for the limited dockage space at Wellfleet Harbor is high. Marina records reviewed by the Independent show that most slip sections have between 30 and 80 people waiting for a spot.
Cavanaugh said that, pending approval by the select board, he hopes the new regulations will go into effect this fall.
A Mixed Reception
The proposed changes had a mixed reception among advisory committee members and others at the March 17 meeting. Cavanaugh came to the meeting with printed copies of revisions to the regulations; some changes were not in the original document available online before the meeting.
One aim of the revisions, Cavanaugh said, was to create additional space for commercial vessels and a new waitlist for slips on the pier’s south bulkhead, dubbed the “G Section.” Assignment of slots there would be decided by lottery.
That section of the bulkhead has long been occupied by the Wellfleet Marine Corp., a boat rental company with a booth on the pier. Cavanaugh said the company’s operation was in violation of state procurement law because the town had not followed the requisite bidding process for contractors to conduct private businesses on public property.
Cavanaugh also proposed that the town consider replacing the rental concession booth with additional slips for commercial fishing vessels, although he recommended no change for 2025.
Alfred Pickard, whose family operates Wellfleet Marine, called Cavanaugh’s proposals “deceptive” because he hadn’t seen them before the meeting.
“How many of you people have even seen them before tonight?” he asked, adding that the town’s planning board, of which he is a member, has a policy of requiring that documents be submitted four business days in advance. “Do you always function this way?” he asked.
Pickard is both director and secretary of Wellfleet Marine, according to state business records.
After Pickard’s objection, advisory committee chair Joe Aberdale said discussion of the revisions should be tabled until the next meeting. Nonetheless, the discussion continued.
“I think you’ve done a great job cleaning the place up,” committee member Kevin Coakley told Cavanaugh. “But this is Wellfleet, and there’s a community involved in this. When you come in and disrupt the system that we have, there’s anxiety involved.”
Coakley said one reason for that anxiety was “past practice, where, if you spoke up, you’d be threatened with losing your slip.” Coakley did not respond to requests that he explain his comment.
“People have expressed concern about being passed over, or about special favors,” Cavanaugh told the Independent after the meeting. He said he could not comment on events that took place before his tenure.
Use of ‘Transient’ Slips
A proposal to put a new limit of 14 days on the use of “transient” slips — public slips that are temporarily unoccupied by a permit holder — also provoked controversy.
Cavanaugh said he wants to assign some spots that have been used as transient slips along the north floating docks across from the harbormaster’s office to people on waitlists.
Charter boat operators and commercial fishermen who do not have an assigned slip or whose boat exceeds length limits have depended on those slips for seasonal use in the past.
“The old harbormaster always kind of allowed commercial guys to use slips that weren’t being used,” Justin Dalby of Wellfleet told the Independent.
Dalby’s Holbrook Oysters charter company operates seasonal boat tours through the harbor. Since the tour boat, F/V Just in Time, is too large for his assigned slip, he relies on transient slip availability for boarding passengers.
If that becomes unavailable, “I assume I’m going to be put back on the mooring, and that affects me big time,” said Dalby. “It costs me four to five hours every day.” Sometimes in the busy season, he said, “I don’t get back to the dock until nine at night. If the tide’s not right, I can’t physically get back to my mooring.”
Other speakers and committee members took issue with new length restrictions on various pier sections, which also pertained to the harbor’s new 2025 fee schedule announced on March 3. Though that fee schedule was the first to offer discounts to commercial boats, some fishermen had criticized it, calculating that the new per-foot rates would cause them to lose money.
The proposed regulations redesignate the L pier as three slips with a maximum ship length of 50 feet — downsizing from a previous maximum of 65 feet.
Stephen Pickard thought that posed a problem. For “somebody that’s been on that waiting list for over 20 years for a 65-foot boat, now you’re going to take that person’s position away,” he said.
Cavanaugh called the feedback he received at the meeting “great suggestions” and said he would incorporate them into the final draft of regulations to present to the select board.
Toward the meeting’s conclusion, Coakley proposed having a discussion on “restructuring the marina advisory committee at our next meeting.” His motion was seconded by member Will Barrio.
“People that are on these boards have been running the show for too long,” Barrio said later. “Joe [Aberdale] has been there a long time. I was thinking a fresh perspective could be good.”
Editor’s note: Because of a reporting error, an earlier version of this article, published in print on March 27, incorrectly stated that Alfred Pickard told the marina advisory committee that the Wellfleet Planning Board requires that documents for discussion be submitted 48 hours in advance. Pickard said that the planning board requires that they be submitted four business days in advance.
