South Pacific - Moorings in Niue limited due to cyclone damage

by Sue Richards on 12 May 2016 Lying on the direct route from French Polynesia to Vava'u in Tonga, Niue is a favourite stop for westbound yachts. During the cyclone season the Island endured its fair share of bad weather with four cyclones passing nearby. Fortunately no cyclones came any closer than 200km, but the seas that they created battered the coastline and in turn created problems within the mooring field in Alofi, on the island's west coast, reducing the amount of moorings available to visiting yachts.

The Niue Yacht Club (NYC) manage the mooring field here of 20 safe moorings made up of five ton concrete blocks with polyester lines and pick-up floats. In re-laying the moorings this season, it was discovered that some of the concrete blocks on the sea bed have flipped over making it impossible to access the mounting points for the bottom shackles of the mooring lines.

Consequently the NYC are having difficulty getting sufficient moorings in place and at the moment are down to 17 moorings only.

The World ARC fleet will visit Niue between 26 May - 01 June with 27 yachts and the monthly freighter is scheduled to arrive on Sunday May 29, which will further reduce capacity to 14 buoys for a couple of days. Niue YC will always continue to welcome visitors, but kindly asks for your support by planning your visit outside of the above dates.

Commodore Keith Vial reports:

“At the moment we are down to 17 moorings, but still haven’t dived on some. The Yacht Club has never reserved moorings in the past, and it is with extreme reluctance that we are going to have to restrict the available moorings to the WARC fleet for a week.

“We will need to clear the field of any yachts in the Bay by Wednesday 26th May for a period of one week. An added complication is the potential arrival of the monthly freighter on 30th May that will restrict available moorings even further.

“From the first of June, the second part of the WARC fleet will be starting to leave, and so moorings will then be available for the remainder of the cruising season.”

“My sincere apologies to all of our cruising friends and ask for your delay over that short period. We hope that this won’t deter you from visiting us in the future.'

Note, there is only the one mooring field in Alofi and anchoring here is discouraged because of the seabed topography where anchors can get into crevices etc.

Potential Navigation Hazard

Approaching Niue there are two FAD positions for Alofi Bay. These fish aggregation rafts are lying low in the water and are unmarked. They are moored in 300 metres of water and while the GPS location is for the concrete attachment blocks below, the rafts swing on a wider arc than these marked positions. Please be aware of these FAD as there are no other impediments to your safe arrival to Niue.

South: Long-169'55.59.2968W, Lat-19 03'24.4836S

North: Long-169'55.2292W, Lat-19'02 32.6004S

Niue Yacht Club - “The Biggest, Little Yacht Club in the World'

VHF Channel 16 - ZKN Niue Radio (24 hrs)

For more information visit website.