It is with dismay that we are watching the grassed rigging area at Safety Bay rapidly becoming a big sandy mess. The City of Rockingham in its wisdom, is "trialling" an extension of the boat ramp car park, by allowing cars & boat trailers to park on the grassed park area.

Now forgive me for thinking that parks are for people, obviously they are for cars & trailers. It wont be long before someone's gear gets run over, the grass is all gone, and there are confrontations between boaties & windsurfers .

I understand that prior to the contruction of the new concrete boat ramp, windsurfers (and some boaties) tried to tell council staff and councillors, that their money would be better spent on upgrading a boat ramp further around the bay. But despite this, the new boat ramp went ahead, and a permanent bitumen extension to the car park is only a matter of time .

SO, why dont all the windsurfers do their bit, lead by example, and park in the existing carpark and along the side of Safety Bay Rd - as we have all managed to do for years, and prevent further degradation of the grassed area - which is so convenient for rigging & de-rigging .

At least then, once the council have completed their "trial", windsurfers can justifiably say that we have not contributed to the problem, and dont want to see the grassed park turned into a massive bitumen car park.

Imagine our horror as we watched on last night, as a boatie drove up next to the shower with his boat on the trailer, hooked up our wash down hose to his outboard, and proceeded to run/rinse through the motor right where we wash our gear...

squiz, write a letter to council regarding this topic. Others, including myself, have written letters to the same sound as your complaint. I was prompted to do this after my 2 week old syncro was three inches away from getting run over by a careless boatie. It is completely dangerous and illegal that the council allows mixed use of an area by windsurfers, cars and trailers, families and children, etc without signage, barricading or other markings. meanwhile, i agree that the windsurfers who do park on the grass should reconsider ****ting in their own nest next time they are at the beach ;)

-Simon M