A “catastrophic failure” meant Holyhead Marina was unable to protect the 80 boats and vessels destroyed in a Storm Emma gale.
The repair bill for the wrecked vessels and damaged harbour infrastructure will run into the millions of pounds as the clean-up and inquest into what went wrong during yesterday’s unprecedented storm begins in earnest.
Holyhead Marina co-director Geoff Garrod made these frank assessments as he tried to comprehend the scale of yesterday’s destruction.
Mr Garrod said: “We’ve never seen anything like this in this harbour. We’ve never seen a wave of that size, the winds had been very cold and dense, we had a spring tide and we’ve had a catastrophic failure which obviously started with some form of defect and progressively got worse."
'We've never had a wave of that size'
The visibly shocked marina manager said every effort would be made to understand what caused that failure but at this stage he was unable to say what caused the harbour’s defences to be breached so easily.
“What we do know was the weather was like something that we’ve never seen before.
"We are designed to protect the marina against northeasterly winds, there’s a limited fetch.
'My staff risked life and limb..'
“We’ve been here for 18 years and we’ve had just about everything that can be thrown at us in that time.
“My staff risk life and limb and we work hard to do what we can to help boats. But it came to a point where it got dark and the electricity failed, there was ice on the pontoons, we closed the marina and we took everybody off.
“And what happened, happened through the night as the wind picked up to hurricane force. Boats were submerged, capsized, holed and there were collisions. We got lots of vessels beached and lots vessels under the marina.”
The marina is now waiting for instructions from underwriters and the Coastguard and various agencies to assess the true cost financially, physically to the site and environmentally.
He said: “That’s what we’re doing now, we’re trying to get in touch with the key personnel so that we can have a strategy meeting with the key players in the harbour.
'Boats were submerged, capsized, holed'
"We want input from the harbour master, Stena Line, Natural Resources Wales, to deal pollution protection, safety of wrecks, safety of shipping.
"All of those things that we have to consider. We’ve never been in this situation before.”
The shattered marina co-boss added: “We’re still in recovery mode, I haven’t the faintest idea but it’s going to be millions. It depends who does the work and how we’re directed by our underwriters.
"There are vessels ashore that are worth lots of money and the infrastructure of the marina is also a big project. But it will run into millions, that’s a safe assumption.”
'We're still in recovery mode'
Today the boating community is doing its best to rally round
Volunteers have already started work on the clear up, as they gathered at Holyhead Sailing Club for a litter pick up this afternoon.
This will be followed by a public meeting, at 6pm in the club, to come up with a plan for a further clean up at the site.
Natural Resources Wales and the Coastguard have also been working to limit the damage to environment.
'We’ve had guys on site 24 hours since it happened'
The NRW said: “Most of the diesel expected to dissipate in the waves and winds with minimal environmental damage.”
Businesses too are counting the cost and doing what they can to mitigate damage from the disaster.
Dylan Jones, General Manager at Turbine Transfers Ltd, based in Holyhead, said: “Our primary concern is to ensure that there is no environmental impact from our vessels. We have our own contingency plan on how we will be moving our vessels away from where they currently are.
"A number of the vessels are still water tight so they’re fine so we’ll tow them away to a safe mooring and any vessel that we do need to give attention to, we’ll be taking them out of the water at our own yard.
'When you see it in person the scale of it is huge'
"We’ve had guys on site 24 hours since it happened, a good 15 guys. In terms of the support from other companies it’s been excellent as well.
"There are private boat owners that are in a far worse way.”
Anglesey AM, Rhun ap Iorwerth, warned that the clean up would be a major undertaking for authorities.
“I have no idea of the cost but it’s obvious that it’s going to be very expensive, certainly a multi-million pound project. When you see it in person the scale of it is huge, the pictures do not do it justice.
"There are very valuable boats involved including commercial craft and I know some insurance companies have been contacted,” he said.
