Maritime NSW has held more than 40 meetings with members of the foundation over the past two years, but waterways operations manager Drew Jones said the condition of the boat continued to deteriorate.

“Their intentions are fantastic, but realistically I think they’re losing the battle,” Jones said.

“It’s gone from needing some love to being beyond repair. It needs a knight in shining armour, really.”

Greens MP Kobi Shetty, who has been agitating for the removal of derelict vessels on behalf of her constituents in the Balmain electorate, said there was a lack of accountability for boat owners, as it was cheaper to leave them on moorings than to restore or dispose of them.

She wanted the amendments to include a 12-month time limit for former vessels to be anchored or moored at a single location, and for any person responsible for a vessel to be required to indemnify the minister for the potential costs arising from dealing with a vessel if it becomes unsafe. But these suggestions were knocked back.

“Without some sort of mechanism to put the cost back on the owners, they’re just incentivised to let their vessels sit there,” Shetty said.

“The environmental impact is one of the biggest concerns for us. When things like asbestos, fibreglass, lead paint and fuel are coming off derelict vessels into the harbour, it’s going to affect marine species like seahorses, impact fishing oyster farming and recreational swimming, all of these things that are really special about the harbour.”

The Baragoola

For environmentalists, the slow demise of the Cape Don has dredged up bad memories of the Baragoola, which took almost six months to salvage when it sank in January 2022.

The 99-year-old vessel had ferried passengers between Circular Quay and Manly for six decades until it was retired in 1983 and became the first moveable object to be put under a permanent conservation order.

One owner ploughed $1 million into restoring it, before giving up and selling it for $25,000. When the Baragoola Preservation Association bought it from the next owner in 2009, the conservation order had been removed due to its state of disrepair, and it was destined for the scrap heap.

However, the association’s restoration efforts were outpaced by the vessel’s deterioration, some of the original volunteers walked away, and at least two people claimed in its final years to have bought it for $5000 from a Gumtree seller.

One of them, a convicted drug offender who had recently been released from prison, took up permanent residence inside and described himself as the consulting marine engineer.

The Baragoola Preservation Association called him a squatter and took to Facebook 10 days before it sank to assert that the Baragoola was not for sale.

“Another individual is claiming he bought the vessel,” the group’s administrator wrote.

“There is enough false rumours out there. More arnt [sic] needed.”

But after the Baragoola sank, that post was deleted and the association backed away from its claim on the title, telling the Herald that “unfortunately” it no longer owned the Baragoola as it had “ceded the vessel [to] the people on board”.

It fell to taxpayers to fund the cost of its recovery.

King said he sympathised with boat owners to an extent.

“It’s emotional stories,” King said.

“It’s the same with the Cape Don and the Baragoola, people fall in love with it and say ‘we’re hoping to fix it up’. But fixing old boats is expensive. It’s worse than a racehorse. You just throw money at it.”

Aqua Cube

Last year, a disused utility barge in Berrys Bay caught fire. The blaze threatened to spread to other boats, including the historic South Steyne ferry and the Aqua Cube, the pontoon formerly known as Flanagan’s Afloat restaurant, which is deeply unpopular among the residents who look onto it.

Real estate agent Ray Chan bought the Aqua Cube in 2007 in a spirit of nostalgia: he had celebrated his 21st birthday there when it was a floating restaurant in Rose Bay, but it has been idle ever since, and vandals have damaged it.

Chan said he had spent $3.7 million on the vessel, but that he had struggled to find a place to operate it as a restaurant on Sydney Harbour. He was waiting for the economy to pick up before putting more money into it when it was damaged by the barge fire, and he is now in a fight with his insurance company.

“It really brings tears to my eyes,” Chan said. “It was my retirement dream. I totally understand Sydney Harbour needs to clean up and fight for the beautiful environment, but I do not agree it’s derelict until after the fire.”

Twice since December, the Aqua Cube has come loose on its mooring and has swung close to other vessels. In December, it hit two moorings and caused a steel walkway to collapse.

Sean Langman, managing director of Noakes shipyard, said Chan had stopped paying port fees and he was tired of securing the vessel at his own risk at the request of NSW Maritime. But the vessel had nowhere else to go so he was stuck with it.

“The floating restaurant is 100 per cent derelict,” Langman said.

“Ray hasn’t been a boat owner, is not a maritime person and doesn’t understand that to get service for anything in this economy, you’ve got to pay your bills, as painful and as unpalatable as that can be at times.”

Chan said he would resume paying once the wharf had been fixed and that Langman’s claims were “ridiculous”.

“He has been collecting rent for years and never did a single thing,” Chan said.

The non-payment of port fees is also lost income for the NSW government, which receives 50 per cent of the revenue from any vessel moored at the shipyard.

Maritime NSW director Darren Wood said the Aqua Cube was not at risk of sinking, though he said it was ugly. “Our instinct is to give everyone the opportunity to restore,” he said.

Floating dry dock

Across the harbour, Noakes owns a floating dry dock that might be the least-loved vessel on Sydney Harbour. North Sydney Council went to the NSW Land and Environment Court in 2022 to prevent it from being moored in Berrys Bay and won. The court found that it would “undermine the naturalness of the waterway of Berrys Bay, contrary to the principle that protection of the natural assets of Sydney Harbour should have precedence over all other interests”.

Since then, the 1000-tonne vessel has been parked in Snails Bay, though it is not licensed to operate in state waters. It is only used occasionally at Garden Island.

Langman said the vessel continued to serve a purpose and that it had fallen victim to changing social attitudes that valued real estate over the harbour’s working heritage.

“That piece of infrastructure that sits in Snails Bay is a fully compliant, seagoing vessel and sits there as a lady-in-waiting to do a job for state and federally owned assets that protect our borders, so it’s a great thing,” Langman said.

The moorings in Snails Bay are managed by Sydney Superyacht Holdings, which splits its revenue with the NSW government, an arrangement that has been in place since it was awarded the contract in 2009.

It was supposed to be reviewed after six months, but documents obtained by Save Our Sydney Harbour under freedom of information laws show that this never occurred, and the agreement has been rolled over by way of emails and handwritten notes each year since it was signed.

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The moorings were not put out to tender until 2023, when the government said there was limited interest from private providers. Transport for NSW and Sydney Superyacht Holdings are negotiating a new short-term service agreement.

A Transport for NSW spokesman said Maritime was undertaking a broad operational review of wharf management on Sydney Harbour.

“Until this review is complete and priorities are established, further changes to service providers or management models are deferred,” he said.

But King said there was little accountability to ensure the interests of NSW taxpayers were being balanced against commercial interests. The moorings in Snails Bay were not being used for their intended purpose, he said.

“They were designed for the short-term berthing of vessels whilst they unloaded and then departed. Not for the parking for over 10 years of redundant items without them properly being cared for,” he said.

“The citizens of Birchgrove – and everyone else in NSW – are subsidising a handful of private companies to keep their unemployable, stranded and decaying assets fouling the environment of a prime bay in Sydney Harbour and depriving the public of far more beneficial uses.”

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