Paul Britton has been Dartmouth’s Harbour Master for the past three years following a career in the marine industry most recently with the Disney cruise ships.

Paul explained his duties:

“I’m responsible for looking after the whole of the River Dart, so we look after everywhere from about a mile offshore all the way up to the weir in Totnes, so it’s 11 miles of river in total.

“We’re responsible for the safety of navigation, avoiding pollution, looking after the environment, managing all of the moorings and managing all of the boats that use the river.

There are about 3,000 or so boats on the river at any particular time, and we provide the moorings for about half of them.

“We take harbour dues off everybody to help us to manage the river.”

Dart Harbour has an unusual status:

“We’re a trust port, and that means we don’t get to tick any of the normal boxes.

“We’re not a limited company, we’re not part of government, we’re not a charity.

“We’re sort of somewhere in between.

“Of the money we get in from all of the river users, we spend 100 per cent of it on managing the river and on future improvements.

Paul said it’s a great job:

“It’s absolutely fantastic.

“I don’t have to think about whether something’s profitable.

“I have to think about whether it’s right for the river.

The Guide to Good Practice, which is our bible of how we run things and our ultimate stakeholder is future generations.

“If it’s for a quick profit, then it’s not the right thing to be doing.

How much does it cost top moor on the Dart?

“We charge £1.50 per metre per night, so it would cost people about £20-25 a night for a typical boat to come in for a night for a combination of their mooring fees and harbour dues.

“We keep our fees relatively low to try and match our costs.

There is another dimension as Paul explains:

“We’re a commercial port as well as being a leisure port, so that’s everything from the fishing fleet, which is slowly declining, which is something we want to work on, to the large cruise ships that come into the river.

We can take ships up to about 200 metres into the river at the moment.

We get around about a dozen ships a year which provides a real boost for shops and businesses.

Their passengers spend around 80 Euros per person in the local area.

“I like being a mixed port.

“If you compare Dartmouth to Salcombe, it’s a very different feel to the port and the main reason for that is the commercial nature.

“So we have got this nice big wide channel straight through the middle of the town that’s fantastic for sailing on.

“It gives a really nice view when you look out of your window, if you’re up in Above Town somewhere, you look down and yet you’ve got this lovely view of a wide-open stretch of water.