SOUTH Hams Council's successful prosecution of two Salcombe boat owners for not exercising sufficient care and attention while navigating the estuary is a foretaste of what wrongdoers can expect in future, says the port's harbour master Ian Gibson.

The prosecutions, involving fines and costs totalling £1,680, follow a persistent pattern of speeding in the estuary which came to a head this summer with a particularly dangerous collision only 'inches away' from causing serious injury to a Kingbridge Boat Watch patrol aboard their Hardy Navigator.

A 16ft motor boat ploughed into the stern of the Navigator while the owner, a holidaymaker, was 'distracted by his children'. It ran up over the stern and slid off the side, narrowly missing Boatwa-tch co-ordinator Ian Drinkwater and a fellow volunteer Graham Smith, who were both up under the cuddy at the bow of the boat at the time.

Both were left 'shocked and shaking' and £1,000 damaged was done to their boat.

Cdr Gibson said: 'This collision was only inches away from causing serious injury.

'Safety in Salcombe Harbour is my principal concern. Speed in a busy harbour is both anti-social and dangerous. Excessive speed considerably increases the risk of a serious accident, which could result in a serious injury or fatality.'

South Hams solicitor Tony Johnson said: 'If someone had been sitting in the back of the Boat Watch craft at the time they could have been seriously injured.

'It was sheer carelessness and it is not the way we want to try to set an example of how people should behave on the estuary, whether they are holidaymakers or not.'

In another incident a persistent offender, cautioned repeatedly in the last five years, who admitted two offences and confessed in a letter to the court that he was 'a speed freak'was trapped on radar by Cdr Gibson doing 15 knots in a six knot zone.

Cdr Gibson decided on prosecution – which is consistent with the harbour board's enforcement policy, he says after speaking to 'hundreds of people' this year in an education offensive, urging them to 'slow down' and observe the speed limits. He said: 'This year 70 helmsmen had received verbal warnings about speeding in the harbour – that is the first level, education.'

'Another 31 have been issued with written warnings about their speeding activity and the consequences of such – the second level. And two have been prosecuted, which is the final sanction.'

It was his first decision to prosecute taken since he stepped into the post five years ago after a 32 year career in the Royal Navy.

Last year he made a special report to the Salcombe Harbour Board and South Hams Council which reviewed enforcement policy over speeding and anti social behaviour in the harbour. But members decided on a policy of education rather than a clampdown.

Three years ago, he said, they started a survey of harbour users: in 2008 54 per cent felt anti-social behaviour and speeding had adversely affected their enjoyment of the estuary. In 2009 it was down to 37 per cent and in 2010 it had reduced to 28 per cent.

'We can say that the board's policy of enforcement and education, all the notices on slipways, and the hundreds of people we stop and talk to, is starting to work,' he said.

'Speed in a boat makes accidents potentially fatal. If you get injured or knocked down you cannot just get up and walk away – you drown.'

Cllr John Carter, chairman of Salcombe Harbour Board, said: 'The harbour authority has taken the step of proceeding with legal prosecution in the wake of numerous speeding incidents within the Salcombe estuary this summer, and will continue to do so.

'Everyone using the water needs to be in a safe environment and whereas it is somewhat easier to control a motor vehicle at speed it is a different matter for marine traffic due to the numerous buoys, moored craft, other users, tides and waves.'