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West Coast ‘liveaboard’ lifestyle under threat as cities target troublesome owners

The term liveaboard has a kind of romantic resonance to it, conjuring images of vagabond sailors whose boats are their homes, who drop anchor where they like and sail away whenever the notion hits them.

But on the West Coast, the free-living lifestyle seems increasingly at odds with the powers that be who don't like the sometimes decrepit boats moored in their communities, often dumping raw sewage into the water, and their occasionally unruly owners.

Liveaboard vessels (not to be confused with houseboats or floathomes) have been targeted in bigger cities such as Vancouver, where some see the practice as the equivalent of living in your van in a public parking lot.

Some long-term marina slips are available, such as in Victoria Harbour, but moorage is expensive and waiting lists long. And the floating residents have to share the harbour with floatplane services whose aircraft take off and land every few minutes, the Victoria News noted.

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In Vancouver, some liveaboards took to dropping anchor in False Creek, the sheltered inlet off English Bay, where their boats were not hooked up to water and sewage services. Vancouver City Council responded by requiring permits that limited the length of stays.

A few opted to move into English Bay itself, then blamed the city when a windstorm blew their boats ashore, according to a CBC News report.

The push to get rid of liveboards has moved out of the big cities, as far as Port Hardy, on northern Vancouver Island, where harbour officials have issued eviction notices to several liveaboards, the Globe and Mail reports.

"Well, we are trying to clean up our harbour, actually. That's basically it," city councillor Rick Marcotte told the Globe. "It's just that there was a bunch of unemployed people with no income that are basically [living on] derelict barges … down there."

One of those people is 62-year-old Keith Dorward, who survives on a medical disability pension. He pays $400 a month in moorage fees but his home, an old salmon fishboat called the Shangri-La, is hardly seaworthy.

"The transmission needs work and I haven't started the engine for years," Dorward told the Globe. "But I have a perfectly good set of oars. … It's going to take a long, long time to work my way down the coast pulling it with a skiff. But I don't see I have any other option."

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Dorward concedes some there have been problems in his little liveaboard community, including fights and one resident shooting at pigeons and seagulls. But he thinks officials are unfair in forcing everyone out.

The situation in Port Hardy is part of a coast-wide trend, Kris Samuels of the B.C. Nautical Residents Association told the Globe. Authorities are concerned about poorly kept vessels, sewage problems and unruly behaviour.

"There are some boaters who aren't responsible to the environment or to their neighbours. But that's the minority," he said.

But many other liveaboards are employed and look after their boats, he said.