Thread: Maritime Safety Queensland

Originally Posted by Boatmik

Or are you pulling our legs Midge? You made that up to get us going - dinch ya?

http://www.msq.qld.gov.au/Home/Licensing/Recreational/

Scroll down to the bottom: "Hire and Drive Ships"

P

(it is not a headshake in the negative - it is a headshake meaning I don't believe that I am reading/seeing this).

There are two built in assumptions,

1/ that the one giving the instructions is a moron and may not have any idea until they have done it 98 times.

2/ that if the one giving the instruction has a mate with the right qualification then they can get the tick in the box without being supervised at all.

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate - how ya goin' ...

I wholeheartedly agree with increasing access. I had many a good time on the Uni sharpie, and tried to get as many other people enjoying sailing as I could. Fortunately, the requirement to register had a specific exemption for the Sharpie (and the FD I thnk) as their lengths were over the (arbitrary) cut off.

Midge (is their any kind that doesn't bite?) For Europe friendly licencing, talk to the RYA in Brisbane, I'm sure you will find them quite accommodating. If you want an intro, PM me.

Qld are about to increase the restrictions on kids operating tinnies, much to my protests. I did much sillier things (in the surf zone) in tinnies when I was old enough to drive a car, than I did when borrowing the neighbours boat to go fishing as a kid.

I suppose my philosophy is along the lines of a 'defence in depth' strategy. Humans will always make mistakes whether they were previously judged competent or not yet competent (whacky competency learning speak). It is not always about making boats safer, but not allowing newer iterations to be less safe, so a bench mark is needed.

However, my sense of the regulatory mood many States is to increase regulation. Which is a pity. Most regulators are stretched for resources as it is.

Originally Posted by Boatmik

Howdy Soundman,


I completely disagree that there are "many".

A point here is that while there are occasional fatalities (as there are with cars), most people get on with using their boats in a sensible way on a week by week basis with no safety problems or issues at all. This is because by-and-large most people are sensible and reasonably well educated about what they want to do.

Michael Storer

Have you been down the local boat ramp on a sunday recently........or hung around any of the popular fishing areas.

I know people who go down the local boat ramp with a chair for their week end amusement.
You also dont have to look far or wait long to witness events rangingfrom ignorance to blatant disregard.

example
boat ramp townsville
couple arrive and launch shiny new boat, he walks boat round to pontoon and parks the car.... she gets in boat and immediatelty gets out two cans of beer.

the mouth of saunders beach( north of townsville)...a 16 foot( ish) boat is seen aground on the bar at about half tide( on the way down)...high was at about midday........this bloke will get off around midnight if he is lucky.

colmslie boat ramp
a small 12" tinny carrying 4 yellow raincoated asian felows, comes and goes from the ramp/pontoon area several times....on the plane right up to and near the ramp.

tingalpa creek
several boats and PWC's come full noise around the bend plenty of wash, small boats at anchor near by and a small boat ramp... the creek would be about 50 metres wide max.

lots of places
crab pots set in the middle of a channel

and it goes on.


cheers

Howdy Soundman,

These are inconveniences. I am much more interested at looking at the meat. These things happen on the road too. But the system works well enough depite this is a testament to the bulk of sensible users.

If everyone was an idiot, these ones wouldn't stand out at all. Evidence enough for me that most just get on with it quietly with reasonable safety etc.

MIK

My father was in the Dutch merchant marine. He was an ocean going master who travelled over much of the globe for more than 30 years. When he retired and moved up to Cairns he bought himself a 16' half cabin to potter around in. He was out with his brother one day when he was stopped by the coast guard and asked to produce his recreational power boat licence. He actually had a translated copy of his qualifications with him which he showed them. Turns out that whilst he's qualified to take any size ship anywhere in the world he can't take a private boat of more than 6hp any where in Qld with his qualifications.

They were going to write him a ticket until he pointed out that the life boats on his ships were bigger than the coast guard boat and that he would take great pleasure in making them look like absolute asses in the media. They relented but warned him that he would need to get the appropriate license. That's a bit like having a license to operate a road train but then needing to do a course in order to drive a mini. Haven't these people heard of RPL? (recognition of prior learning) What possible other skills or knowledge would someone with an international master's ticket need to learn in order to get a speed boat license?

Mick

Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

Haven't these people heard of RPL? (recognition of prior learning)

As it turns out, they have:

Recognition of other qualifications, training or experience
The Transport Operations (Marine Safety) Act 1994 and its subordinate legislation provide an alternative to the completion of the full BoatSafe competency based training and assessment course. The recognition of prior learning (RPL) process caters for those who can provide evidence of other relevant qualifications, training or experience in vessel operations. If this relates to your situation please contact an approved BoatSafe training provider for consideration and assessment under the recognition of prior learning process.

Note: "consideration and assessment"

I enquired at one provider who offered an RPL assessment and certificate for $150.00 - the same price as his half day course. I suppose if he's going to be fair dinkum, it'd take an hour and a spin in his boat, otherwise any old Dutchman could turn up with some wrinkly papers in a foreign language.

(PM sent, Aquamarine, thanks!)

Cheers,

P

Ahh the problem with the dutchman is that he wasn't driving an internationaly registered boat/ ship, and the documents he had were not issued in queensland or australia.

you would almost certainly find he could have an equavalent local licence issued on the strength of his overseas papers.

Afterall you cant continue to drive a car in queensland on a licence from elsewhere once you have become a resident here.

There are all sorts of people from overseas that think they can come here and do what thay have been doing without getting local acreditation.

In many cases it is simply a matter of presenting the overseas papers and applying for a local licence.

In a similar vein.... you need an australian marine radio certificate if you are operating VHF or above radios in australia.......unless you are working on an overseas registered vessel.

Just as a matter of interest I hear that the yanks use opposite colours for port & starbord bouys.........


cheers

I went to the beach this morning and discovered it was littered with ships!

The larger of the two might have been waiting for the light on the lighthouse to change colour, the other is rumoured to have mysteriously slipped it's mooring, floated out of the river, done a right hand (starboard) turn and drifted down the coast for a few k's with no one on board.

In any case, there were a couple of rain squalls last night, but no heavy weather or big swells.

I'll bet the skipper's were licenced though!

Cheers,

P

Beaut pics Midge.

I am glad they managed to rescue those 2 by 4s! Great heroism!

Actually it is rather nice. That someone was concerned enough to grab them!

MIK

Is that a 'For Sale' sign in the white one?

Richard

Buyer's market today.

Cleaned it up for the sale I guess.

P

Right!

For those even the slightest bit interested:

The larger boat had six crew, all were asleep after a big week of long line tuna fishing. The international rules for the prevention of collisions at sea, do mention something about keeping a proper lookout, and they did have to cross the main shipping channel to get here, so I imagine the skipper might be an ex skipper now.

The white boat on the other hand appears to have been stolen. This was obviously done by someone who knew how to start it but not stop it! If it was an insurance job, there are a few better ways of fixing it, a small fire a few kilometres out to sea, or driving it into the point where the rocks would kill it rather than gently beaching it on the the sand, are the two most obvious. Dumb thief? Dumb owner? Who knows?

P