Thread: Maritime Safety Queensland

Originally Posted by bitingmidge

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.

Recon he might have some explaining to do, like well sir I set the watch but you just can't get good deckies these days

It's amazing how often no watch equals contact with hazard to navigation. Once upon a time sailing at night on a delivery up in your neck of the woods I was nearly run down by a Riviera doing about 25kt no one to be seen as they went past 30' away That was after we took evasive action.

So are they still beached, I would think the white one would still go close to being a write off even for the soft landing.

Mike

Originally Posted by soundman

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.

Hmmm, years ago when I came back to Australia from Europe, I had just this problem - I had an International Ocean Yachtmasters which was then the universally accepted qualification for skippering charter yachts around Europe and doing things like doing trans-Atlantic yacht deliveries. Came back to WA and lo and behold, the local authorities didn't want to know - told me I had to start from the beginning and do a full Coxswain's course... In the meantime, the charter company I was working for had to hire people who had the magic Coxswain's ticket to skipper our fleet of 28 - 34 foot charter yachts. Now bear in mind that the vast majority of the available "Coxswains" in WA got their time in the crayfishing fleet.... not a clue how to sail a high performance 8m yacht safely with customers on board.

Not surprisingly, ALL the damage done to the charter fleet was done by licensed, professional "Coxswains" - bareboat hire was better for the boats!

At least the local authorities did credit my seatime so I went straight from my Coxswains exam to sit my Master 5.....

BTW, when they brought in compulsory Recreational Skipper's Tickets in WA last year, they obviously noticed that I had a registered boat and sent me a letter telling me I needed to obtain an RST. I presume they had failed to connect the dots with my professional qualifications, but it was great delight that I turned up at an examination centre and demanded that they give me one (fortunately WA has provisions for prior learning in the RST).

Another point of idiocy - when they introduced the RST in WA, as a sweetener, they allowed anyone who ha owned a registered recreational boat for 5 years to be given an RST automatically.

Now apparently the reason for introducing the RST was because there were too many people out there who didn't know how to behave on the water - so those are the people they give a RST to. Go figure......

A postscript to the groundings:

The owner of the larger boat, excused the crew for falling asleep, publicly at least, by saying "these things happen, people fall asleep while driving trucks too". The fishing industry is blaming the fuel crisis, as with the higher cost of fuel, the fishermen have to work harder and are therefore becoming more fatigued!

The owner of the white boat, says he was allowing a former addict to live on board while he got on his feet, but no one had permission to use it. A bloke and a fifteen year old girl have been charged.

The boat broke up in quick time, and was buried on the beach!

Cheers,

P