Australian Sea Police

Medskipper

Medskipper

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I watched a tv program this afternoon featuring the Australian sea police.
I was surprised to see them pulling boats over in the Sydney harbour area and handing out large fines! I list below the boaters transgressions.


1. Not having a licence to helm the boat
2. Not having enough life jackets on board. (One for each person on board)
3. Drinking Alcohol
4. Having passengers sitting on the bow
5. Going too fast


I think we get away lightly here in the UK don't you?



 
In Aus (Perth I'm vouching for) there is always a good marine police presence. Yes they pull people up for speeding on the river, doing stupid dangerous stuff (you would be amazed) but strangely in Western Australia it's not an offence to drink on or in control of a recreational vessel. We have seperate skippers tickets that are nothing to do with driver's licence (we have many people that are incapable of controlling a car and a boat!) But if anything happens on the water and you are under the influence then they will throw everything at you. It's been debated in the past and has never made it to law, as the number of incidents has been so low (2 in the last 10ish years) there are tight speed restrictions and also blanket night time speed limits. (They even check the speed of vessels entering marinas as they are 5kt restricted)

The police also check at boat ramps (most sub 8m boats are launched and retrieved as they are used and taken home or to hardstand on the trailer) for boats to have epirbs, correct offshore flares, skippers tickets, and all other required safety gear, if anything is missing, they will turn them around and send them home.

There are still too many people that do the wrong thing, but I'm happy with the marine police presence and job they do..

Steve
 
Do you mean that this kind of thing wouldn't be allowed?
It is pretty standard stuff in the Baldrics.
Just to explain, the front one was towing the other because the engine had failed.

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I don't think they even know what lifejackets are.
 
LittleSister said:
Australia's not as crowded as UK. Here we can afford to let more idiots kill themselves, and save ourselves the cost of the aqua-plods into the bargain! ;)
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Maybe not person per sqkm crowded, but with over 60,000 recreational boats registered in just Perth alone, 2 navigable rivers including mandurah (technically 2 make up the Swan river) but we do have a vast ocean to go at, which is rough on a good day, and full of boats on a really good day!

As well as the marine police, we can also be stopped by fisheries, department of wildlife, and Marine safety. But the nice thing is in Perth that we have volunteer marine rescue stations all up and down the coast in the main population areas. These guys 'rescue' you if you are in trouble (anything from out of fuel to a mayday) and we also log in and out with them at the start and end of trips. If you don't log out in the expected time and they can't reach you, a search is initiated. All this is free.. unless they tow you in then they prefer a contribution to their organisation which is fair.

Steve
 
petem said:
Ouch!
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No ouch at all. Would you honestly drink and helm a 30 tonne hunk of Boat that requires rather more faculties to park than a car? The Australian approach sounds like a sensible idea.

I am not against drinking in any way but excessive booze and helming a Boat do not mix in my view. Others of course may have different opinions!
 
Medskipper said:


I watched a tv program this afternoon featuring the Australian sea police.
I was surprised to see them pulling boats over in the Sydney harbour area and handing out large fines! I list below the boaters transgressions.


1. Not having a licence to helm the boat
2. Not having enough life jackets on board. (One for each person on board)
3. Drinking Alcohol
4. Having passengers sitting on the bow
5. Going too fast


I think we get away lightly here in the UK don't you?
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Seems eminently sensible. Australia has had some smart legislators.
 
oceanfroggie said:
Seems eminently sensible. Australia has had some smart legislators.
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Not really, they just like to legislate. Until recently you had to have life jackets that were marked as complying with Australian certifications on board, so I ended up throwing away all my perfectly good CE rated ones and buying local ones, the irony was that had I had sailed here instead of flown and had my CE rated life jackets on board then they would have been acceptable.

The problem is that the skippers license is not worth the plastic its printed on, literally a few hours with an instuctor showing you can steer a 3m boat and tie it to a cleat, and a couple of equally noddy questions and you pass the test. Having come from the UK and spent a couple of years in the Med I think the standard of boat handling is actually worse over here in Western Australia (although the climate is better :-) ), mainly from people in small boats ('tinnies' used for fishing etc) which there are a lot of here compared to sailing yachts and larger motor boats. I actually wonder if having an overly simplifed license makes it worse by leading to the belief "I have passed the test and have a license so I know all about boats and can do whatever I want".

The again, may its just like cars, you will always get idiots who use them.

The rules about having to have certain safety equipment on board for a given distance from shore does make sense, and the requirement is no less than what I would carry anyway. However we are not allowed to carry out of date flares even if we have in date flares aswell (we get fined for it), outside of Australia I always carried the previously expired set as spares without issue.

Ants
 
jrudge said:
No ouch at all. Would you honestly drink and helm a 30 tonne hunk of Boat that requires rather more faculties to park than a car? The Australian approach sounds like a sensible idea.

I am not against drinking in any way but excessive booze and helming a Boat do not mix in my view. Others of course may have different opinions!
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I'm actually in the same camp as GrahamHR, have a enough problems when sober, let alone drunk.
 
Anthony said:
Not really, they just like to legislate. Until recently you had to have life jackets that were marked as complying with Australian certifications on board, so I ended up throwing away all my perfectly good CE rated ones and buying local ones, the irony was that had I had sailed here instead of flown and had my CE rated life jackets on board then they would have been acceptable.

The problem is that the skippers license is not worth the plastic its printed on, literally a few hours with an instuctor showing you can steer a 3m boat and tie it to a cleat, and a couple of equally noddy questions and you pass the test. Having come from the UK and spent a couple of years in the Med I think the standard of boat handling is actually worse over here in Western Australia (although the climate is better :-) ), mainly from people in small boats ('tinnies' used for fishing etc) which there are a lot of here compared to sailing yachts and larger motor boats. I actually wonder if having an overly simplifed license makes it worse by leading to the belief "I have passed the test and have a license so I know all about boats and can do whatever I want".

The again, may its just like cars, you will always get idiots who use them.

The rules about having to have certain safety equipment on board for a given distance from shore does make sense, and the requirement is no less than what I would carry anyway. However we are not allowed to carry out of date flares even if we have in date flares aswell (we get fined for it), outside of Australia I always carried the previously expired set as spares without issue.

Ants
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This mirrors the situation in the US where there is a similar concentration of small power boats. They collect far more data on incidents both in the sea and the huge number of inland waters (rivers and lakes). It is a legal requirement to report incidents.

The pattern is the same. Very little problem with yachts and larger powerboats. most of the incidents involve small outboard or I/O sports boats and include the usual problems - fire, as most are petrol, drunk driving, lack of general competence, no safety gear, no knowledge of navigation etc. All this despite compulsory licence (of the noddy variety you describe) and compulsory gear requirements.

Our self regulation works for two reasons. First there are far fewer of the "problem" boats and second our boating environment is very different - weather tides etc and if nothing else, self preservation encourages most people to not take chances.
 
Hurricane said:
Do you mean that this kind of thing wouldn't be allowed?
It is pretty standard stuff in the Baldrics.
Just to explain, the front one was towing the other because the engine had failed.

serve.php


I don't think they even know what lifejackets are.
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Very much the same at Dartmouth Regatta last week. One small Bayliner bowrider had 4 adults and 8 kids on it. All the adults had lifejackets. NONE of the kids did. Beggars belief!
 
5teve said:
But the nice thing is in Perth that we have volunteer marine rescue stations all up and down the coast in the main population areas. These guys 'rescue' you if you are in trouble (anything from out of fuel to a mayday) and we also log in and out with them at the start and end of trips. If you don't log out in the expected time and they can't reach you, a search is initiated. All this is free.. unless they tow you in then they prefer a contribution to their organisation which is fair.

Steve
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Compared to the enviable highly sophisticated UK marine rescue network, our Oz version pales. Those guys wrote the handbook.

Our problems lie mostly with the huge number of bogan tinnie (small alloy dinghies) operators in the warmer states of the country.
 
One thing that always upset me is seeing lots of people, usually children, sitting on the bow of a small boat as it comes into or out of Portsmouth harbour. Skipper's forward vision impaired, no quick or easy way of getting people back in the boat, tide ripping through the entrance and the boat rocking like a b'stard with all the commercial and recreational traffic.

Life jackets for everyone an absolute must, be warned the first question you get asked by the coastguard when calling up in an emergency is "does everyone have life jackets on."

Expired pyrotechnics is a difficult one. Having used expired units in training it's surprising how many fail to operate properly. I would also recommend heat proof gauntlets as a worthwhile spend of a fiver at Screwfix.

Henry :)
 
Bigplumbs said:
Is this applicable to the UK or elsewhere ?
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In what way? There is no specific drink/boat law in the UK and no licence so what you do on your boat has nothing to do with driving on the road. Where there are prosecutions for drink/boating they are under harbour by laws with fines. These are very rare as there is only a marginal problem with drinking and there is no systematic testing.
 
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