IanR
Member
Read this and wonder!
After months of getting text messages telling me this was the last chance to win a zillion pounds I am dubious to say the least of unsolicited phone calls and text messages.
Well tonight let me tell you that all the recent talk of regulation and registration came home with a bang!
The phone rings, we are having dinner and so the answer machine picks up.......
hello Mr Redsell this is xxxxx coastguard, just a routine enquiry can you call us back on xxxx xxxx.
Ben Johnson watch out because I dial that number faster than you can imagine possible.
When the phone answers I speak to Stewart from xxxx coastguard who tells me "this is a routine call" and calmly explains that a dinghy with the name of my boat on it has been found washed up on a certain island. Can I identify my wherabouts and those of my dinghy?
As I talk to Stewart I become increasingly aware that the cause of this call goes back some 9 months to my first trip across the channel in August last year where I informed the coastguard using the standard process of the voluntary safety scheme of the various attributes of my boat, contact details, recognition items, safety equipment etc.
It is this database that the coastguard and Stewart is now using to track the vessels bearing the same name as mine until hopefully they track the owner of the dinghy and vessel that lost it and find out what really happened.
Now as I sit here on a warm Spring evening thinking about what that could mean,it is even after a good dinner a sobering thought.
If you have not registered with the coastguard scheme CG66 then why not?
and if you don't have the URL then check this one out
http://www.mcagency.org.uk/publications/cg66/index.htm
Also perhaps like me keep your fingers crossed that the lost dinghy is a result of a backwards bowline rather than a real incident.
Oh and next time anyone comments negatively about the UK Coastguard, you should perhaps mention this level of care, of course and by the way when you bought that second hand dinghy - did you write the name of your vessel on it
clearly?????
It makes you think doesn't it!
Fair winds and safe harbours
Ian
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After months of getting text messages telling me this was the last chance to win a zillion pounds I am dubious to say the least of unsolicited phone calls and text messages.
Well tonight let me tell you that all the recent talk of regulation and registration came home with a bang!
The phone rings, we are having dinner and so the answer machine picks up.......
hello Mr Redsell this is xxxxx coastguard, just a routine enquiry can you call us back on xxxx xxxx.
Ben Johnson watch out because I dial that number faster than you can imagine possible.
When the phone answers I speak to Stewart from xxxx coastguard who tells me "this is a routine call" and calmly explains that a dinghy with the name of my boat on it has been found washed up on a certain island. Can I identify my wherabouts and those of my dinghy?
As I talk to Stewart I become increasingly aware that the cause of this call goes back some 9 months to my first trip across the channel in August last year where I informed the coastguard using the standard process of the voluntary safety scheme of the various attributes of my boat, contact details, recognition items, safety equipment etc.
It is this database that the coastguard and Stewart is now using to track the vessels bearing the same name as mine until hopefully they track the owner of the dinghy and vessel that lost it and find out what really happened.
Now as I sit here on a warm Spring evening thinking about what that could mean,it is even after a good dinner a sobering thought.
If you have not registered with the coastguard scheme CG66 then why not?
and if you don't have the URL then check this one out
http://www.mcagency.org.uk/publications/cg66/index.htm
Also perhaps like me keep your fingers crossed that the lost dinghy is a result of a backwards bowline rather than a real incident.
Oh and next time anyone comments negatively about the UK Coastguard, you should perhaps mention this level of care, of course and by the way when you bought that second hand dinghy - did you write the name of your vessel on it
clearly?????
It makes you think doesn't it!
Fair winds and safe harbours
Ian
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