Fishing v Diving Who's right?

[sgball]

Fishing v Diving Who\'s right?

Early this morning HWMBO left the marina and traveled about 8 miles out to a wreck for a days fishing. After a couple of hours a dive charter boat turned up and TOLD (not asked) him to move off the wreck as he was booked to dive the wreck. Can you book a dive site?

HWMBO was not happy about this, 8 miles out in a petrol boat costs a lot of money. He told the dive boat that he was there first and will to continue fishing. The dive boat decided to put his divers down and than kept shouting over telling them to stop fishing as they were endangering the divers.

The skipper of the dive boat then stood there and took photo's of the fishing boat. I presume to report him to whom and for what I don't know.

Has sea rage hit our coastal waters? and who should have left?

Trudie

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[hlb]

Re: Fishing v Diving Who\'s right?

Hmmm. Interesting...Sorry cant help...Might depend on which wreck it is, some are historic, some not. Wheres the location??

<hr width=100% size=1> Get Yer Flags ear</font color=red>
Haydn

 

[cliff]

Re: Fishing v Diving Who\'s right?

Having taken up diving way back in the early 70's I have never heard of "booking a wreck for diving". The wrecks generally belong to the insurance company that paid out for them although some do belong to private individuals or groups. Some may be being worked and the "owner" is known as "Salvor in Possession". This status is achieved by positively identifying the name of the wreck (if possible), notifying HM Receiver of Wrecks and posting in the local papers giving location of the wreck. On a "virgin" wreck the finder usually does not post in the papers as every "Scooby Doo" for miles will decend on the location like flies round sh1t and any decent salvage dissappears. I would not worry about the arse-wipe taking photos - just a scare tactic. If the wreck does belong to some private individual or group there should be a buoy above with the details and a "no fishing" and "No Unathorised Diving" notice. Simple question though, if the other boat said they had "booked" the wreck, ask "with whom?" Looking at it from the divers point of view they probably paid a lot of money to charter the boat and get out to the wreck so would not be happy to dive elsewhere, just as you paid for a few gallons of fuel to get there so one can understand why they took the chance and dived anyway.

To put you mind at rest contact the local HM Receiver of Wrecks and enquire about the ownership of the wreck in question. I do know that if the divers were there first they DO have the right to move you on as your activities could endanger the divers below (early bird catches the worm, or fish).

Unfortunately you give no information as to the location of the marina or the name of the wreck so the rest is up to you.

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[Sunnyseeker]

Re: Fishing v Diving Who\'s right?

My understanding as a diver is whoever gets there first stays, the same situation arises with two dive boats as wrecks can get to busy to be safe with too many divers. As fishing boat I assume is stationary, anchored. It is the dive masters responsibilty to find a safe dive site, obviously a wreck that is being fished on is not safe and he should have a second dive site to fall back on. This sort of thing happens often in busier dive locations, sometimes they will agree between dive operations but often you turn up, decide its too busy and move on to site number two.
The only situation where the fisherman would have to move would be if he (or she of course) was moored to a mooring specifically for diving as some are in the British Virgins.
Happy fishing and diving, people have forgotten how to live side by side in a busy world.

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[paulineb]

Re: Fishing v Diving Who\'s right?

Which dive boat was it Trudie ?

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<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.paulinebeddoes.co.uk/php-cgi/gallery2>Perils of Pauline in Pics</A>

 

[cliff]

Re: Fishing v Diving Who\'s right?

Thought you were still on your "hols" - can't keep away, eh? - getting withdrawl symptoms?

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[sgball]

Re: Fishing v Diving Who\'s right?

Thanks for all your replies. The wreck is charted and well known in the Brighton area. It is a good wreck for diving and fishing. I appreciate that the divers on board the boat had paid good money to dive, but I also think the skipper should have had an alternative dive plan.

On wednesday last week HWMBO was quite happy to up anchor and move of a wreck for another charter boat as the skipper asked in a polite and friendly manner. As you say we should all be working togther.

Our boat is a lot smaller than the said charter boat and at one stage HWMBO thought he was going to be rammed.

I just think it is very sad when you get this threating behaviour at sea.

Pauline I can't name names here - sorry.

Trudie

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[longjohnsilver]

Re: Fishing v Diving Who\'s right?

Agree with all that others have said.

The skipper may belong to the professional boatmans asociation <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.pba.org.uk>http://www.pba.org.uk</A>, may well be worth having a quiet word with them. That behaviour is just bully boy tactics and regrettably not the first instance that I have heard of.

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[nickjaxe]

Re: Fishing v Diving Who\'s right?

As a diver we would be most unhappy with our skipper if he treed this tactic, I would say 1st there has priority, a friend of mine was fishing a wreck some years back in his 16ft boat when a big charter boat with about 12 hairy a***ed fisher men aboard told him in no uncertain way to shift, my mate was anchored so the skipper picked up his anchor line and cut it and the scum on the boat were throwing mt beer cans across, very nasty situation, anyway the next day he was telling me about it and I advised him to contact holyhead CG which he did, they were very unhappy about it, my mate did have the name of the charter boat gave it to the CG and they were going to have a very strong word as they did know of the guy, all in all not the kind of thing we need at sea.

Regards Nick in cheshire.

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