RYA report on UKBA

[Tranona]

Have you guys been inhaling a bit too much of the UKBA's contraband? I don't think this article is anything to do with whether the UKBA should board our yachts or not, it was about treating us with common courtesy when they did step aboard. That was the question the RYA asked and this article looks suspiciously like their response.

Whether the UKBA should do their job at all is quite another matter, but unless you are laden down with a shipment of Columbia's finest, who gives a damn?

I'm not a member of the RYA, but I do think that the point has rather been missed. Switch back to the horse tranquiliser and stop thinking up pointless idioms. It's about as entertaining as reading the rantings of a crusty old yachtsman who has missed the point.

Welcome Heffalump1.

If you hang around here long enough you will find that most posters are sufficiently intelligent not to be taken in by this claptrap.

If you look at the Home Office Statistics and press releases on the extensive activities of the UKBA, you will find that in the last year NOT ONE case of drugs or illegal immigrants has involved a private yacht, let alone as the result of a random boarding.

They claim over 2000 boardings in the last reported year, a massive increase on 10 years ago, and still no change (according to official statistics) in the "success" rate.

Begs some serious questions, does it not?

Suggest you re-read Orwells 1984 about the manipulation of public opinion.

 

[Marsupial]

Welcome Heffalump1.

If you hang around here long enough you will find that most posters are sufficiently intelligent not to be taken in by this claptrap.

If you look at the Home Office Statistics and press releases on the extensive activities of the UKBA, you will find that in the last year NOT ONE case of drugs or illegal immigrants has involved a private yacht, let alone as the result of a random boarding.

They claim over 2000 boardings in the last reported year, a massive increase on 10 years ago, and still no change (according to official statistics) in the "success" rate.

Begs some serious questions, does it not?

Suggest you re-read Orwells 1984 about the manipulation of public opinion.

Well said but I think Huxley's Brave New World Revisited is a better read if you are looking for deep depression, I swear that man had had a time machine.

 

[Tin Tin]

If you look at the Home Office Statistics and press releases on the extensive activities of the UKBA, you will find that in the last year NOT ONE case of drugs or illegal immigrants has involved a private yacht, let alone as the result of a random boarding.

According to a headline in this month's Sailing Today 80% of UKBA drug seizures involve yachts

Obvious BS, but it still gets reported as 'true'.

 

[deuc02]

According to a headline in this month's Sailing Today 80% of UKBA drug seizures involve yachts

Obvious BS, but it still gets reported as 'true'.

I wouldn't worry to much about a headline like that in Sailing Today. Probably won't be read by to many people. I think they should rename the mag Solent Today as it's target audience seems to be sailors who spend 90% of their time in the swindlery buying bikes, dehumidifiers, handheld anemometers and the like.

Had a read of this months copy the other day and was fascinated to learn that essential kit for an arc is a screwdriver, plastic tubs, a pressure cooker, cockpit cushions, a mobmat?, a breadmaker, hanging baskets and homemade yoghurt. Seems they forgot to mention the cuddly toy.

Didn't they do well

 

[Bosun Higgs]

According to a headline in this month's Sailing Today 80% of UKBA drug seizures involve yachts

Obvious BS, but it still gets reported as 'true'.

Why is it obvious BS? If you were wanting to smuggle drugs in bulk into the UK which would you use - a yacht that can sail into any small inlet round the coast or a plane that has to land at an airport and pass its goods through customs?

And as for the RYA, if you lot are so unhappy about the RYA why dont you get off your backsides and found an alternative? You could then get it to take a Farage type of approach to government - that would please a lot of people even if it meant the organisation was ignored by government. Lots of meaningless headlines along the lines of " alt RYA slams UKBA" in the Daily Wail.

Instead you post winges oin here about an organisation you dont support and are not even members of! And to crown it all, most of you are anti drugs and concerned about immigration !

 

[Tin Tin]

Why is it obvious BS? If you were wanting to smuggle drugs in bulk into the UK which would you use - a yacht that can sail into any small inlet round the coast or a plane that has to land at an airport and pass its goods through customs?

80% is an impressive figure.
How many yachts are we talking about?
Bet it isn't even double digits.

Given the number of yachts afloat, this measure feels like using a hammer to swat a fly.

 

[Robin]

Why is it obvious BS? If you were wanting to smuggle drugs in bulk into the UK which would you use - a yacht that can sail into any small inlet round the coast or a plane that has to land at an airport and pass its goods through customs?

And as for the RYA, if you lot are so unhappy about the RYA why dont you get off your backsides and found an alternative? You could then get it to take a Farage type of approach to government - that would please a lot of people even if it meant the organisation was ignored by government. Lots of meaningless headlines along the lines of " alt RYA slams UKBA" in the Daily Wail.

Instead you post winges oin here about an organisation you dont support and are not even members of! And to crown it all, most of you are anti drugs and concerned about immigration !

Whenever a yacht (or mobo) is involved it gets a spot on the TV News. Usually the haul is large and the yacht has been under scrutiny for a long time beforehand, ie the stop is intelligence based and not randomly selected for boarding. Most boardings do not even generate full searches, just a few probing questions and inspection of papers. So if the figures were really as high as claimed we would hear it loud and clear on a daily basis, but we don't.

As for aircraft needing an airport to land and go through customs I think that is rather naive, but even so I think that most seizures are the results of intelligence based searches not random ones.

I am a member of the RYA by the way and I am very concerned about drugs and illegal immigration. I also have a fairly pragmatic approach to being boarded and have been boarded on both sides of the Channel, in harbours and out at sea. However, the situation now has changed up a gear and the Rambo style boarding raids by the men in black, even at night, are very intimidating and I am quite sure that they are very much intended to be so.

So I too thought the RYA article was wishy washy let's not rock the boat. I also think we are now so conditioned by anti-terror measures that we think by creating our own terror in return we are doing a good job.

 

[Tranona]

UKBA have a page on their website (can't locate the URL just now) which has all their press releases reportingtheir "successes", Not surprisingly it is heavy on lorry related crimes as this seems to be the main mechanism used by criminals.

Where drugs are seized from yachts - it does happen (a Legend 46 is for sale that was involved in drugs and stripped by customs recently) almost always the comment is "we were tracking this boat... or "working with our Irish/French/Spanish etc colleagues".

Simple A level statistics will show what a waste of time randomn searches are. There is a large population of yachts of which only a tiny proportion is involved in smuggling. Therefore the probability of catching one randomly is insignificantly small!

 

[timbartlett]

Why is it obvious BS?

Because I've just looked at the UKBA website and looked at the first 25 press releases that included the words illegal drugs. I added up the total haul from each of the major routes. And the scores on the doors are:-

Commercial Sea.......£75.86m
Commercial Air....... £35.37m
Private Air............. £0
Private Sea............ £0

If private pleasure craft really account for 80% of illegal drugs, how come they don't figure at all in this random sample of press releases?

 

[Searush]

It's pretty obvious really. If I want to get drugs smuggled I can spend a small sum on buying a down at heel mule & send him/her by public transport - total cost; purchase of drugs, ticket for mule (£200?) & payment for mule (£5000?). If it all goes wrong I have only lost out on the cost of the drugs & the mule's ticket. Mule doesn't get paid as he is in prison.

OR: I can buy the drugs, put them in my £50,000 yacht & take them myself. If it works, the payoff is better & I can carry more drugs. If it doesn't work, I lose the drugs & my £50k yacht & I end up in prison. If I try paying someone else to carry my drugs he will want a REALLY big payment to take that sort of risk with his boat & his freedom.

Hence by far the vast majority of drug smuggling goes through commercial channels. But UKBA has to be seen to be doing something to discourage those going for the big hit with private plane or boat.

All makes perfect sense then doesn't it? Pity that UKBA believe that the Lara Croft style boarding makes them look more effective rather than more silly.

 

[johnabbott893]

Pity that UKBA believe that the Lara Croft style boarding makes them look more effective rather than more silly.

The UKBA was a political response to immigration questions. Its focus was, and still is, immigration and the emotive response it generates amongst the voters. The traditional maritime operations of the Customs and Exercise were about revenue collection. Hence, the quite unacceptable powers that were afforded the Customs men to collect dues on barrels of brandy. Concern over drugs expanded these powers, and rightly so.

UKBA inherited the Customs powers but had no strategic plan for their activities at sea. Their strategic plan does not even mention drugs and small boats. It does say in terms of illegal immigrants

The risks posed by small ports and airfields are monitored by the border agencies and targeted on an intelligence-led basis;

The whole drugs issue falls between HM Revenue and Customs, the Police and UKBA. It is well down the list of priorities for the UKBA who are looking for ‘darkies’ trying to sneak into Blighty. The UKBA have their nice sexy cutters with eager crews ready for excitement. Lara Croft style boardings of recreational boaters at random are a symptom of lack of leadership and direction. The fact that we still have intelligence led seizures of drugs from small boats is a credit to the various staff working to keep the stuff out of the UK. The random Lara Croft boardings suffered by recreational boaters are a disgrace and have no purpose. The admission that every vessel is treated as suspicious until proven innocent is also a disgrace. If the police started stopping people at random in Tesco and treating them as guilty of some random crime until proven otherwise there would be riots.

 

[Searush]

(snip)

If the police started stopping people at random in Tesco and treating them as guilty of some random crime until proven otherwise there would be riots.

Well, actually certain Police forces were doing just that for dark skinned males for quite a long time before an attempt was made to curb their excesses. Now they just "profile" suspects - probably as African-Caribbean males

Well argued post, JohnA.

 

[rallyveteran]

I see Sailorman's scan has been deleted from the OP, and I have a post taken down because the RYA said it defamed Gus Lewis, then what pops through my letterbox but a letter from Sarah Treseder, incoming Chief Executive of the RYA, seeking my views on RYA Membership.
I think she'd make a good start by reading this thread.

 

[Robin]

I see Sailorman's scan has been deleted from the OP, and I have a post taken down because the RYA said it defamed Gus Lewis, then what pops through my letterbox but a letter from Sarah Treseder, incoming Chief Executive of the RYA, seeking my views on RYA Membership.
I think she'd make a good start by reading this thread.

So is this yet another bit of book burning censorship going on?

I also received that letter from the RYA and had similar thoughts to yours.

 

[johnabbott893]

I see Sailorman's scan has been deleted from the OP, and I have a post taken down because the RYA said it defamed Gus Lewis, then what pops through my letterbox but a letter from Sarah Treseder, incoming Chief Executive of the RYA, seeking my views on RYA Membership.
I think she'd make a good start by reading this thread.

I am not surprised that the RYA wanted the article in the OP removed. I thought it was a very weak piece of journalism. From my reading, the author displayed a significant lack of inquiry. The report came over as an attempt by the RYA to cosy up to the establishment. In other countries one would have suspected a ‘bung’ or official ‘warning’ to have been involved. But I don’t think Gus is into that sort of thing. It may have been rubbish reporting but I think that is all it was.

 

[Bosun Higgs]

Because I've just looked at the UKBA website and looked at the first 25 press releases that included the words illegal drugs. I added up the total haul from each of the major routes. And the scores on the doors are:-

Commercial Sea.......£75.86m
Commercial Air....... £35.37m
Private Air............. £0
Private Sea............ £0

If private pleasure craft really account for 80% of illegal drugs, how come they don't figure at all in this random sample of press releases?

Who knows Tim. If you google for drug smuggling by yacht you will get a fair few hits and indeed I have seen yachts held in port by HMC&E after being captured bringing in drugs. Clearly a zero is wrong.

You may or may not like the rambo-esque style of UKBA ( I dont ) but its unrealistic to think that they can just ignore private yachts and concentrate only on commercial traffic. Its also unrealistic to think they can catch more than a small proportion based on intelligence - thats evident from the tally so far.

The relatively small number of searches they do is presumably modelled on the stop and search approach of the police. Partly it's about checking "likely" boats, partly it is about being seen to be about, and no doubt partly it will be targets.

But to look at it another way, as a sailor, what route would you take to bring drugs, contraband, illegals or maybe even terrorist weapons into the UK? I've sailed my boat abroad many many times, never reported into HMC&E, never been stopped. And I would stake money on still being able to bring in any of the above by boat even now.

 

[Tranona]

The relatively small number of searches they do is presumably modelled on the stop and search approach of the police. Partly it's about checking "likely" boats, partly it is about being seen to be about, and no doubt partly it will be targets.

No, random searches are only to show presence. The number of boardings of all types is claimed to be around 2000 a year. Many of these will be planned so the random number is even smaller.

There are literally tens of thousands of boats that could be boarded, so the chances of finding one of the tiny number carrying illegal traffic in a random search is so small as to not even be measurable.

Why do you think UKBA never state any real information about their activities? Very simple, because they do not want people to know how ineffective this strategy is. This is not to say they should not pursue criminals and rightly claim success when they do catch them- just don't pretend that random searches help that success.

If ever there was a subject for a FOI request this is it - if one had the energy.

 

[haydude]

If what they say is true, than 80% of boats that regularly go sailing at my marina should be smugglers. Thinking again, statistically it should be even more than 80% to make the UKBA's 80% realistic. Or is it?

Honestly what I think is that the majority of people I know at the marina are respectable, with one or two arrogant gits, but these in general have shabby power boats.

The real crooks are the UKBA and the RYA are colluding with them.

Shame on the RYA!!!

 

[timbartlett]

Who knows Tim. If you google for drug smuggling by yacht you will get a fair few hits and indeed I have seen yachts held in port by HMC&E after being captured bringing in drugs. Clearly a zero is wrong.

I accept that there are a few yachts involved in drug smuggling (and I never said there weren't) But I took a random sample of 25 UKBA press releases that included the words drugs, and found not a single one that involved a yacht. Clearly that would not justify the supposition that no yachts are ever involved. But it is pretty strong evidence that yachts are not involved in anything like the 80% of cases that UKBA claim.

 

[grumpy_o_g]

I think it's lies, damn lies, statistics and spin basically. Is the UKBA saying that 80% of the illegal drugs in this country come in to the UK by leisure craft? That means that private yachts account for four times the weight of drugs as the COMBINED total of private aircraft, commercial aircraft, commercial shipping, ferry passengers and their cars, airline passengers and the Channel Tunnel.

Some pretty large hauls have been recovered from yachts, though not many that I recall in the UK, but even if this figure is 80%, is the boarding of yachts the most effective way of reducing that traffic? When everyone else in counter-terrorism and organised/serious crime detection is moving towards intelligence-led specific targeting and profiling why does the UKBA believe that it can best beat drug trafficking by picking boats at random?

Further why does it feel the need to carry random searches (which happen in very, very few other walks of life) in such an aggressive and hostile fashion? By the very fact that it's random they're hardly taking a big chance of meeting a fight to the death. Should I assume the same every time I board a boat? And why is it nearly always deep keel yachts I hear of being boarded and not fast planing boats with a shoal draft? Surely it's more likely that a fast boat with an ability to get close into a secluded landing spot is going to be used?

Last one, again accepting the UKBA's dubious statistics, as a manager my reaction would be "Why are our stat's so low on everything except yachts? I want you to start being more aggressive in your pursuit of other areas." Drug smugglers may be thick but someone in the chain would be celver enough to realise that sending the drugs by yacht meant they had a good chance of being lost, even if they didn't care that the actual smuggler was caught, so they'd start using another method.

I can't get the evidence to add up whichever I look at it so I am forced to conclude we have yet another self-serving unaccountable government organisations driven by false targets rather than improving the life of Her Majesty's subjects.

Actually this is the last one - will the RYA please stop falsely claiming it represents me to me Government? I represent me to the Government - we call it democracy. This self-appointed bunch of idiots won't even let me see what it's saying - how the hell can it claim to represent me? The sad thing is there are many good things it can and does do. For all it's flaws, the RYA courses and the education process in general in this country are ahead of most of the world in my opinion - that's the RYA's role and it should stick to it and stay out of politics.