UKBA 35% increase in boardings!!!!

Sailor admits helping immigrants into Brighton Marina

Ok, a 55 ft yacht is a big one, but how could 21 stowaways have gone unnoticed?

And I'd be pretty suspicious, to say the least, if I suddenly spotted on my boat "a number of Oriental-looking people on board".

Not the best defence argument I have ever heard.
 
Searush said:
PhillipF

I love your post. It is the first I have seen that relates to a yacht being caught in the last 12 months. From memory, there was also a big drugs bust in 2007 too - but they had been tracked across the Atlantic.

Now, let me see, is there anything that may have drawn attention to this lot? :rolleyes: How about a 23 year old owning a 55' boat? How about landing 21 illegals in Brighton marina? It's not exactly the outcome of a random search is it? I'll bet that they set out from a French marina too, so there is a fair chance that putting the 21 illegals on board will have been noted & reported there.

If we only relied on random searches that lot would definitely have got away with it. Now can you see what a pointless & counterproductive waste of money it is to annoy families on holiday?
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Yes. they left from Fecamp marina - but I guess the authorities there were only too pleased to let them go!

This is not illegal entry through some isolated cove in the west country or muddy creeks on the east coast, but just stepping off a boat in a public marina, walking through the marina and getting on a bus to the nearest train station. If UKBA cannot stop that sort of incident what hope is there!
 
Tidewaiter2 said:
At days end, since we as a Society have decided to criminalise Class A's, and Class B's to a certain extent/quantity <... snip... > if you are a Policeman or Civil Servant tasked with carrying out Society's wishes, you have to catch smugglers/vendors ...
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What tosh. Politicians - you know - that corrupt bunch of self-serving leeches - they are the ones who "have decided to criminalise" certain substances (in some cases against the recommendations of drug experts), not "we as a society".

Likewise, the policemen and civil servants of which you speak are not "carrying out society's wishes", but the instructions of their superiors - such as chief constables or senior civil servants, neither of which are individuals elected by the public.
 
bazobeleza said:
The fact that its called an 'Agency' therefore not a 'proper institution' smacks of privatisation and leads people to think any wannabe Rambo can probably join and that really they are just as bad as traffic wardens etc etc.
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I'm sure most people here realise that words such as "Agency" and "Trust" are just semantic devices used by the civil service in a rather futile attempt to distance itself from some of its less ethical activities.
 
timbartlett said:
I'm sure most people here realise that words such as "Agency" and "Trust" are just semantic devices used by the civil service in a rather futile attempt to distance itself from some of its less ethical activities.
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They were originally introduced to distance the organisations from the political leaders - they have sacrificial Director Generals that can be dismissed by the Home Secretary instead of the Home Secretary having to carry the can.
 
Keen_Ed said:
So I put in a FOI request about the UKBA

My questions were:

1) How many times last year did UKBA staff board and search private yachts?
2) How many boardings were made in 2008 and 2007?
3) Do these figures include boardings made as the result of intelligence received?
4) How many boardings were made as the result of intelligence received?
5) How many boardings of private yachts resulted in the discovery of contraband?
6) How many boardings of private yachts made as the result of intelligence received resulted in the discovery of contraband?

Just received the answer:



A 35% increase!!! How on earth how can they justify that??

I'll be following up with the questions they haven't answered
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15 tonnes of narcotics from vessels of all types
 
Madhatter said:
15 tonnes of narcotics from vessels of all types
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Not only are they not publicizing the figure: they are using a fatuous excuse to avoid giving a straight answer to a simple question.
It's pretty obvious that none of those 15 tons came from random searches of yachts.

If UKBA had nothing to hide, what would they have to fear?
 
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Angele said:
And I'd be pretty suspicious, to say the least, if I suddenly spotted on my boat "a number of Oriental-looking people on board".
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Not me.
Most of the time my crew are oriental looking! My co-owner is Vietnamese.

Once while sailing up the coast from Spain to France, we were followed for a while by a French helicopter with a Sky news type camera hanging of the front - may be they were interested in the orientals???

I wish they would send us the pictures they took - they must have looked pretty good.
 
UKBA boardings

It must be irritating to get repeated boardings but 2000 boardings a year is surely a minimal no.for a country with over 600 ships in AIS movement at any one time (like now) plus innumerable smaller vessels in the season.
Yachts have been involved in a number of significant seizures and the cover provided to the individual vessel by the increasing shoals of pleasure yachts,their ability to close with a coast and their typically 'random' movements make them an attractive vehicle for criminals.So until I get boarded I'm all for efforts to discourage traffiking.
 
Increasing shoals?

bluerm166 said:
Yachts have been involved in a number of significant seizures... the increasing shoals of pleasure yachts...
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It would be nice to imagine that the marine industry has bucked the trend of the past few years, and has been enjoying some kind of boom, but according to a survey jointly commissioned by the BMIF, MCA, and RYA, that is not the case:
The number of boats in the UK has fallen from 1169482 in 2007 to 1099444 in 2009
The number of yachts in the UK has fallen from 80645 in 2007 to 60287 in 2009
The number of motorboats in the UK has fallen from 116785 in 2007 to 98463 in 2009
The only significant increases in numbers have been canoes, kayaks, and rowing boats.
http://www.britishmarine.co.uk/pdf/Watersports and Leisure Omnibus 2009 final public.pdf

So much for "the increasing shoals of pleasure yachts". I'm sure the "number of significant seizures" is just as reliable!
 
bluerm166 said:
It must be irritating to get repeated boardings but 2000 boardings a year is surely a minimal no.for a country with over 600 ships in AIS movement at any one time (like now) plus innumerable smaller vessels in the season.
Yachts have been involved in a number of significant seizures and the cover provided to the individual vessel by the increasing shoals of pleasure yachts,their ability to close with a coast and their typically 'random' movements make them an attractive vehicle for criminals.So until I get boarded I'm all for efforts to discourage traffiking.
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Sloppy generalised statements like this are just what the UKBA makes!

There is a severe shortage of FACTS and where there are any they do not support your statements.

UKBA just like many organisations that are politically directed assume that if they say something it is true and even if it is not true if they keep on saying it, then it will become true.

Unfortunately as they are the only source of information it is difficult to challenge their version of the truth, particularly despite the FOI they can still hide behind confidentiality.
 
UKBA boardings

Thank you for your support on this gentlemen.
The RYA report is an interesting reference,thank you.
I take your point that only C.750,000 people engaged in Motorboat or Yacht cruising (Table 1) in 2009.I can see that that's a negligible figure compared with 2,000 boardings of all vessels.I also take the point that yachts have never been used for nefarious purposes and that their declining numbers over the years will lead to empty moorings and a consequent lowering of marina charges.
 
How many gone west ?

timbartlett said:
It would be nice to imagine that the marine industry has bucked the trend of the past few years, and has been enjoying some kind of boom, but according to a survey jointly commissioned by the BMIF, MCA, and RYA, that is not the case:
The number of boats in the UK has fallen from 1169482 in 2007 to 1099444 in 2009
The number of yachts in the UK has fallen from 80645 in 2007 to 60287 in 2009
The number of motorboats in the UK has fallen from 116785 in 2007 to 98463 in 2009
The only significant increases in numbers have been canoes, kayaks, and rowing boats.
http://www.britishmarine.co.uk/pdf/Watersports and Leisure Omnibus 2009 final public.pdf

So much for "the increasing shoals of pleasure yachts". I'm sure the "number of significant seizures" is just as reliable!
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20,000 yachts down in two years!
where do all these boats go to?...Ok a lot of them will be small dinghy's etc but a good percentage must be keel boat size ! where are they now? where are they broken up? the figures wont be meaning those that are in that quiet corner of every boatyard where yachts go to die because they still exist and someone is still footing the bill. So how do they reduce the number by 25% in two years?
 
timbartlett said:
It would be nice to imagine that the marine industry has bucked the trend of the past few years, and has been enjoying some kind of boom, but according to a survey jointly commissioned by the BMIF, MCA, and RYA, that is not the case:
The number of boats in the UK has fallen from 1169482 in 2007 to 1099444 in 2009
The number of yachts in the UK has fallen from 80645 in 2007 to 60287 in 2009
The number of motorboats in the UK has fallen from 116785 in 2007 to 98463 in 2009
The only significant increases in numbers have been canoes, kayaks, and rowing boats.
http://www.britishmarine.co.uk/pdf/Watersports and Leisure Omnibus 2009 final public.pdf

So much for "the increasing shoals of pleasure yachts". I'm sure the "number of significant seizures" is just as reliable!
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With all due respect, Tim, these "statistics" are nonsense!. You need to look at the confidence levels. In Table 51 you will see that there is a 90% confidence in yachts being within the range of 41071 to 76225 with an average of 58648. You will no doubt find similar wide ranges in the comparable figures for previous years.

Why does this come about? Two reasons. First the (random, I assume) sample is less than 13000 out of a population of nearly 50 million (of which somewhere betweem 41 and 76000 own a yacht). so very small changes in responses from the sample are magnified when extrapolated to the population. Secondly these figures are not counts of actual boats, but self selected answers to questions about boat ownership. So any change in the nature of the random sample from year to year, or the honesty of the respondent will change the "accuracy" of the result.

However, the figure that is relevant is the number of yacht/motorboat movements in a year, and that is impossible to measure as there are so many variables affecting it - weather, economcic conditions etc. never mind the difficulty of defining the movement and counting them. The only logical statement that could be made is that movements are likely to increase with the increase in the number of yachts capable of making such passages. However, the increase is unlikely to be linear as we know many boats rarely leave their local waters (by observation anyway).

Because such behaviours are so difficult to measure (as are the behaviours of smugglers) anybody can make a statement that suits their view of the world without much fear of contradiction. They can even go looking for evidence to support what they say, but as we see in this example, the evidence is almost certainly flawed, so rather than strengthening the argument it weakens it!
 
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