 
Will we ever learn?
There has been much media coverage about the tragic loss of life from the Excalibur after she lost her keel and capsized. All the talk has been centred around the failure of welding but unless I have missed it there has been no mention of the way her liferaft was stowed.
Just maybe some or all of the deceased might not have perished had they been able to deploy their liferaft. I was invited to inspect the yacht after she had been recovered and placed on the hard in the Water Police compound. My interest was the liferaft stowage. It was beneath the cockpit sole in a special well with lid, dedicated for the liferaft. It was ‘out of the way’, a very neat and tidy installation, and complying with AYF racing regulations.
With the yacht upside down there would have been little or no chance of retrieving the liferaft from its dedicated locker. I believe many people don’t realise that, in spite of their considerable weight, liferafts are very buoyant when un-inflated. They have to be to enable automatic inflation.
They must have sufficient buoyancy to permit a sinking vessel to pull on the operating line or painter as she goes down, without pulling the liferaft with her. When all the operating line is pulled out the CO2 cylinder is automatically ‘fired’ and the liferaft is inflated. Just imagine trying to dive under an upturned yacht to haul down on a liferaft which is now trying to float upwards and still stowed under the cockpit floor which is now the ‘ceiling’!
SOLAS stowage requirements for large ships, Defence requirements for Navy vessels, USL Code requirements for charter boats, fishing boats and others under survey all know that liferafts should be in float free positions. Hydrostatic Release Units (HRUs) will free the lashings holding the rafts on deck when the vessel sinks to a set level and water pressure is sufficient. The rafts then float towards the surface and their operating lines are pulled as mentioned above. (HRUs can be ‘over-ridden’ and lashings manually released or cut if time and conditions permit).
To this day YA rules still permit stowage of liferafts in difficult-to-get-to positions. Indeed, on modern racing yachts one rarely sees liferafts on deck at all.
OK, not all liferafts are used after sinking and many are deployed in time before needing to abandon ship. But in certain circumstances retrieving a heavy liferaft (or liferafts) from somewhere down below deck level can be a very difficult, perhaps impossible, task. Think about it.
John Ferris,
Roseville Chase.
Boating industry economy distress
I am new to boating and I’d like to share my observations as a new skipper …
Safe Waterways
On the Central Coast of NSW I am spoilt enough to have a choice of beautiful waterways upon which to spend a day out boating. Pittwater and the Hawkesbury or Lake Macquarie. Unfortunately access to both waterways requires navigation through an unsafe channel. The channels are silted by shifting sands and require maintenance dredging. In both cases vessels are grounding due to unsafe passages. Waterways is responsible for safe Navigation … they should get on with their job.
Lack of boating tourism facilities
We have the most beautiful harbours and waterways and beaches in the world but very few businesses are allowed to develop sustainably along our waterways. This stops the provision of safe docking and the revenue generating food/ accommodation industries which can contribute to our ailing economy from boating tourism.
Facilities for pump out are non-existent
Safe casual docking facilities at tourist hot spots are minimal and usually controlled by selfish lease holders who are more than eager to charge executive fees.
Lack of competitive markets
Boat dealers are closing down and are going broke because, as with most other Australian industries, they have formed ‘polygopolies’. This means the supply of engines and boats is restricted and is putting prices out of reach of a nation of entry-point enthusiasts unable to find a boat deal that suits their family budget. An example of this is a middle-range outboard costs more than a Hyundai motor car.
New boating rules and infringements
Fines in the order of tens of thousands of dollars are placing the fear of God into skippers who pray they don’t make a mistake navigating in a no wash zone, or be one point over the limit for fear that the new fines involved mean that they will effectively lose their house, family or spend time in gaol. Responsible skippers risk everything now if they make a mistake. In addition, Waterways officers seeking revenues regularly spoil a day out by checking all aspects of your vessel’s safety to the point where even North Koreans have more freedom of movement.
Millions of dollars in revenue from licensing, registrations and other fees and charges are taken from the economy from an over greedy and embarrassing State Government intent on not providing responding services. An example is home owners with jetties facing outrageous tenfold price rises in recent years. Yacht owners with these jetties are now in the ridiculous situation that they cannot navigate safely in silted channels ... so leave them tied up.
Waterways and Dept of Lands need to, at the very least, provide the services they are getting paid for … or give back the revenue they are stealing from the Central Coast economy which was suffering three years before the world recession.
In summary, stop blaming America for our troubles in Australia. Boating is just one example of an Australian industry. Look how we are screwing it … and holding back investment.
Peter Whyte,
Tumbi Umbi.
Coastal Marine Communications
Regarding Jonathan Neeves’s extensive article on Coastal Marine Communications (Afloat, Apr’09).
He wrote “So for those vessel owners with DSC enabled VHF radios – do not rely on your DSC emergency call to prompt your rescue – nobody is listening!” Somebody is listening!
Coast Guard has DSC enabled radios fitted to both their vessels and bases at many of its bases including Solander, Sydney and Cottage Point, and are able to receive DSC transmissions (when within range).
Call your local Volunteer Marine Rescue organisation (AVCG, RVCP or VRA) and they’ll be able to tell you if they can monitor DSC in your area. (http://www.maritime.nsw. gov.au/docs/publications/marine_radio.pdf)
Also, for those wondering what to do with your expired flares – try calling a local rescue organisation. They’ll often use expired flares for demonstrations and training exercises.
John Bensley,
Turramurra.
Education and DSC
To add to the valuable comments of Greg Searle and Robert Hair in their letters regarding my article on Coastal Communications (Afloat, Apr’09). Unfortunately it is not possible to cover in sufficient detail both DSC, AIS, the new repeaters in NSW, and Kordia’s services etc. Fortunately the VMRs conduct VHF and VHF/HF training courses, preparatory to sitting the licence exams – which are a legal requirement for anyone using VHF and/or HF and these training courses for the last 10 years have covered DSC.
Unfortunately most owners of VHF sets cannot be bothered, or do not know they need a licence, and a senior executive from the VMRs advises that they estimate 60% of radios are used unlicensed.
An example of DSC coverage – my comment ‘no-one is listening’. In the UK the advice given is: “if you are out of sight of land and cannot see other vessels then do not rely on your DSC alert being received”.
We venture as far north as the Whitsundays and as far south as Port Davey and the numbers of vessels, leisure or commercial, we see, certainly when we are travelling south, is minimal. On the AMSA website they point out that land based VHF DSC coverage in Australia is patchy.
In Tasmania, for example, there are three shore based VHF DSC enabled stations – but almost total coverage of voice, 24/7, with the repeaters. I personally would not rely on a passing trawler, just over the horizon, and would be considerably more comfortable with VHF voice and an EPIRB – which we are all required to carry offshore. There are now 100 land-based VHF DSC VMR locations in Australia – not much for a technology ten years old and for a shore line the length of Australia’s. The VMRs need more funding.
For a DSC message to be reacted on two things are required, the set must be interfaced with a GPS and the set must have an MMSI number. MMSI numbers are only available, from AMSA (free), to applicants holding radio licences. Of the estimated 200,000 VHF sets only 6,000 MMSI numbers have been issued, and 4,500 of these have been issued to vessels carrying HF (as well as VHF). The balance of 1,500 licenses I would deduce are vessels with only VHF DSC sets.
The ‘take up’ of leisure VHF DSC is less than 1%. A VHF DSC alert sent by a vessel without a MMSI number, and I suspect there are large numbers of such sets, is said by the rescue authorities to be treated with considerable suspicion – a hoax. Yes there might, and I would stress the might, be someone listening – but unless your DSC VHF set is correctly established, one of the 1,500, your chances of a reaction to the DSC call are low and given the patchy geographic coverage not a technology on which to base the safety of you and your family.
There are other uses for DSC – addressing specific receivers using their MMSI numbers, good for automatic position reporting, good for ‘talking’ to that ship whose intentions are unclear – but you need to wade through a list of 6,000 numbers off the AMSA website or have AIS to get the MMSI number. VHF DSC might come of age in Australia – but we are long, long way off being able to rely on it.
I agree more education is needed and motivated merchants of marine equipment, the VMRs and the individuals can all play a role.
Jonathan Neeves,
Yacht Josepheline.
Boating Licences
I have worked Sydney harbour for 20 years, and I have seen a lot of poor navigation on the water. I’m very concerned about the number of apparently unlicensed boaties.
Our government is so stupid. You need a licence to go fishing but you don’t to drive a boat. If it’s got a motor you should be licensed. Same for yachts and dinghies or we will have a lot more accidents on the water,
Please boaties keep right and obey the rules … if you know them.
Jef Curnoe,
by email.
 Graceful old launch
Recently I fulfilled a long-held ambition and undertook the walk from The Spit to Manly, the highlight of which for me was a sighting towards the end of the walk of an elegant wooden launch at a mooring in North Harbour.
It was none other than former navy workboat 433 – readily identifiable because the present owner is heritage-aware enough to preserve those numbers at the vessel’s bow.
This old launch evokes many happy memories for me, as similar sightings from that illustrious post-war workboat fleet would no doubt do for others who were fortunate enough to be kids at that time with naval friends.
 Back in the 1950s the Navy had quite a large fleet of workboats, which were kept in an enclosure on the Elizabeth Bay side of Garden Island and used to ferry workers to the Navy’s various harbourside establishments and to the many mothballed warships then moored on dolphins around the harbour.
At weekends, however, they were available for recreational use by serving officers, and many is the happy Sunday I spent as a youngster aboard one of these vessels (more often than not, No. 433) with a particular naval family who availed themselves of this privilege.
I actually managed to dig up an old photograph taken in 1954 with my trusty Kodak Brownie camera and showing workboat 433 in weekend mode. In the picture is the ‘nanny’ of the naval family in question and two of her young charges, both of whom (no longer young!) will readily identify themselves if they happen to see this photo.
The usual procedure on our weekend excursions was to cruise up Middle Harbour, usually with one of us kids at the helm (fortunately, without misadventure), perhaps stopping for a dip at the (long-gone) Roseville Baths, and then anchoring at Store Beach for lunch. The adults would sit around at the stern of the boat after lunch, swapping naval anecdotes over assorted beverages, while we kids amused ourselves diving off the cabin roof (no concerns about sharks then), swimming ashore and playing around on the rocks.
Some of the workboats had a solid main cabin but most, as I recall, were canvas from the bridge aft. I think I read somewhere (probably in Afloat) that these workboats were all made by Halvorsens, and their agreeable lines, solid craftsmanship and longevity would certainly support that theory.
Perhaps other readers can enlighten us about what became of the rest of the old Navy workboats, and whether they have a modern counterpart?
Peter Austin,
Mt Victoria.
Macquarie Pond
A thank you note to the tug boats Starlight and Toby II and the standby vessel Lahara that braved adverse conditions to assist the stricken vessel Westwind, which got into difficulties negotiating the Lake Macquarie drainage system this Easter.
Many thanks, boys, and many thanks Toronto for another excellent Heritage Afloat, alas possibly the last one for our two metre draft Westwind unless the festival is moved to a more accessible venue.
Chris & Gilli Dicker,
Yacht Westwind.
Shark signs in Middle Harbour
All this shark-attack talk has me sweating. As marauding teenage tinnie-jockeys in the 1960s we occasionally went on expeditions around Sydney, Middle and North Harbours on summer weekend afternoons in our Quintrexes and Toppers, having fun and getting burned.
Every so often, much too young to hold a boat licence, we’d travel at well-over ten knots up Middle Harbour, way beyond the Roseville Bridge, where the shallowing creek narrows and once there was clean water.
When we could go no further, at a sand-dredging works, we’d end up taking the 9.5hp Johnson off the back of one of the Toppers, and drag the powerless aluminium shell up a tall sandhill. At the top, as excitement built we’d jump in and ride it, Jackass-style, wearing orange safety cones as hats (just to be silly) all the way down into the creek. Alas, the sandhill has gone now and so have the Toppers.
In 1964 a number of large shark-warning signs printed on tinplate appeared nailed to trees on the shoreline upstream from Sugarloaf Bay. The red and black printed signs on a white enamel background were in five languages: English, Italian, Greek, and two squiggly-lined scripts we as young teenagers hardly recognised but with which we have since become more familiar. In all five languages they screamed:
STAY OUT OF WATER!
MAN-EATING SHARKS!
The signs lasted for just a couple of seasons, if that.
They were valuable and coveted by young adventurers such as ourselves. One by one they were taken down from the gumtrees and, hidden under beach towels from Maritime Services Board Officers, transported covertly home; where it’s just possible some still adorn bedroom or toilet walls in original unrenovated homes.
I know one of them, in mint condition, travelled as far as Mornington Beach to an interstate friend’s parent’s colourful iconic bathing shed.
They were never replaced and Middle Harbour boaters are today unwarned. Thankfully, there have been no serious shark incidents in Middle Harbour – or at Mornington Beach – since that irresponsible summer of stolen shark signs.
Gary Jackson,
Georges Heights.
Too many sharks for Murdoch
Joe Morris (Shark Scare in Harbour; Afloat, Apr’09) is not the only journalist who made capital of shark stories as a cub reporter.
In his youth, my husband Jon worked for Cumberland Newspapers, publisher of the Parramatta Advertiser. He tells this yarn.
On quiet Wednesdays, a cub reporter might sometimes be told by the chief of staff, thirsty for copy, to take a stroll over the Gasworks Bridge, sited conveniently nearby, and “just happen to see a shark”.
A picture of a large white pointer, jaws agape, duly appeared the next day with the story of yet another shark sighting in the Parramatta River. The costly etched metal block of the picture was then returned to files and after a decent interval had elapsed, was brought out for the next slow news day.
This happened once too often for the keen eyed handson owner of Cumberland Newspapers, Rupert Murdoch, who rang the editor-in-chief and told him: “I want you to go down to the composing room right now, find that f…… block and throw it into the melting pot.”
Derry Simonds,
Ashfield.
World recognized coastal research centre
I read with interest in your excellent magazine the article on Port Botany by Gregory Blaxell (Afloat, Apr’09). I do not wish to detract from this excellent piece but rather to clarify one issue. In the article it was stated that the Hydraulic Research Station in Wallingford (England) was appointed in 1963 to advise the NSW Government on technical and scientific aspects of the project.
This is correct. However, Mr Blaxell may not be aware that by 1970, shortly after the project commenced, it became apparent that Wallingford’s designs presented major difficulties in construction and would produce significant adverse impacts to the Bay’s foreshore.
The State Government then turned to the University of NSW Water Research Laboratory at Manly Vale to redesign the main protection wall on the seaward side of the reclaimed port area and to reconfigure the dredging to reduce the likely damage.
Because construction had already commenced and major changes were necessary, technical studies including design testing in wave flumes (wave tanks) and modelling of both the dredged areas and remedial measures took place at a hectic pace over the 1970/72 period with some of us working seven days a week for many months.
Most of the Port re-design was carried out at the Manly Vale Lab with a combined effort between Manly and the MSB’s Mascot facility on the dredging and the remedial shoreline work.
The end result was a workable solution. However, because it had to be retrofitted it was not possible to fully overcome the shoreline impacts. That is why there are groynes (rock walls) projecting out on many of the beaches around the Bay today.
These offset the shoreline re-alignment that nature attempted in response to the Port and Airport construction.
The Australian team was headed up by Associate Professor Doug Foster. Doug passed away some years ago but left a great legacy by his work and contribution to the Water Research Lab at Manly Vale, a Lab that today is recognized throughout the world as a leading edge coastal research centre. Interestingly many Australians have never heard of it!
Angus Gordon, Coastal Engineer (Retired … sort of),
North Narrabeen.
Flotsam and jetsam
The eastern side of Careel Bay is exposed to W and NW winds. Thirty years ago I’d fill a beach bin every two weeks with the usual flotsam. Thankfully things have improved, it now takes about four months – except in a wild Westerly blow! Over the years we have rescued the following items, some of which otherwise would be a real hazard to boat users.
Building beams 12ft long six-by-fours. (How could anyone lose such items and not go looking for them?); Cockpit cushions, some in immaculate condition; Large pieces of hatch covers; Life jackets still in their wrappers; Fenders of various sizes; Ditto buoys; Sheets of marine ply; Sections of pontoons and (of course) dinghies.
We haul the stuff off the beach and display it on the sea wall, leave notes at the boatshed and the local shops. No one has ever claimed any of it. Where do they think it goes in a Westerly?
Last month a large ugly mass of fibrous carpet washed in, but was too heavy to wash out again. Eventually we struggled to lug it ashore. It measured 8x2m. Obviously much too big to have fallen off a boat.
We had to cut it in half before it could be manhandled onto the seawall. It will have to stay there until it dries out and becomes light enough to roll it up and cart it up 60 steps to the garbage bin, and we are getting too old for this. Who dumps this stuff, and who should take the responsibility for removing it?
June McKimmie,
Careel Bay.
20 Years Afloat
Congratulations on your 20 years publishing Afloat – 235 issues, and a circulation of over 30,000!
You have done so bloody well and not without a lot of personal sacrifice and, I am sure, a lot of sleepless nights! It is the best ‘Priceless’ publication I have read, and look forward to it every month.
The stories are well presented, great photos and wonderfully factual and you have not blurred the fine line of stories being independent of the advertising dollar.
The fact that it is the same Peter Webb who is the founder and, after all the years, still the personal distributor of the magazine, I know from the various watering holes I frequent, is remarkable. I frequently cut out articles and mail them overseas and, yes, I do have a life away from the Greengate Hotel, and distribute the mag to mates all over our old town.
George Meredith,
Killara.
Game-fishing boat Broadbill
Re: RSVP What boat is this? from Kyle Paterson of North Wyong (Afloat, May’09).
The vessel referred to by Kyle Paterson is almost certainly Dr Arthur Basil (Keith) Watkins Broadbill, built in 1940 at Carrington, Newcastle by “Chips” Gronfers, a well-known boat designer and builder of that era.
In Dr Watkin’s book Big Game Fishing published by Geoffrey Bles, London in 1950, he refers to having Gronfers design the lines and later build the vessel. The 37ft V-bottom cruiser vessel was reputedly the first two-engine game fishing boat in the Newcastle/ Port Stephens region. He remarks in the book that it was fitted with two 50 horsepower petrol engines – my guess would be perhaps Rugby Red Seal or Invincible, probably the most popular marine engines of that era.
Keith Watkins was a pleasant and cultured Englishman who had emigrated to Australia in the late 1920s and who had a large General Medical Practice in Newcastle. He later became an eminent Macquarie Street specialist physician in Sydney. He had joined the embryo Newcastle and Port Stephens Game Fish Club in the mid 1930s and fished with some success in his old boat Ichtys. He was there in the pioneering days.
Keith’s timing with the new boat was not good, for not long after her launching, wartime regulations were enacted to restrict fuel use and unnecessary offshore travel. He joined the RAAF Reserve and lent Broadbill to the Auxiliary Naval Patrol Service “under whose auspices she was driven backwards and forwards several nights weekly opposite the Newcastle Harbour entrance in search of prowling Japanese submarines”.
He subsequently sold her to the RAAF for a nominal sum on the proviso that she would be sold back to him at the conclusion of her service. This in fact happened, and Dr Watkins fished for marlin and sharks off Newcastle and the Port Stephens region in her for some time into the 1950s, I believe.
The commitments of his very busy practices in Sydney eventually led to him disposing of Broadbill. It would be interesting to hear of her later career, and owners, as she and Dr Keith Watkins are part of the Port Stephens/ Newcastle fishing heritage.
John McIntyre,
Sutherland.
Lore of The Sea
The apprentice had been aboard his ship for only three days when he was sent to the bridge to learn how to steer.
While under instruction from the Mate, a kindly old Norwegian, the apprentice was told to, “Come to Starboard”.
The apprentice prided himself on knowing about Port and Starboard, so he left the wheel and walked to the Mate on the starboard side of the bridge.
The Mate said to the apprentice, “Next time you do that could you please bring the ship with you?”
Alan Chapman,
Warners Bay.
R.S.V.P.
Stolen Boat
 My lovely old 25 foot Alglass half cabin Krevela with 150hp Evinrude Ocean Pro outboard was taken from its mooring at Meadowbank West between the 22-26 April.
In addition the mooring marker was taken. It has its number DG 008 and some reflective tape on it. The engine runs beautifully as it was rebuilt recently and finally cleaned out with Salt Away (great product) after 12 months hard work and many dollars.
That end of the Parramatta River has had a few boats disappear in the last few months, as well as mooring markers. If you see anything, get onto the Marine Area Command or at least local police.
I was looking forward to building an awesome bench seat, new flooring and re-painting so that family and friends could enjoy the waterways I love. Ah well, that will take a bit more time to see that dream come true.
It would be great if we could put these thieves on notice – hopefully your days are numbered.
Tony Gallagher,
|
