Take your Lead Lights one at a time by Chris Ayres



It’s been a hard slog, with 30-plus knots behind you and you are looking forward to dropping the pick in a sheltered anchorage. The entrance to the bay is opening up and you glance at the chart. In pencil, you had drawn a circle around the port-hand mark and a question mark with the word ‘buoy’ next to it.
At the back of your brain you recall when you plotted your course, reading a ‘Notice to Mariners’ warning, when last you had Internet access, about a port-hand lateral mark destroyed and another Notice about it replaced by a temporary buoy.
With one eye on the compass, the sounder and the chart, your other eye strains to see where the mark is. Your crew comes on deck and you get out the binoculars and stare through the rain and … Yes! There it is. You pass it and immediately you see the next mark and follow the other marks as they appear, into peace and quiet. You check depth and bottom and drop the anchor, log your position, time and other details and relax.
What prompted me to write this article was my concern that there seemed to be an increase in incidents of damage to navigation marks.
Like most, I was still staggered by the eye-watering 120% hike in registration fees that had just been imposed and was wondering just what we got for our money. I knew of a Cardinal mark near where I sail had been damaged in an accident during foul weather by a large vessel. It cost over $100,000 to repair because it also contained sensitive meteorological equipment.
Was it because there are now more marks, more traffic or sheer carelessness that resulted in damage to these essential aids to navigation? I contacted Marine Safety Queensland with a view to finding out if it was my imagination or was the situation really getting worse.
I received a very comprehensive reply to my questions from Patrick Quirk, Acting General Manager at Maritime Safety Queensland. He told me by way of introduction that there are some 7,000 marine aids to navigation in Queensland alone!
In reply to my queries as to whether or not there had been an increase in damage to nav marks, I was told that in 2009 there were 127 incidents of damage to beacons, compared with 199 in 2008 and that overall there did not appear to be a marked increase in incidents, despite the fact there had been a significant increase in registered vessels in Queensland.

How many electronically assisted collisions occur?

After reading of incidents overseas where vessels have tended to use nav marks as waypoints – prompting the UK for example to discontinue marking the position of the nav mark on charts – I asked if such a practice was a cause of damage here.
While acknowledging that more and more vessels were now relying on GPS and other equipment for navigation, MSQ had no data as to whether or not such a reliance on electronic navigation was a cause of damage. Patrick did comment – and sailors quick to condemn power boats please take note.
“It is known that many sailing clubs use aids to navigation as waypoints/turning marks during races and this has lead to several collisions,” Patrick Quirk said. “Indications are that these incidents are mainly due to the master’s desire to take a racing line as close to the turning/mark beacon as possible.”
Ouch! But vessels that rely too much on autopilots and which fail to keep a proper watch are also responsible for many collisions.
In the vast majority of incident reports, Quirk notes, masters claim wind and tidal conditions were the cause of the collision. This raises the question of sound seamanship – including exhaustion after a long hard passage. Motorists may be able to pull over and rest to ‘keep the driver alert’, and on yacht, a proper watch-keeping system should be kept. Single-handers or short-handed vessels need to take extra care when approaching nav marks, which invariably exist to warn of danger.
The size and location of the beacon rather than the size and speed of the vessel often determine the magnitude of damage done to each. For example, a vessel colliding with an 80mm pipe will cause significant damage to a beacon, but the same size vessel striking a 600mm diameter would cause a lot less damage to the beacon. And, I must add, a lot more to the offending vessel!

Who pays for the damage done to Navigation Marks?

I also asked if boat-owners reported collisions with nav marks. Quirk responded by saying the likelihood of owning up usually depended on the likelihood of being caught! Human nature. But commercial operators tended to report incidents more readily than recreational boat-owners.
This is unfortunate, because we all depend on nav marks, and the sooner a damaged mark is reported, the sooner it gets listed in Notices to Mariners to warn the rest of us and the sooner it can be repaired.
Repairing a nav mark is expensive and often dangerous and difficult work. When a mark is damaged, the cost of repairs requires “recovery action … by MSQ following identification of the culpable party”.
Lead Lights in need of repairMSQ has been successful in recovering costs in the majority of cases where the culpable party has been identified. Water Police, MSQ and Fisheries and others agencies will investigate where damage to a mark has occurred and then try and identify the offending vessel. MSQ has also been successful in recovering costs “specifically for the purposes of seeking restitution.”
When I think of what these nav marks cost to build and to repair, then I must say thank heavens for insurance!

Just what do we get for our money?

Now, grumbling about what we have to pay to keep out boats registered, I asked Patrick what we get for our money. In a table he provided, he showed that the smaller boats by far contribute the greater amount of revenue – 142,893 vessels under 4.5 metres pay $82.00 registration fee and provide 39% of total boating services revenue.
Obviously, such smaller vessels are far less likely to wipe out a $100k beacon – and would really know about if they did – so it is fair that large sums be spent on what such craft also need, such as boat ramps.
By contrast, vessels between 10 to 15 metres – our cruising yachtsperson size – will pay over 4 times as much at $394.35 but account for only 9% of revenue. OK – it’s called equity.

The Repairers

I am quick to criticise what I perceive as stupid government policy. But whenever I see a government boat tied along a beacon, with a man up the pole, I always think – who would want a job like that?
All it needs is some idiot to roar past – and it need not be close by either – to create wash that could maim or even kill the person who is doing a vital job to keep us safe. Many of these nav marks – of necessity since they are warning of dangers – are located in dangerous waters, beset with large tides and strong currents, often miles offshore.
In maintaining the nav marks and providing timely warning of damage to such beacons, the authorities provide safety and security and some of the best-marked waterways in the world.
A skipper I once crewed for used to say “take your lead lights one at a time”.
It has become a philosophy of life for me as well as sheer common sense when following a long and shallow channel. May all of the lead lights be there to follow.

My thanks to Patrick Quirk, Acting General Manager of Marine Safety Queensland and the Queensland Minister for Transport for information used in this article.