Making Waves
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday May 10, 2008
IT WAS with great sadness that Tidelines woke to the news of another horrific boating crash on Sydney Harbour last week, with six young lives lost at the black spot created by Bradley's Head jutting out into the main channel. Of course, investigations are continuing and reports from police and the coroner to determine how the aluminium half-cabin boat and trawler collided are pending. Meantime, we urge all to be extra cautious when boating at night: keep windscreens clean of salt spray and never leave the helm and drive on autopilot within the confines of the harbour. Predictably, there have been calls for new regulations, separate traffic corridors, greater licensing requirements, even night-time boating bans. One good suggestion was to improve the performance of navigation lights. The standard port (red) and starboard (green) lights on many boats are dim at best and the all-round white light and stern lights are too often forgotten or, on trailerboats where clip-on models are common, relegated to the side pocket. Also, NSW Maritime spent $190,000 repairing 153 incidents of vandalised navigation markers such as buoys, lights and lighthouses in the past three years. Ironically, one of the only safe-water marks in the country lies off Bradley's Head. By and large the harbour is a wonderful experience at night, when the neons are playing on the water and you can hear the bow wave through the eerie quiet. Play it safe, see http://www.maritime.nsw.gov.au/sbh/nav-night.html
Then, days later, came news of a catastrophic boat explosion at Pier 35 in Melbourne, taking with it the lives of the parents of the skipper, who had just filled up the petrol-powered Halvorsen cruiser for its maiden voyage. Despite subsequent calls to ban petrol inboard craft, explosions are rare these days. The thing to watch with petrol is the volatile gases that settle in the bilges, where the slightest spark creates a bomb. It's imperative to have a bilge blower, which you'll find on all modern-day petrol inboard boats. Start the blower well before you start the engine. Once you shut down the engine, you will suddenly be aware of the blower humming in the background. By all means switch it off, but don't forget to switch it back on before you start the engine. And if you smell petrol, shut down everything.The NSW Minister for Ports and Waterways, Joe Tripodi, has asked the Council of Australian Governments for uniform national marine industry regulations governing the building of commercial vessels. The National Marine Safety Committee has been working for more than a decade developing new national standards, but few states have adopted them and each has interpreted them in a different way. Earlier this year, the NMSC sought public comment on a new draft standard for navigation safety equipment to be carried on commercial vessels. Apart from the existing requirements for fitting navigation lights, the new standards would see commercial vessels operating in sheltered waters have mandatory GPS systems and radar on passenger vessels longer than 12 metres. Banning the use of autopilots in enclosed waters would be sensible, too.Our biggest boatbuilder, Riviera, last week announced 136 redundancies from its full-time workforce effective immediately because of dwindling demand for its boats. Riviera has been hit by the languid US economy where it exports roughly half of the 300-odd boats it builds each year.
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald