Quote:
Originally Posted by ozskipper
Agreed. The same goes for NZ. In fact they were one of the first countries that wouldnt allow foreign vessels to exit without NZ minimum safety gear.
It caused a lot of commotion for a couple of years to say the least. But it basically means no safety compliance = no exit.
Side note, it was the direct result of the 1994 storm that took out multiple boats in the June long weekend "bomb" that hit a small fleet of boats sailing from NZ to Numea. Good article on it here The 1994 Queen's birthday storm | Pangolin |
Actually, the infamous "section 21" was disputed legally, and eventually went all the way to the NZ Supreme Court... where it was thrown out. Foreign registered yachts no longer were required to meet NZ safety rules in order to exit. The decision was based on NZ's being a signitory nation to some UN treaties relative to such matters... I forget the actual nomenclature.
At the time, many cruising yotties boycotted NZ, ourselves included, and the
service providers that depended upon the
trade from the overseas yachts were badly hurt. We were sorry that they suffered, but felt that the NZ requirements were both illegal (which proved to be true) and often unreasonable for cruisers. The
rule, based upon Category 1
offshore racing rules had specifications not particularly relevant to short handed cruising, and included the requirement to fit a
liferaft that had a
current inspection certificate. Many cruisers do not adhere to this practice, and did not wish to spend the thousands of dollars to meet it. Other things like specific heights and spacing of life line stanchions were hard to retrofit. It was a very contentious period, one which had a high cost for the
marine industries in NZ.
I don't know how this relates to the
AIS requirement in
Thailand, but my personal expectation is that many other places will follow suit with the
rule, and I'm not all that opposed to it myself.
Jim
Linear Mode
Recent Discussions