New Zealand Immigration Officer Making Wild Claims

[Delfin]

There is no shortage of examples of bone headed nonsensical govt regulations. However, your earlier post made it sound like you thought that gave license to ignore regulations regarding importation of non native species. If so, that is childish and leads to an expansion of the nanny state. If I misunderstood you, please accept my apologies.

[Richard5]

Originally Posted by Delfin

There is no shortage of examples of bone headed nonsensical govt regulations. However, your earlier post made it sound like you thought that gave license to ignore regulations regarding importation of non native species. If so, that is childish and leads to an expansion of the nanny state. If I misunderstood you, please accept my apologies.

We're good! Thanks!

If you want to see an environmental disaster just look at Hawaii. I was born and raised on Oahu. I am very sensitive to preservation of habitat but I am just as much dissuaded by poorly written regulation. Vaguely written does not prohibit strict enforcement. Ya know, the Nazis also....um, nevermind.

[Kiwi303]

Originally Posted by Richard5

Ya know, the Nazis also....um, nevermind.

Is it Goodwins law, or Godwins law? Y'know, the guy that postulated the heat death of online threads... He said that given a long enough thread, no matter how innocuous the topic, eventually SOMEONE would mention the N word and everything goes downhill from there.



Culture has a lot to do with attitudes to regulation and how they are enforced... The british tended to have fewer, more tightly written and much more strictly enforced regulations, then they got sucked into the black hole of the EU and exposed to the Brussels machinery, which mostly follows the continential system the French and Italians use, which is to make LOTS and LOTS of poorly written regulations and selectively enforce the ones they find useful for a given situation... I've spoken with french tourists who pity the poor brits who take those multitudes of EU regulations and enforce them strictly rather than just ignore them until someone needs a slap on the wrist by cherry picking what is available form the spectrum of rules to enforce as the rest do.

[fjwiley1]

"Boat Alexandra".....o where are you now????


S/V Water Wings

[boatman61]

It would be an irony if after all this he stumbles across Nina... but it would be interesting to hear what his next 'adventure' is...
I'm a great believer in 'Karma' and things happening for a reason... Hindu/Jain/Sikh/Moslem/Buddhist/Catholic/Prodi messed up head..

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by boatman61

It would be an irony if after all this he stumbles across Nina... but it would be interesting to hear what his next 'adventure' is...
I'm a great believer in 'Karma' and things happening for a reason... Hindu/Jain/Sikh/Moslem/Buddhist/Catholic/Prodi messed up head..

and the really weird thing is that the Karma stuff of things happening for a reason always seems to be closely related to how much time, effort and thought someone puts in. Go figure - must be some kinda real powerful mojo magical force involved. if only there was a simple explanation.......

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by David_Old_Jersey

and the really weird thing is that the Karma stuff of things happening for a reason always seems to be closely related to how much time, effort and thought someone puts in. Go figure - must be some kinda real powerful mojo magical force involved. if only there was a simple explanation.......

That's the scary bit...
I'm a lazy, thoughtless, selfish, annoying Sumvabotch...
but good stuff just keeps happening...

[jeanathon]

I've thought the karma thing was for those afraid to take revenge .....

[Khagan1227]

Originally Posted by jeanathon

I've thought the karma thing was for those afraid to take revenge .....

Whew, no I know why I never have bad luck.

I hope the OP makes it to OZ, for their sakes. Everyone needs a bit of humor no and again.

[seandepagnier]

I am out of NZ. I had a rough passage, which took more than twice as long as it should have. When the wind is strong it is impossible to sail against, and my course is limited to a small range. I was blown east of raoul and nearly to tonga before the wind dropped and shifted enough to allow me to make it west.

I was on a 60% head sail and no main for the first 9 days at which point I was within 100 miles of tonga and had sailed over 1000 miles then had to sail about 1000 more miles to reach vanuatu which took another 8 days in much more favorable conditions.

Now that I am outside NZ jurisdiction I am no longer afraid to tell the truth as I no longer fear having my boat taken away using force with threats to arrest and deport me based on what I do or say.

I must inform you that I feel my safety and well-being was seriously compromised by poor decisions made by maritime NZ and customs and immigration. I also have lost a solar panel and a month of my time as well as a lot of undue stress.

I was denied clearance to leave NZ for over 3 weeks based on the assertion by a customs officer who has no sailing experience that my vessel was "unseaworthy" because it did not look like what he is used to seeing. Eventually maritime NZ threatened to deport me and I would lose my boat if I did not allow them to put it on the hard and inspect it.

The inspection proved there was essentially nothing wrong with my
boat, but took 5 days to complete and another day to finally decide
I should be allowed to leave.

I was forced to leave 6 days into a weather window or risk losing
my boat and everything I own as the next window may not occur for
well over a month much longer than the 7 days I was given.

This pushed me onto a low pressure system which caused for a time moderately high winds (35 knots gusting 45 knots) at the peak of which for a time, some large swells (taller than the mast) arrived from the south and created breakers over a meter high across the sea which I took several direct hits. A large solar panel was smashed, it's secondary function as a storm shudder proved useful or I would have lost my windows, and many electronics.

The whole boat shuddered, and some plywood in the interior snapped as well. I believe this is the type of wave strike which could break and sink boats and then kill people.

At the time I feared for my life, knowing the weather I set out in was not as I would have liked, but hurried to leave as it still seemed a lot better than dealing with officials any longer. From my digital anenometer, the the wind was stronger than predicted, and much worse than what I had been waiting weeks for only to not be allowed to sail in.

Initially there was _nothing_ wrong with my boat and no reason to stop me from sailing when conditions were better.

In fact I had been trying to gain clearance for over 3 weeks prior in various other weather windows which proved more suitable as well.

None of the repairs completed were actually needed. I did not really need a bottom job, my bottom was clean when they hauled me out. I was not able to make the repairs in the way I would have, instead was given the
direction of an experienced boat builder.

Based on the wear of the acetol rudder bearing piece at the base of the rudder, I could probably have circumnavigated without any serious failure. It was fairly loose which raised concern but I believe unlikely to fail. This triggered the motivation to pull the entire rudder out and check the top as well. In fact the two repairs (rudder overhaul and installing additional running lights) proved worse than useless as due to overcast conditions I was unable to run the new incandescent light relying instead on my already installed LED running lights.

During the rudder overhaul, the bronze shaft was sanded to remove corrosion and then sanded more to make it look new which made it no longer fit tightly in the piece connecting to the tiller. After a short time at sea it had loosened to about 15 degrees of play between rudder and tiller despite the nut being tightened as much as possible. This is a dangerous amount of play and seriously compromised my safety. I should never have been forced to overhaul a rudder so soon before going to sea, especially when it was not required. This caused the boat to steer a less straight course and put me in much more vulnerable positions to waves as well as backwind the sails occasionally and cause excessive wear on the piston hanks and forestay.

In moderate conditions, my boat can keep a course on just the wind vane
without using the main rudder as the servo oar is half the size of the main rudder and much farther aft in the event of complete rudder failure. I also have a sculling oar which can act as an emergency rudder. For this reason I don't think a potential rudder failure is a great concern as I can wait out the high winds on drogues.

The real reason to perform repairs was to "play along" with maritime NZ
plans and make it seem like the boat really did have problems and that
maritime NZ had made the right decision to put my boat on the hard and
require unspecific repairs. (to be determined after the boat was on the hard) which proves they did not have any relevant reason, they just intended to find something wrong. Putting me back in the water the next day would have made them look stupid. Every boat that leaves could have major work done on it of some kind to improve it, but performing it last minute without testing the repairs was dangerous and worse than doing nothing.

I realize now, that this whole thing had nothing to do with my boat
not being seaworthy. This is simply an excuse to mess with me. Maybe
some of the people in maritime NZ had good intentions, and certainly the
vast majority of people around in the boat yard did, but keep in mind I only encountered one person from maritime NZ, one from customs and another from immigration. Everyone else involved was in Wellington and I never met them nor did they ever see my boat.

The real motivation for all of this is that my boat had many rust stains and
mold as well and dirt all over it from my gardening experiments. I had
firewood drying all over the decks and I do not keep a "tight ship".

I explained that this enhances the natural beauty of my vessel, and I am
not using excessive chemicals and resources for things that are not important I also had many plants growing on the boat, and many non-standard modifications.

In NZ a country which requires most students to wear a school uniform,
you are taught at a young age that it is wrong to look different,
and everyone should look the same. If someone is different,
they are discriminated against and punished for it. I can finally
understand why the feminists in Wellington seemed so extreme.

Evidence of this is obvious:

I was told I should pressure wash my boat even after I explained that the
ocean would be doing this, and does absolutely nothing to improve it's
seaworthy state. I was given various toxic chemicals to remove mold
and rust from my boat. I normally do not "tape" my waterline before painting the bottom as it generates extra rubbish, but this was needed as well.

I was informed by the official that next time I should paint my decks
and I would not "arouse suspicion" which also does absolutely nothing
to improve the boat, only spreads toxic chemicals onto it. Someone else
pointed out that my "plants weren't gaining me any points" while this,
may be true, I believe all of the problems in the world can be solved in
a garden, and I stand by my plants. In fact I am eating from my garden
over the course of the passage and the plants did grow along the way.

The current visa rules in NZ are unfair to visitors by yacht.

I needed to overstay my visa because I wanted to experience winter
in New Zealand. I believe this is a reasonable request for a visitor
to have, however, the current visa system makes it impossible to legally
do so as arrival by yacht is at beginning of summer, and departure
at the end, (to avoid sailing in cyclone season) so to experience winter
requires staying 18-20 months, and visitor visas are not granted
for this duration. I think it is fairly unreasonable to deny
experiencing an entire season to visitors especially as I had been
craving winter from so much tropical heat.

I had been told by two immigration officials (in wellington and palmerston
north) that if I overstayed for a few months it would not be considered a
big deal. I also know of several cases where other people on yachts overstayed for a similar period with no concern. There are over 16,000 people overstaying visas, and it was explained to me that they choose to target certain individuals.

As a further analogy so you might understand why I believe injustice has been dealt:

If someone gets a parking ticket, would you then proceed to strip-search them for illegal contraband? In other words.. if someone breaks a law does this give enforcement the right to break all other laws about completely unrelated issues? Overstaying a visa has nothing to do with a boat being sea-worthy or not. Foreign boats have no requirements. Making requirements for them violates international law. This was proven in the high court of New Zealand in Sellers vs Maritime Inspector in 1998.

The Custom Official's initial judgement was based on outside
appearance. This type of logic is equivilant to judging a book by it's cover.
This view would allow a boat like Nina (recent tragedy with 7 lives lost)
to sail without question as it did. Nina was immaculate from the outside.

I asked for clearance 5 different times over a period if 3 weeks.
I was legally entitled to clearance each time and every time denied.

Eventually my clearance was granted by someone else.

I urge any boaties to consider checking in at ports other than Bay of Islands to avoid encountering this unreasonable person, or request a different officer at initial contact as he is unqualified for these duties.

[Piglet]

Glad you made it.

[pdf27]

1) Good to hear you made it safely.
2) Deliberately breaking the visa laws because you wanted to experience cold weather is NOT a good idea.

[Steve Pope]

As I have posted on crew.org I'm glad you made it safely, albeit with some minor damage, just a bit of mea culpa wouldn't go astray though!

[David_Old_Jersey]

Glad you got somewhere safely.

Of course it wasn't NZ officialdom who forced you to sea - they were only forcing you out of the country.

You have made lots of choices and whilst different ones to most others fair play that they overall seem to be working for you - but you do have to accept that some of your choices will have downsides, both in lack of money that you have (you could have fixed the rudder anyway you wanted to or flown away from NZ for a vacation for 6 months) and by the attitude of others (you can rail against that being unfair all yer want - but you get to live in that as a reality).

Mostly in this thread you have come across as someone peddling self serving half truths, mixed with whine.........the irony being you are probably someone most here could happily spend a few hours with over a beer or 2. Or you might not be..........

[boatman61]

Actually weather has not looked that bad on Passage Weather...
Glad you made it... saved a SAR
Just don't take the piss like that where you are... or anywhere else W/NW of you... you'll not get off so lightly.