Just went through the "regulations": governing CAT 1 and copied this:
"
NZ flagged ships departing
New Zealand require an
Inspection
Certificate to complete NZ Customs
documentation requirements
prior to departure. For more information, please see Part III of these
Regulations."
@ Kurlie1: I agree with FXYKTY, your inspector is/was mistaken.
@ NNK: There is no question as to the validity of the CAT 1 standards and I personally don't know of a boat owner leaving NZ that does not comply with the broad standards, even those who don't need to do CAT 1. What I object to is every time some else fails the
emergency test and kills people, we have to jump through a whole new range of hoops.
An example is the requirement of the Survival at Sea course to achieve CAT 1 which was brought about by the inability of the
skipper and owner of the yacht Platino to keep the people on their boat safe. Ironically,
all the people on that boat had the
certification for this course and still two people were killed. But now I and many others who have many nms of passage-making under our belts without incident, have to spend time and
money jumping through this new hoop.
And a foreign boat needs nothing - they can leave without ANY
safety equipment on board, yes, they don't even have to have a
liferaft on board let alone a certified one. And they will get exactly the same SAR response as I will, foreign vessel or no, when things go wrong.
Somewhere it has to stop.