During the course there were a few glaringly obvious mistakes in the rules and recomendations, but was told to ignore them when pointed out.
Was also amazed when told to not worry about what a lot of the markers meant as "you wont see them out there" in the area where I got the "license".
Then the final insult was the quick lap around the sheltered inlet, where there were no other boats or markers, in a 12 ft tinny.
The resemblance and handling characteristics of the 12 ft tinny to my 50ft powercat, 32 ft Sailingcat and the 48ft Crayboat, and 46 ft powercats that I have delivered and countless other vessels I have been on was uncanny.......
NOT
LOL thanks Cat man do I had forgotten the rather laughable time we had when we too had to do our licence. We too had to do the licence as if we were a speed boat. Despite all four of us voicing our annoyance at being tested on something that we obviously werent we had to do it because thats the law. We took our two friends with us on our 32'
steel yacht (top speed 5knots down hill with a tail wind!) to do the licence and save some
money. We were taken out into Moreton bay and whilst I was on the
wheel I was told to take the boat out into the harbour and "do donuts" !!! At 3.5 knots that is a big ask! We did pass the test ultimately but answering questions that are only pertinent to speed boats was absurd! The last count we heard there was approx 185 different rules and
regulations that are in force in Queensland and they all carry a fine - you can't tell me that isn't revenue raising.
We were approached on several occasions and asked for things like - macerator (got one), holding tank(got one), boat papers (got all of them), flares (got them), V sheet (got one),
EPIRB - we actually had a 406 and handed it over to them to inspect.
"Whats this?"
I nearly fell
overboard with astonishment, here they were with the right to fine us if we didnt have the right
gear etc and he didn't know what an
EPIRB was!
I enjoyed Queensland very much but I admit that the revenue raising and laughable policing of cruising yachts is a real turn off. However if you coming in from overseas don't let this put you off, as long as you are equipped with all the safety
gear and know your stuff you'll be OK.