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Explain that to me, Not-guilty owing to insanity? Otherwise totally agree. I've banged a few corners, figuratively. In hind sight it was all three and unnecessary.

Hi K. You have repeatedly stated that there was 17 helicopters.... Your continued statements gave me the impression that you understood 17 different helicopters were or should have been available to be directed to the search. If that was not your intended sense, please let me know what you were meaning to say. The reality is set out very clearly in the report. There are almost no dedicated, marine capable, SAR helicopter units nationally. Those units that are available are primarily medical services and aggregated they operate 95% of the time in that configuration. T

They tasked the most appropriate asset available to go look for the Epirb. They then tasked two more when the gravity of the problem became apparent. MaritimeNZ were not responsible for the fuel cache. Fueling is the responsibility the local operator, in this case NEST. The local operator agrees to meet a national standard for rescue aircraft. MaritimeNZ can't have caches of fuel scattered around NZ waiting for what if. Jet fuel goes off if left to sit and needs careful management. Before the incident, NEST already knew they had a fuel availability issue at Kaitiaia

My apologies, I took your response as sarcasm, "oh yep, you said..." rather than an acknowledgment of your error. In that view, I acknowledge my following post with a "geography lesson" was not warranted. I would say though that I am feeling frustrated that I have been consistently misquoted on key points, or statements attributed to me that I haven't said that materially change the arguement. That includes Aardvark and pysche, hence my push back on it.

Correct I did say. And then, when you pointed that out, I acknowledged that you said North Island. Rather than accepting that I it wrong and acknowledging my acknowledgement your response was then to throw me an obnoxious geography lesson. I trust you now have enough clarification to move on? And possibly enough information to understand why people aren't engaging.

You were asserting I said statements I didn't say, twisting the context to mean something different. If you have a problem getting called out on that, that is your issue.

Below is the 'Rescue' section of the TAIC report. In general, it does not come across as particularly well organised of efficient to me. No criticism of volunteers or rescuers involved. There appears to be no shortage of rescue assets in NZ, as I have been banging on about all along, it is the coordination of the assets and scenario planning (lack of fuel) that appears to be the issue, which is Maritime NZ's responsibility. Instead of focusing on this, there is a strong perception they are going after the skipper for PR purposes. Apoligies, the copy and paste format is terrible.

If you want people to participate in the conversation I would suggest that this isn't the way. I will bow out again. I feel very silly for re-engaging.

Geography lesson time. Northland is not North Island. Northland is a region of the North Island. If we are going to have any meaningful dialogue it would be handy if you guys didn't keep on saying stuff I didn't say. Psyche, I have said there are 17 rescue helos in the North Island. I haven't made any comment about how many are operationally ready at any one time. Again that is something you are making up. Not me. That gives the perception you have a weak arguement and are having to resort to deflection and confusion. Just saying.

Oh yep, you said North Island.

I've never said there are 17 SAR helo's in Northland. Are you guys going to carry on making sh*t up and saying stuff I didn't until I give up and go away? It is interesting that I've been banging on about only 1 rescue helo for a couple of a days now and you are the first to pull me up on that, congratulations. It does reinforce my perception that most people on here think the skipper is guilty regardless of the facts. This is a good little example that no-one here appears to be across the facts of the charges. Anyway, there was only ever one helo actively conducting a rescue. T

We as a nation have chosen to govt fund only a tiny part of day to day SAR and leave the rest up to private organisations. There is no point in complaining about what is essentially a free service to the public unless you also volunteer or go fundraising. As for 17 rescue helicopters on standby with trained crews prepared for an Enchanter incident and within effective flight time of North cape? Somehow I doubt it.

Agreed. I dislike auto inflators for that very reason. Also they are very annoying when you take a wave on the bow...

Had the skipper had an automatic inflating life jacket on he most likely wouldn't be in court as he would be dead, trapped underwater by the inflated jacket. Great things if you are above deck, can be deadly if you are below.

The inquiry happened it's findings are documented. NZ SAR doesn't have rescue helicopters ready to go with wet winching capabilities. RCC task domestic commercial helicopters and air ambulance helicopters (naso). NASO helicopters are only available if they aren't already involved in ambulance work. The aircraft has to be reconfigured on the ground and set up for SAR, this takes a couple of hours to complete. Defense helicopters do not have wet rated winches - they also have a policy in place that requires that RCC engage commercial and NASO assets before they engage Defense as

I think we should always debrief incidents to understand what happened and why, and to identify opportunities for improvement. Part of that should be identifying what resources exist and why they were chosen or not chosen for deployment. To me, one of the issues is that ALL rescue and response bodies are not fully govt funded. They are therefore independent and make their own decisions on how and when they deploy. The coastguard, Westpac rescue, nest, st John's, surf lifesaving, even FENZ, are all in the same situation. They all rely on volunteers and donations to perform thei

You are asserting a lot of things I haven't said. Not even close to haven't said. All the assets already exist. 17 rescue helos in the north island, only one dispatched. Why? Question. Given the circumstances and outcomes of the rescue, do you think an inquiry is warranted? Or should we just carry on Business as Usual?

What, and Westhaven isn't?

As much as a pain it is.Being up a river,clevedon/tamiki. Use to take sails off if we knew wernt using the yacht for a month or so.We got a lot of black from the panmure bridge, tyre rubber??

Anyone looking for a liferaft? Trademe listing https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/boats-marine/parts-accessories/safety/listing/4714902867 CSM 6 Man Manufactured 2022 First Service due Nov 2025

Any other owners out there wanting to get together to share our interest in these great yachts? Used to be an association in the 1970s !

Expect it to get worse, not better. By definition, the planning roles you describe are not front line. To keep with our apolitical approach, I'll allow you to join the dots.

K, I follow your line of questions, they are very relevant. and your concern re the helo f---up. The helo crew were doing their very best against the odds, with head office not really even in the picture. None of the f---up was the fault of the helo crew.. the lack of fuel should never have happened and hopefully (fingers crossed) won't happen again, but it took this event to tell head office what they should have already known or at least considered.Their are many instances where head office just isn't there, (though they think they are) but in "their" heads "they know" best!. (cyclone Gab

They can co-ordinate all they like, if the operator doesn't have the capacity to respond, no response will happen. It's the operator who makes all the logistics arrangements. MNZ basically asks if they can do it. If the operator deem they can't, that's it. It may well be that they have run the scenarios. It could well be that within the funding and operational limits that are ultimately set by budgets, they decided that an Encounter-type event was not a high probability. In short yes it is a fact that people die in New Zealand because we decide we cannot afford the cost to as

I'm not following your response as an explanation for the shortcommings of the Enchanter rescue. If these rescue helos are so expensive to operate, what was the cost of having one parked up for 5 hours while they scratched around for fuel? Are you saying the 4 guys that died waiting for rescue was due to budget constraints? The point I'm tyring to make is Maritime NZ are responsible for coordinating rescue assets. In this case it was a clusterfuck. Others have already said Maritime NZ don't own or operate the rescue assets, that falls to Trusts and Charities. It is the coordinat