Sydney Hobart

[Guest]

The problem with a Jester like race in Bass Straight is that people can and do Die,

 

 

And no one has ever drowned in the Bay of Biscay?

[Battleship 100]

The problem with a Jester like race in Bass Straight is that people can and do Die,

 

 

And no one has ever drowned in the Bay of Biscay?

 

Of course they have, hell people drown in swimming pools, but I don't recall 5 boats sinking and 6 people drowning in many other races.

The point I was trying to make is the S2H is held in a very dodgy stretch of water, and after an event like 1998 the Maritime authorities will not be happy with a race being conducted without some strict safety regs.

[Guest]

I was going to answer that the Jester doesn't care about the authorities, but really I was just being an arse and stirring a bit coz I'm bored.

 

But that has lead me to another interesting question, what control does Big Brother have here, there and other places??

 

I know that in the US you need a permit from the Coast Guard to run an offshore race, and there was a flap recently in SF when they tried to flex their muscles.

 

Can Big Brother step in here or Aus, what about France?

[Battleship 100]

Don't know what the laws are here, but I have heard the police order a person to abandon their vessel (one dark night on ch16) as it was deemed he was putting lives at risk.

 

What we don't want is to draw to much attention to ourselves and have some politician trying to score points by saving us from ourselves.

This is one area we can thank YNZ for in, that we are pretty much self policing. Imagine having to convince the coastguard that it is ok for sailboats to race in over 30 knots what a nightmare.

[Guest]

Guys, there have been multiple high profile incidents here that have led to coroners inquests and other formal inquiries. The rules and regulations that are in place are driven by two factors:

 

1. To make the sport safer and more enjoyable for participants - making sure that (preventible) incidents do not reoccur.

2. To retain control of the rules and regulations so government bureaucrats do not step in and create their own set of rules for us.

 

The CYCA is a world leader in offshore race management. It runs a series of races during the course of the year that attract large, competitive fleets racing in quite dangerous waters. I can't think of one of their regulations that is a genuine imposition or impractical. The format for the races - paperwork, breifings, etc. is very, very well done.

 

In the wake of the Flinders Islet report there were some changes have taken a bit of an adjustment:

- Crew lists have to be submitted on the Wednesday before a Friday night race and you can scratch someone, but not add another.

- Lifejackets are compulsory at night (NSW law - not a club regulation)

- PLBs required for all crew for short offshore races

 

I think this year there will be a review of the S2H SI's with regard to the Green Cape check-in, but it's more likely to remove any ambiguity or uncertainty rather than scratching SSB as the primary communication medium.

[Guest]

Or go back to the old system. In the third S to H (1947?) the Sydney Morning Herald wanted updates from the boats. They took a cage full of homing pigeons each. The birds kept falling in the water for the first few days because of sea sickness but started getting the positions back to the newspaper after that. Don't know if there were any protests for not launching a pigeon at Green Cape.

[Guest]

Or go back to the old system. In the third S to H (1947?) the Sydney Morning Herald wanted updates from the boats. They took a cage full of homing pigeons each. The birds kept falling in the water for the first few days because of sea sickness but started getting the positions back to the newspaper after that. Don't know if there were any protests for not launching a pigeon at Green Cape.

 

In the 2009 race it was so slow we would have eaten the pigeons (with vegemite and rice wafer crackers).

[Guest]

Might not work then?

[Guest]

I reckon we should all tweet our positions and include smilies like on crew.org.nz

 

ie. 40 00.000S 149 23.000E