Bringing the voyager safely home

The sea is a cruel mistress at the best of times, as quick to provide sustenance as she is to take the lives of the unwary and the foolish.

The sea is a cruel mistress at the best of times, as quick to provide sustenance as she is to take the lives of the unwary and the foolish.
Cook Islanders, with their reliance on the ocean as a source for food, recreation and tourism, know only too well the vagaries of the vast expanse that surrounds their island country. A clear, calm day can become a maelstrom in a matter of hours. A fishing boat, seemingly secured at anchor, can drift away to be lost forever over the horizon.
There are any number of reasons why incidents happen at sea. Some of them can be laid at the feet of Mother Nature but, just as often, human error is to blame. The simple act of taking precautions and planning ahead – all in the name of marine safety – can save lives. That is easier said than done, as Turama discovered, but ignorance is no defence. There are regulations in place, and more to come, as well as workshops and courses, all designed to bring the voyager safely home from the sea.

Sonny Tatuava
Senior Fisheries Officer
Ministry of Marine Resources

Q: What safety training does the ministry make available for small-boat owners?
A: In terms of the safety training we do in the Outer Islands, it’s basically to do with the awareness programme. We ensure that the small-craft owners know the rules for their boats. For instance, in the rules it says they are required to take a minimum of safety gear on the boat. They are required to take at least a VHF radio, which is an important piece of equipment to take on the boat. You should have life jackets, flares and other general safety equipment.
Q: Do you find that, for the most part, these fishermen adhere to the safety regulations?
A: The way I see it, fishermen are a bit careless sometimes. Because they’re just going out from land, I find that most fishermen do not take safety gear with them.
Q: All you can really do, though, is set the rules and regulations and hope the fishermen follow them.
A: That’s the way I see it now. But there is room for improvement, if the island councils and the police and the fishing clubs work together. I’m hoping these organizations will merge and try to come up with a solution to minimise the risk at sea.

Steve Simpson
Tutor, Cook Islands Maritime Training Centre
Ministry of Transport

Q: What sort of training do you provide for small-boat owners?
A: We teach the courses necessary for the Cook Islands Boat Masters Certificate. That involves navigation, safety gear, radio procedures, weather, tides – all sorts of things like that. The idea is to make people more safety-conscious.
Q: It there a minimum requirement as far as the safety equipment you should have on a small boat?
A: At the moment, there are a couple of regulations that cover it but they really need updating because they are from way back. This is why we’ve just finished drafting some small-craft rules which will cover not only the safety aspect but also give boat owners the knowledge of boating rules. There will be a licence involved, just like you have to have a licence for your car.
Q: Ideally, what’s the minimum amount of safety gear you should have in your boat?
A: Radios, life jackets of course, sea anchor, water, spare fuel, bailing equipment, first aid kit, radio reflector – those sorts of things. It depends, too, whether you’re going to operate purely as a pleasure craft or whether you’re going to operate commercially. If you’re going to operate commercially, you have a duty to your passengers. And it also depends on where you’re going. If you’re going way out, there is extra safety gear that you need to have.
Q: Do you think most small-boat owners already carry most of this gear?
A: Some of them are pretty good. Some of them have absolutely none. I spotted a boat recently going out where they had their fishing gear onboard but nothing else. This is the main reason for drafting these small-craft rules. We’re not trying to punish people – we’re trying to save them.
Q: What manner of problems do these boat operators encounter?
A: A lot of it has to do with weather. Some of it is just pure and simply running out of fuel. Engines break down and so there are no other means to return to the wharf. No radios, so they can’t tell anyone they’re in trouble. Some of them don’t even tell someone that they’re going out or when they expect to be back.
Q: This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Do we have lots of boating mishaps?
A: We don’t have a lot of problems now. There used to be a lot of problems in the past but I think, happily, we’re starting to build a safety culture amongst the boat owners, especially on the Outer Islands. We also run the Boat Master course on the Outer Islands and – touch wood – things have improved. In the Outer Islands, we encourage the female members of the community to participate. Some of them have done the full course and done exceptionally well. If we teach the mamas and tell them what their husbands should be doing, it reinforces that message.
Q: Do any other Polynesian countries offer these types of courses?
A: We’re the only small-island country in the Pacific, at the moment, that runs Boat Master courses for the benefit of the local people. Capt. Don Silk set it all up and I’m just trying to follow in his footsteps, which isn’t an easy job.
Q: Would that make us the safest island country in the Pacific because of this endeavour?
A: We’re probably losing less people now than any other Pacific island country.
Q: If these regulations become law, will someone be in charge of enforcing them and will people be charged for not complying?
A: There will be designated people to periodically inspect boats and they will also have the power, if someone is going out without sufficient safety gear, to say, no, you can’t go out.
Q: What is the timeline for these regulations coming into effect?
A: It’s with Crown Law at the moment and, hopefully, we will get it through Cabinet this financial year.

Jim Geddes
Owner of the yacht
Ocean Jasper
Participant in Round the World Rally
Q: Of all the things you ticked off before starting this 16-month voyage, would safety be at the top of the list?
A: Absolutely. All the yachts in the beginning had to be checked out to make sure they complied with certain rules and regulations in terms of safety gear, ability to get water out of the boat on an emergency basis, enough flares, life jackets and harnesses. The individual safety gear in each boat had to meet these standards. We conducted safety drills, making sure the crew knows where the gear is – the life raft and how to deploy it. Wearing harnesses at night in big seas, having jacklines. Making sure you keep everyone who is on your crew in the boat.
Q: Did you take a safety course before this event or is most of this safety advice logical?
A: Most of us have sailed a lot and raced a lot. My two crew are both captains; they have their captain’s licence and so they’re both experienced in what is required from a safety point of view. I’ve done a lot of ocean racing, all of which has to meet certain safety standards. It’s sort of intuitive but, still, you have to go through the list, and it’s a very rigorous list. It’s something that everyone pays attention to because there’s nothing worse than losing somebody overboard.”
Q: What’s a common mistake people make as far as marine safety is concerned?
A: They panic. If the boat is taking on water, they don’t try to deal with the situation. They might be looking for a life raft too soon, rather than staying with the boat. The greatest teacher is experience, just being on the water and knowing what to do if there is a situation that is life-threatening. These are very well-built boats and it’s going to take a lot to sink them. That doesn’t mean you can’t get in trouble in a bad storm but chances are the boat is going to protect you.
Melbourne Marsters
Radio HF Senior Operator
Telecom
Q: What role does Telecom play in marine safety?
A: We monitor a 24/7 radio on international watch frequencies. If any vessels out at sea get into trouble, we pass on that information to the police, who are responsible for search and rescue.
Q: What radio frequencies do you monitor?
A: Both VHF and HF.
Q: Have you had any recent distress calls?
A: Last year, we had a couple boats that were in trouble and we were called on to assist with the radio. There was one boat that sunk and there was another one that ran aground on a reef.
Q: Do you just cover the area around the Cook Islands?
A: We normally do the Cook Islands, but we monitor for anywhere. If we hear a distress call, we dispatch that information to the appropriate authorities. We then listen and take notes. Whereas, on the VHF radio locally, with the small fishing boats and dive boats, we keep what we call a ‘trip report’ that they give to us when they leave. It tells us the number of people they have onboard and what they are out for – fishing or diving – and they give us an estimated time of arrival back in port.
Q: Are the boat operators obligated to contact you when they’ve returned?
A: That is the requirement. With these small boats, if they don’t call us after an hour of their recorded time of arrival back, we try to contact the boat. If no one responds, then we contact the owners. Sometimes, they come back in and they forget to call in and say they’re back in port. With the commercial fishing boats and the local cargo boats, we keep a track record of them as well. It’s pretty much the same thing: they call us when they are going to leave and give us a trip report.

Maara Tetava
Police Commissioner

Q: What types of maritime search-and-rescue operations are the police responsible for?
A: We actually have two types. We have the close-to-shore type of marine rescue where, if somebody is washed away close to the reef, we use local fishing vessels to go out and help with the search. As well, we work very closely with Air Rarotonga. With bigger marine search and rescue, with boats that have gone out of sight of land in Cook Islands’ waters, initially the police are responsible for running the search and rescue, using our local resources. Sending out the patrol boat Te Kukupa only happens when we are not able to use other local resources, like the smaller fishing boats or the dive companies. If we’re not able to locate the missing people, then we contact the rescue coordination centre in Wellington.
Q: Can you give us an idea of what it costs to deploy Te Kukupa or the Orion aircraft from New Zealand?
A: To send the patrol boat out probably runs between $4000 and $5000 a day, in terms of fuel costs. There are other costs involved on top of that. I’m not sure what the Orion costs, but it’s very costly, as well as diverting Air Rarotonga and paying for the costs of local fishing boats. For one rescue, we’re probably looking at $30,000.”
Q: Who pays for that?
A: We have a search and rescue budget in the police budget, which is $20,000. That, in most cases, is not sufficient to cover the full cost of a search and rescue. If that is not enough, then we use our normal operational budget to cover the cost.
Q: That’s all taxpayers’ money, correct?
A: Yes.”
Q: Was the Gypsy Trader rescue an expensive operation?
A: Overall, if we take all the costs involved – the Orion, we had to ask Air Rarotonga to divert one of its flights to do some searching for us as well, the patrol boat – I would estimate the cost to be more than $20,000. There is an international agreement in terms of search and rescue that we cover those costs.
Q: Were there any lessons to be learned from the Gypsy Trader?
A: I guess it was an unfortunate case. My only concern with that, in comparison to what we do with the patrol boat, every time it anchors, there’s always a watch captain on it. I think that is a requirement for all mariners – once you leave the boat, there has to be someone on board to keep a watch. That’s a probably an area that the people on the Gypsy Trader may have overlooked.
Q: Are you seeing a trend in the reasons why local fishermen encounter problems at sea?
A: The problems that we’ve had in the past with local fishermen are not so much the seaworthiness of the boats, it’s more the lack of safety equipment onboard. The basic things like radios, flares, life jackets. If people had all this safety equipment on their boats, it will make it easier for them to survive and for help to be sent to them very quickly. I’d like to see a lot more of our local fishermen be more concerned about having safety gear on their boat. It doesn’t matter if you’re just going out for half an hour, without the safety gear on board, half an hour could mean three or four days at sea.

Inspector Tepaki Baxter
Te Kukupa

Q: What is the procedure when you’re involved in a search and rescue (SAR) mission?
A: First of all we have to collect the information, starting with the position of the distress beacon. Then we will go to our drawing board and work out the mission. It depends on how big the vessel is and how far it’s drifted. We then go to the position where it was last reported and just follow our plan as far as how far it may have drifted in the timeframe that was given to us. It doesn’t pinpoint where it is but gives us a rough idea of where we need to search.
Q: It’s a big ocean and a little boat. Is it a bit like searching for a needle in a haystack?
A: Yes.
Q: How often would you be deployed for an SAR?
A: About twice a year, but sometimes we have none in a year. But we are always on alert. We assume something is going to happen. We can put the equipment on and be ready to leave the harbour in three hours.
Q: What resources do you use, as far as equipment is concerned, on a rescue mission?
A: First of all, we rely on GPS. We just plot the position in the GPS and it will automatically guide us straight there. We also use radar, set on a 24-mile range. Most important are our own guys, the lookouts, just using the binoculars. That’s what we really rely on. We also rely on the position given to us by the Orion. During a search-and-rescue, the aircraft does all the work for you.
Q: Once you reach your target, do you tow the ships back or just rescue the crew?
A: For the last couple of SARs, it was just one guy. If there is a serious issues, or if someone is really sick, then we will take a doctor with us. With a search-and-rescue, the sooner you get there, the better.
Q: How fast does the patrol boat travel?
A: We can do 20 knots, but normally we do 10-11 knots. We burn about 170 litres of diesel an hour.
Q: How many crew would you have for a typical search-and-rescue mission?
A: I would take 10 crew. The boat can’t leave without 10 qualified crew.
Q: Is there a common denominator that you’ve found as a reason for people needing to be rescued?
A: I’d say it’s a lack of safety equipment. They just think it won’t happen to them. If you’re leaving on a long trip, there are procedures: you must have all of your safety equipment ready or checked.
Q: Do you ever shake your head at some of the silly things people do on the water?
A: You just wish their mamas would give them a couple of slaps, but rescuing them is part of your job. You’ve just got to save them. If they’d just done something simple like check their safety equipment, this wouldn’t have happened.
Q: Do you have a comment on the crew of the Gypsy Trader, what they did wrong or could have done differently?
A: First of all, as a skipper, you don’t abandon your ship. If you’re at anchor, you must have an anchor watch. That’s a rule. No matter what, someone must stay onboard. The skipper should have known better.

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