Cmon tony, if anyone drowned off one of these boats you would be having a big sad about it as well!

Its because of the whole business with those unseaworthy island boats that other boats cop so much scrutinty.

They launch them with a crane - the jetty is about 6m off the water(when calm).   Hmm, when a wave comes through in winter, the jetty is at -2m.  I'd call that unsafe.  The water depth at the ramp/jetty is 1-2m.  50 metres out it drops to 50m, another 50m to 100m.  Some nasty water there....as was seen in the footage - waves coming up over 15 metre high cliffs.

There are no moorings.....and would be no way to get to them anyway.

Cheers Pete

Agree Tony. I have put many many hours behind the wheel of leisure cats ranging from the 6 metre through to the 9 metre in some terrible conditions and they are one of the best rough weather boats I have skippered. Excluding mine of course haha. Kev down at leisure cat does a fantastic job building his boats thats why they are used for sea rescue right through Australia and overseas. Of course though every boat has its limits

Till it's a rescue boat, they the AFP are paid to risk their lives to save others. We have volenteers doing it all the time in Sea Rescue.

This is a disgrace to the Standard of leadership and marine engineering that is leading the AMSA!!!!

I for one would rather be in a 8m Liesure Cat with twin motors and the ability to punch through heavy seas than in a allie plate mono hull.

The point is they have said the boats are not safe in anything but a smooth condition sea. THATS BULLSH!T WITH CAPITAL LETTERS!!!

 it's some marine engineer jockey using his competer program and model to work out risk profiles when in the real world it's quiet different.

Safe as the present NASA model for space flight say the Saturn Rockets where not safe to go the moon with!

I'd like to ask some of the Sea Rescue boys on this site and others in the know ...

" would you go out in Liesure Cat  in a 4m swell and 120km/hr +  winds to rescue lives????"

I would!

As said, I don't think it is the boats being unsafe in rough conditions....it is the launching.  You need to see The Cove to understand.

Cheers Pete

Agree Pete, regardless of how seaworthy a boat is, if the conditions in the cove are adverse, there is simply no chance of launching a boat. It's that simple.

Nah its not Pete. The ban i believe was due to a fault on another boat and all boats were then restricted. Like a 747 having a issue so the whole fleet is grounded until checked.

They maybe should have bought a NIAD hey Tony..

I remember about 12 years ago we used to service all the DPI fleet and they changed the stability law for operating offshore ( past 5 NM ) and supprise suprise all the Patrol boats with twin outboards failed service after not passing stability requirements. $8500 worth of mods to all boats with pontoons fitted and bingo, back in service. So for a small period DPI could not patrol offshore (more than 5 nm) except for one boat, the Vigilant Some 75 feet long.  

nope they should have bought these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu3P8aUEDXE

or maybe should have though big and got these

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sVhxnHzl9g&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKxdbauxbXc

real coast guard boats!!!!

Nah i'd go the Naid. Unless i was going out in 40 foot waves..

Why should I, being a tax payer, help fund the purchase of bigger better boats to rescue these assholes from entering our country illegally?

Whats next? New fireproof buildings so they cant burn them to the ground when they get upset?

I hope the images of that boat being smashed onto the rocks and the fact that 50 drowned gets some major screening in the countries from where they come from....RIP innocent children

We should just retro-fit our current "rescue" boats with torpedoes and send a strong message to the world that we are no longer the pussy nation

Seriously mate this is a fishing forum
All you seem to post is shit like this

oh no, here we go again.

Tony you really need to stop putting yourself in these positions, i;ve got an idea let's go fishing instead....

Honestly I'm getting very tied of people just weighing in for the sake of posting negative attacks. If you don't like the thread your not forced to read it. You're certainly not forced to make a reply or a valid point.

This is a fishing forum. So someone posts up a very interesting point about our AFP and boats and that's not fishing related so you come back with "this is a fishing forum" . For god sake how is football about fishing, how is politics about fishing, for that point what about the items being advertised that arn't fishing.

Geez get over yourselves and stop just popping of at people you obviously don't like. There's a word for it. Its called Bullying and its sad to see just how many individuals jump up and join other bullies.

Don't misunderstand I'm not scared in any way of any attitudes on here toward me, or even anyone else , just very disappointed to the obvious lack of integrity some of you have

I'm spending my time teaching my 7 and 10 years olds the political correctness for dealing with others you come into contact with. Some people here obviously missed the lesson.

Thuck political correctness......in this case

This ones on notice, keep it on track or it goes.

Adam, I've got a thick skin mate, no worries. Some tall poppies are tougher than others...

thanks Rod, I'm up for anytakers who want to show me there seaman / skipper skips. Oh and those that have been out with me, know what I can do with my boats and know my limits too....

Boys as for you all ranting about this issues being about rescueing refugees. You did not read it correctly then!.

It's about yours and my tax paid dollars been wasted on boats that the AMSA says are not sea worthy for the role they where bought.

Next time it may be you and your aussie born wife, child and old man out on a boat being bashed to death on a cliff face and the AFP being limited to not using their boat to rescue YOU mate, cause some turd in AMSA says the 8m twin engine boat they have is not suitable for seas over 1,3m .... go figure, digest and reply please..

Also when you become a soldier or a police officer, you taking on a role that puts your life on the line!. If not, go get a fairy job mate, it's not for you!

ps I have been a soldier, carried and used a rifle, had mates die right next to me, had mates in the police shot dead helping people, had another drown trying to rescue a woman washed into a river. don't tell me what they not ment to do!!!

I have huge respect for people that risk and evenn loose their lives in the saving of others. Be they cops, FESA, volenteers, Fire Fighters, Ambos etc...

Brucesta, mate great idea...100%  with you, just a pity if I put up a pic of two dhuies, two dollies and some more cat2 fish in my esky online, the everyone would lay into me for killing off all the fish stocks.

ps: when last did we talk about getting good fish and not have some idiot booting in about killing and not releasing fish???

it's a sad world we live in now unfortunantly Tony, be it an esky full of fish, taking a billfish home to eat, peoples boating habits etc someone is always going to get up you for it. I'msure the people of Leisurecat are eagerly awaiting the outcome of this for sure. Sadly there has been bigger wastes of our hard earned than buying what we all know is a good boat that is now deemed unsafe but we'll leave the Labor stimulus spending alone, at least we got somenew craft out of it i guess, maybe they'll sell them to the public and we can score a cheap new cat!

Sad loss of life indeed but in the end the Navy wasn't leaving the port so if their staying behind i'm sure as hell going along with that decision and doing what i can when it's safe. No point in this one situation losing more human lives to the sea.

keep it civil children please

 but it is one thing to have the top of the line millions of tax payer dollar funded boats sitting there waiting it is a whole different thing to put fathers mothers sons and daughters for our country to sea in massive seas.To save people that shouldnt be there in the first place.Is there anyone on here that would sail one of those boats to indo?If you did make it and the same thing happened to you i can tell you they wouldnt come out in those conditions to rescue you.The only easy answer is to stop them coming.

i would like to think "our unsafe boats" wouldn't bother to even launch helping any illegal boat person in distress, would much prefer navy target practise jmo

We could put Tony on one of those "target practice" boats.....

i'm sure there will be plenty of volunteers

I'm not so sure I would be bringing up the subject of his employment contract or his employers LOL. Seriously Tony, go fishing mate and post a few pics.

Tony you really need to have a good rethink about your expectations and do some further homework here.

First of all I am one of those people who you think is paid to go out and risk my life to save others. We are paid to do a job and a part of that is to provide a rescue service if it is deemed safe, not to risk our lives to rescue someone else and probably someone who shouldn't be there in the first place needs it. Who they are is irrelevant. They could be refugees, yachties or idiots in a trailerboat. It could be at Christmas Island or off Perth. If my "aussie born wife, child and old man" or anyone else was "being bashed to death on a cliff face" I would do everything I could to help but I sure as hell wouldn't expect someone else to die so they can be saved. Why is me or another rescuer dying any more acceptable than having them die? I didn't sign up to die. I signed up to protect and help where I could but sometimes you just can't. People need to take a little responsibility for their own actions and quit passing the blame. The reason this crap comes up is everyone wants to blame someone when something goes wrong. Because someone gets the blame it means that someone needs to make changes to cover their arse in the future.

As for search and rescue, when it is a SOLAS situation the rules go out of the window. If they need to go and rescue someone then no one is going to get penalized for taking a boat further out or carrying more than they are allowed or even stealing a boat. It comes down to a safety call and if they can go.

You may have respect for people who put their lives on the line but respect and expect are two totally different things. You talk the talk so maybe you need to get out of your fairy job and put your feet where your mouth is.

My two cents. 

Iv'e had a bit to do with our government (federal) perchasing programes and in my experiance what happens in quite a few cases the people (gov) really arn't good customers.They dont have a real good idea of what it is they really want, and also do not understand that the want may not have the capabilty  they need.

In quite a few cases I have seen that the gov will change the capability requirements of the item they are purchasing half way through the construction of there perchase and then expect the manafacturer to change his product to match the new requirment  resulting in an object not fit for the originial task the gov wanted it to do. I hope that this is not seen as a lot of gobly gook to put it in a nut shell quite often the people who make the decission about perchasing an object for the gov don't have the relevent experiance neccessary to appraisethe capabilities of what they have to purchase. Then along comes another gov body and says that item is not what we wanted it won't do blah blah blah.

In the end both gov bodies end up with a useless object not fitting their requirements the poor bloody manafacturer ends up looking bad and all he has done is follow the purchase order requirements (with alterations) the purchasing body gave him The user of the item has had no input on what the finial object is going to look like, or in a lot of cases has not clearly given the purchasing body clear concise specifications of what they want and the uses they intend to put it to.

As Clint Eastwood said in a good movie "it's a cluster ****""

It will make good reading to see how Leisure Craft reply.

Ronald

I work for local Government, I am involved in plant and fleet management, and what you have described is exactly the situation. I worked many years for a large private organisation, who, when ever a project such as plant purchase was required, we had to go through a lengthy process establishing goals, specifications cost etc. That was 12 months before the purchase. This was put before the board for their approvel and allocation of funds.

Now with local Goverment, that all goes out the window, and its exactly as you say. Reading the various posts that were relevant to Tonies statement, I could easily see how these things happen. Government is just a bumbling machine, and if a boat purchased, has words rescue written on the side of it, then it is a rescue boat and those departments involved will feel they have achived their mission.

It dosen't matter what party is in power, it will be the same.

http://www.amsa.gov.au/about_amsa/Corporate_information/Annual_reports/2004-2005/Role.pdf

AMSA's role!

http://natsar.amsa.gov.au/Council_Reports/documents/NATSAR34Report.pdf

if you look they still use Leisure Cats, Coral Bay VSS&R 6.5 Leisure Cat ex Port Walcott VMR ( from 2010 annual report!)

Best bit is i have gone though the last few years annual reports and do not seem to be able to find where they say the 8m Leisure Cat is not suitbale for rough seas!!!!! You would have thought that some thing a massive as the seaworthy restraints on a AFP and Sea Rescue boats would be reported in the reoprts???

 See page 122 for there report of the Cat as an active vessel!

I really am not one to comment on stuff like this generally, but 'drop the bone mate'...'you are flogging a dead horse'  the 'tide of public opinion is stacked against you' here. I am sure if I thought about it, I could throw in a few other well known cliches, but really how far do we need to go with this. Given the nature of the responses, go back to ''drop the bone", it really is only 'going down the shit shute'

Cheers

Mullows