Don't take this as gospel but I think our area of responsibility
extends from approx 200NM west of Heard Island, north to Indonesia (in
the Indian Ocean) south to the ice and east to somewhere between us &
NZ. You NZ guys don't have much to send south excepting 'Tangaroa' far
as I know so I suspect we'd have to send something anyway if the
problem was in the high 50's or 60's. Those are not nice waters. We
sent the RV Franklin down into the 50's *once*. Got pinned over by
wind/water in a F12 gale and took an hour to finish coming about - had
to wait until the wind/wave combination moderated a bit. My friends
tell me they all had their lifejackets on. Never went that far south
again.

I've seen a 100m long ship do a 180 deg course change on the crest of a
single wave, and the same ship roll through 45 deg when the skipper
mistimed it. Taking yachts down there is fine as long as you're
prepared to die if you make a mistake, or if the odds catch up with
you. It's 12 days steaming at 14 knots to go from Hobart to the
westernmost Australian base on the Antarctic continent. I'm not
disparaging Great Britain, but your SAR zone is a tiny fraction of ours
and you have a lot more Naval resources than we do.

I don't like bureaucratic interference either. The US culture of 'blame
anyone but me' for acts of supreme stupidity is unfortunately
propogating and people take less & less responsibility for their own
safety/wellbeing, expecting other people to put their lives & money at
risk to save their useless necks. A few more dying wouldn't necessarily
be a bad thing if the message got across to the rest.

PDW

In article ,
The_navigator© wrote:

Does that include antarctica?

Cheers MC

Donal wrote:

My Dilemma wrote in message
...


As an aside.
Air Services Australia, the body that controls and regulates Oz
airspace, is responsible for 14% of the Earths surface.



I understand! My opinion is revised, and now I am undecided on the issue.

I have an intrinsic hatred of government interference in sailing. Maybe
PDW's idea of special insurance for EPIRB owners would offer an acceptable
compromise.

Regards


Donal
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