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Subject: Re: [world-cruising] New US regulations
From: Rosalie B. (gmbeasley@XXX.XXX)
Date: Mon Jan 06 2003 - 18:12:04 EST
On Mon, 6 Jan 2003 21:02:30 +0200, you wrote:
>Wow, that's amazing! I would feel very unsafe - at least here, if you leave
>Durban headed for PE and don't arrive at PE, someone starts checking on your
>safety. If we could just do whatever without telling anyone, I think we'd
>lose a lot more lives. I don't think of it as losing my freedoms, or a
>beaurocratic nuisance, or even as "Big Brother is Watching" - if I have
>nothing to hide, why should I be worried? - I'd rather feel that my country
>is taking care of (a) my safety, and (b) its security - i.e. also my
>safety - than worry about my freedoms and end up in trouble in a major storm
>with equipment failure, no way of reaching anyone, and no-one looking for
>me. Like the girl who wrote "Red Sky at Night" - those situations really do
>happen. I'm happy to know my track is being watched and therefore my safety
>increased. :-))
There are several things here - one is you should take responsibility
for your own safety. There's a whole list on yahoo that's devoted to
that (although it has been completely inactive lately). If I can't
take care to have good equipment with back-ups and to watch the
weather, then I probably don't deserve to be rescued (although I would
be).
I always file a float plan with one of my children, and call every
night (in the states) to tell them where we are and how we are doing.
They've gotten quite used to it now. And we have an EPIRB and SSB.
And second I think you come from a country that is both physically
smaller and has less people than in the US. It's just too big a place
with too many people to expect the government to keep track of us all.
They have better things to do. We have many miles of coastline,
hundreds of harbors and thousands of anchorages. Heck, just in the
Chesapeake you could cruise for years and never go the same place
twice.
And third - most of the sailing/cruising is coastal cruising and
relatively protected waters. Just a small percentage of it is
off-shore, and even less from one country to another. Most of the
rescues that have to be done are from stupid things that people do in
those kind of waters - boats overloaded and being sunk by a wake, and
stuff like that.
Fourth - there are several countries that we can get to relatively
quickly - Canada, and the Bahamas on the east coast - both of them are
just a day away from the closest point in the US. (and Cuba if we
could go there). Bimini in the Bahamas is just 42 miles from Miami.
We can do a great deal of cruising where we anchor every night with
minimal offshore work. And we have pretty good weather forecasting -
it's not like the 1935 hurricane could sneak up on us nowadays if we
are paying attention.
IMHO it's not so much about losing freedom as it is not spending my
tax money on things that aren't necessary.
grandma Rosalie
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