Professional Skipper Magazine from VIP Publications

L E T TERS CONTINUED��� but in the end they did achieve the standards. The vessels are now only just being paid off, with the first ship Kahu having recently undergone an 8m lengthening exercise to convert her for use as a private yacht, after 34 years of naval service. At the time I found it extremely disappointing that our New Zealand Ship and Boatbuilders Federation was unable to convince the government to implement a viable system of bounties and duties on owners to ensure that cheap vessels built overseas were not dumped onto our local market. Today we can see the manifestation of that dilatory uptake of the Federation���s pleas as we witness more and more ships being imported, and more of our artisans being sent down the road to the Department of Social Welfare���s dole queues. In the 1980���s I wrote to the newspapers highlighting how we now had a viable, talented pool of shipbuilders, who were fully capable of meeting stringent naval constructional standards, and that we should be marketing their attributes to overseas navies. In 1987 Australia���s Vice Admiral MW Hudson came to Whangarei, looked at our capabilities and unfortunately both he and the Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke chose not to order vessels for fear of upsetting their own shipbuilding industry. This was at a time when Australia was exporting tugs and fishing boats into New Zealand under favourable CER terms. Our Labour Government of the day, as bastion of workers��� rights and job creation opportunities, simply rolled over and let the Aussies walk all over us. Sorry, ���name withheld of Whangarei���, but your pleas for a better deal for yourself and your work colleagues in the winterless north has already been voiced before. My greatest regret now, is that letters to the editor and letters to our parliamentary representatives went unheeded all those years ago. M Laurence Withy, Lowry Bay JAGUAR MAULING Dear Sir Our purchase of Jaguar has exacted a huge toll on our business and personal lives, as the consequence of Lloyds Class and Statutory Survey failures in bringing about the demise of our company, loss of our assets, losses to many of our suppliers and almost the destruction of our credibility in the maritime industry ��� but not quite! Thanks to the ongoing reliability of our other vessel Rangatira and the support of the Chatham Islands community for our continued operation, as well as the absolute dedication and support of our staff and crew, we live again to rebuild our services and perhaps, who knows, once again endeavour to promote and nurture a vibrant and commercially viable coastal shipping industry. All we ever wanted to do was to extend our capacity, build the coastal industry and provide our Chatham���s services with a peak season backup. This would give confidence and expansion to these remote Islands, which provide New Zealand with a massive Economic Zone and the associated fisheries and minerals benefits which accrue. Naive? Of course we were. We genuinely believed that we could put our faith and trust in those who should be regarded as the ���best of the best���, and that we would be supported in that assurance by our own safety authority, Maritime New Zealand. Instead, we were very badly let down by the people we put our absolute trust in: the classification and statutory providers who we relied on, to provide us with the assurance that the vessel we had purchased was fit for purpose and up to all the applicable standards. For Lloyds to now claim that the ship deteriorated within days of purchase, to the extent that we should just accept that around 130 tonnes of steel are required to make her sufficiently seaworthy for a transpacific voyage to New Zealand, is not acceptable. Also not acceptable is that ballast tanks that had just been surveyed by Lloyd���s Register, Central America, not be able to hold water. Nor, that holed watertight bulkheads, tanks with top access covers missing, fire-fighting systems and rescue boats that are condemned less than a month after the Lloyds Register survey, is not only unacceptable, it is frankly ridiculous. There were of course other issues including: a main engine straight out of LR survey that does not even fire in the right order, and that most of the 24 volt emergency systems in a vessel which is required to comply with SOLAS, including navigation lights, could complete a LR survey while they were disconnected. Their claim that the fault lies with ���mal operation by the crew��� is malicious nonsense defying all the evidence. We produced this evidence in our original complaint to Maritime NZ and have not even received a reply, let alone had our complaint acted on. In an unofficial response we were informed that the ���Rena��� got in the way! As for feeling sorry for us and endeavouring to help ��� thanks Bruce ��� tell that to my family members: our retirement property is lost, the house and farm are lost, the business is lost, the ship lost: we certainly don���t need any more of that sort of help, thank you. Is this how LR treat their clients? Is this how they value the standards that New Zealand is supposed to have put in place? If this is the case God help any of us contemplating a cruise: I hope the cruise ship isn���t surveyed in the same manner as our Jaguar. Finally, age has nothing to do with it. Class rules are strict and clear: a Survey Certificate is just that. It verifies, or it SHOULD verify, a vessel���s full compliance with maritime standards, and its fit for purpose status. Above all, we need to be able to trust our surveyors. Kelvyn Leslie, South East Shipping Ltd, Timaru VIP.S82 TIGER CAT PHONE 09 419 1954 6 Professional Skipper March/April 2013 Dear Sir I would suggest a small ���tail piece��� to your excellent article on the Tiger Cat rebuild (issue 91, page 10). Tiger Cat was launched in September 1999, making her 13 years old in 2012. Fullers also successfully operate her older sister ship, (launched November 1997) Harbour Cat (ex-Pakatoa). We had already extended Harbour Cat by two metres before Fullers acquired her and Barry Hall at Fullers consulted me in 2003 about the technicalities of applying the same extension to Tiger Cat, but they have only just implemented these now. They are identical hulls in structure and shape, except that Tiger Cat has a little more bow rake, the superstructure is much more voluminous and the

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