Boating & fisheries patrol, visible presence

[RayDeR]

G'day!

It would be interesting to know when the Fisheries last blitzed the Sand Pumping Jetty and with what result.

Ray De R

[FrankFWM]

On my boat - never ever been checked or spoken to..., in fact the police, MSQ and Fisheries drive past me and generly wave.

On my PWC - I get constantly harrassed for nonsense by Police and particuarly the MSQ jetski team. For instance - accused and given a ticket for rego numbers being 99mm not 100mm - I got home and checked - discovered they were actualy 103mm when measuring with a dressmakers tape - due to the highly curved surface - when you measure with a straight ruler they apear 99mm - sent a dirty letter with photo's they dropped the ticket.

Same cops booked me for doing 7 knots in a 6 knot zone - on the basis that no water was coming over the bow - showed them I have trim on my pwc and a GPS and that I know I was not doing over 6 knots - got the ticket. Sent dirty letter saying I was looking forward ot going to court and challenging their "proof of my speeding being based on water not coming over my bow" when I have trim on my pwc and a passenger and they dropped the ticket.

MSQ see me or pople I know sitting on the beach on the broadwater(with pwc's anchored) - they approach us and want to check rego's and look for things to be wrong - I am over it - They should be focusing on people on pwc's that are speeding/doing 360's and breaking the law - not hunting out people looking for registration problems - 99mm rego stickers versus 100mm rego stickers do not cause accidents or people to be hurt.

Every time they have a chat - they ask for our names and write them in their log and have even told me it is to justify their time on the water - regardless if we are doing something wrong - this is the wrong process - it does not motivate them to focus on the correct activities - instead just justify their time on nonsense activities.

End result - we are paying for MSQ representitives through our taxes to be out on jetski's wasting time whilst there are idiots out there getting away with murder.

That's my 2 cents...

Frank

[oldboot]

Now frank we have had our disagreement in the past but, I must support you in this situation.

If this is the sort of behaviour we are getting on the water..... it should not be tolerated........the coppers were read the riot act over this sort of stuff on land ages ago.

rego checks, fair enough.....random breath test.... bring it on....... on any vehicle wet or dry but if they are targeting & nit picking this needs to be stopped.

You will note that it is almost unknown for coppers on land to issue a speeding ticket without the use of a " calibrated measuring device" visual observation and reference to the vehicle spedo has been thrown out a number of times.

So wat "calibrated measuring device" were they using to establish 7 knots......if you were on the plane or creating wash........ that could have been a fair cop if it was observed but unless they had a speed gun how do they hope to issue any speeding ticket that would hold up..........even as harrasment goes that is incompetent.

99mm instead of 100.... again even if it was actulay measure at that, thats a 1% error........there has to be some allowance for reasonable accuracy...... lots of materials expand and contract that much with heat.

these blokes should be sent back to school..... thats just plain sloppy.

If I was looking to keep my figures up, I don't think I would need to fiddle with that sort of BS, genuine non compliance isn't too hard to find.

Apart from the fact that in the modern view of regulation, a compliant inspection is as good as a ticket........

Log entry...... inspected pwc and questioned driver, vehicle, safety equipment and conduct all in order........ big tick......... proff of effective policing.

cheers frank

[oldboot]

Oh BTW....... was there a calibration sticker on the coppers ruler.

cheers

[the gecko]

Ive seen water police, VMR and Coastguard around the seaway a lot, but never dept of fisheries. What does there logo look like on the boat side? Is it the 2 orange stripes diagonal? Or is that dept of Harbours and Marines? Anyone got a pic of their boat/symbols?

When I did legal studies, we were taught that a law that is not enforced, is not a law at all.

Andrew

[385EXPLORER]

ahh,sorry Dave. I'm a dill Was'nt sure if you were havin a chop or what.
Nice pick up Crestcutter.Oh yeah, it was the university of verbal abuse of which my deckie is a professor.

[Relaxed]

Hi all.

In TAS General Duties police do water checks when they can. With 2 Constables and a Sergeant making up most of the shifts it can be a long time between checks. Even checks at ramps only get done between the domestics, drunks and other duties.

This is the second busiest station in the state I am talking about and there are not enough people to do regular checks (got to be unlucky to get caught down here).

There are Marine Police, but they are stationed at points where professional fisho's work out of.


Cheers Andy.

[Oh Gee]

I ran into a bloke today at Spinika Sound. Said he was from boatin and fisheries and was doing a catch survey. Wish i had a Fish to show him.

[Kleyny]

ahh,sorry Dave. I'm a dill Was'nt sure if you were havin a chop or what.
Nice pick up Crestcutter.Oh yeah, it was the university of verbal abuse of which my deckie is a professor.

did they pass after the education session?
or did they just nod their head with no idea look on their face?

Back to the question i saw one on the highway once

neil

[Redspeckle]

On the weekend just gone out over on Amity banks I had the Environmental Protection Agency Officers (EPA) coming over check out my catch nice catch of winter whiting and seen my boat license and flares and rego papers and the kids had there life jackets on not even 10 minutes with me I seen them spend a lot more time with the other boats their in the area
I reckon if you doing the right thing have nothing to worry about and I always say to them good to see out on the water and enforcing the laws and have nice day they are like everybody else has a job to do with the resources they got
At least didn’t slam into me and damage my boat like the Water police did last time 2 Xmas ago behind Mud Island to do a check on me ( The big PJ Kidd boat)
Mitch

[Nico.d.R]

my unckle got done for a sandy that he messured with 1 off those crab measurers , then fisheries put some didital callipers on it and fined him 350 bucks because it was .5mm under , i thought that was a bit harsh .

[Charlie]

It’s really annoying to be pulled up for random licence tests, what point does it serve? The NSW highway police gave up on this decades ago it just doesn’t work! Waterways need to be out there booking people obviously speeding or drinking and leave the rest of us alone.

[Fish Guts]

fisheries have gotta be allowed to enforce drink driving. only 93 people caught last year in Qld for DUI on water. too many drunks getting away with it. its a joke.

[russ81]

Hows it going guys
been inspected twice this year once by fisheries when i was tied of to Neils (HORSE) boat trying to get the motor started the decided to smash ito his boat while we were trying to cross load batteries and by the water police at the Manly ramp the other day. The water police were a good bunch of blokes who had a bit of chat before moving to another ramp

[Sea-Dog]

Oh BTW....... was there a calibration sticker on the coppers ruler.

cheers

They would also need the PWC to be measured as level (side to side) then take a mark at 90* to the vertical plane of the top rego stickers. Then they'd have to repeat the level reading process for the bottom of the rego stickers to alleviate the possibility of parallax errors in measurement.

Would be interesting in court.