How tragedy haunts the sea-lanes

By TIM WATKIN


It was about midday when Bernard Langton decided to go diving for crayfish with two male members of his extended family. Thursday, January 8 was fine, if a little cloudy - no great cause for concern, nothing to suggest the tragedy to come.

The family, including Langton's wife and children, were holidaying on two launches, and had anchored around 90m off Brownrigg Pt on the southern side of Kawau Island. The men checked their gear, put out dive flags and went in search of a meal.

Langton, an experienced diver and managing director of his own security firm, had been underwater about 40 minutes when a 10m boat approached carrying a family of four, "travelling slowly by all accounts towards Bostaquet Bay", says senior constable John Saunders of the Police Maritime Unit.

With terrible misfortune, Langton, 46, chose that time to surface. He was struck and killed by the boat's propeller.

"His friends heard some yelling on a nearby boat and looked to see their mate floating in a large pool of blood," Saunders says. The police investigation is not yet complete, but he says the carefully placed dive flags do not seem to have met the legal requirements of being at least a metre wide, visible 360 degrees and rigid.

"According to statements from those on the boat that hit him they did not see the dive flags until after the accident and they stopped to assist him. The driver of the boat is a diver himself and was particularly looking out for them," he adds.

Langton was the second boating fatality this year, following the death of former Timaru man and London-based chef Richard Taylor on January 4. He was run over by a boat while kayaking off Okiwi Bay, near Nelson.

It is a disappointing start to the year for those working to get our boating toll down. While a record low of 104 people drowned last year, deaths from boating accidents have remained stubbornly at about 20 a year since records were first kept in 1980. In 2001, 20 died. In 2002 it was 25 and last year 18.

Despite the two deaths this year, the people who monitor our coastline, such as Auckland harbourmaster James McPetrie, are quietly impressed by boaties' behaviour this summer.

"My overall impression is that the standard of behaviour seems to have improved."

What's more, considering the steady increase in the number of boats being launched each year - estimated as at least 5000 - Brooke Archibald, chairman of Coastguard Boating Education, says proportionately safety standards are improving.

But that is not enough to satisfy the Maritime Safety Authority, which is working to lower fatalities by 25 per cent by the end of 2005.

"It's a bit of a shallow victory when you've got 18 to 20 people dead each year who needn't have died," says Amanda Heath, the MSA's education and communication manager.

"The recreation boating toll of 18 in 2003 is disappointing given the amount of publicity for safe boating and skipper responsibility," Alan Muir, executive director of Water Safety New Zealand, added last week.

That disappointment and dissatisfaction, shared by all those working on boat safety, stems from the fact that publicity and education were core to the strategy they adopted in 1999. Each death challenges the efficacy of that strategy.

Efforts to improve recreational boat safety are based on a report compiled by the Pleasure Boat Safety Advisory Group, released in December 1999. The group is chaired by the MSA and made up of representatives of no fewer than 16 boat safety organisations set up in 1998 to address a single question: is there a boating safety problem in New Zealand?

After 21 months' study it identified two main concerns: a lack of safety equipment on board and insufficient operator knowledge.

They found 75 per cent of boating deaths could have been avoided if the victims had been wearing life-jackets and that lack of knowledge was a factor in 90 per cent of fatal and 88 per cent of non-fatal accidents.

Too many boaties simply don't know how to get out of trouble and most pre-trip preparations centre around fishing or sun tans, frets Muir. "People don't believe they're going to end up in the water. Their prime thought is whether they've got the right rods and hooks, not whether they've got spare fuel and safety equipment."

Research since had told them where to target their education. The typical fatality involves "a smaller tinny motorboat overloaded, without safety gear and in the wrong conditions," says Heath. And in those boats: men.

Between 1998 and 2002, 96 per cent of boating-related deaths have been men, the biggest proportion aged 21-40.

Surprisingly, given the problems on our roads, hoonish behaviour is not seen as a major problem. No, the problem with men in boats is their cockiness and sloppy preparations.

"I think there's a cavalier attitude where people tend to over-estimate their skill," says Muir. "A lot of those [men] would have been doing it for years and it's a 'not going to happen to me' sort of thing."

"These people are not necessarily reckless," says Heath. "They're doing what Kiwis have done for generations - getting in boats and going out for a good day's fishing or fun. But the problem is that our coastline is pretty treacherous and can catch anyone unawares."

Armed with a clear idea of the problem, the advisory group had to decide what to do. Under intense pressure from the boating community and finding that "a high volume of regulatory control does not ... appear to equate to low boating fatality rates internationally," it rejected the options of drivers' licences, boat registration or mandatory education. It recommended, however, that "the need for a mandatory education system be reassessed in the event that safety targets are not met".

The education drive has had some success, with ever-increasing numbers of boaties doing coastguard or boat club-run courses and an increase in the wearing of life-jackets.

Archibald says around 10,000 New Zealanders a year go through Coastguard courses alone. At close to twice the rate of new boats hitting the water, that's a sign of an increasingly educated boating fraternity.

To encourage people to wear life-jackets, the group convinced the Government to change the law so that boaties now have at least to carry life-jackets. They also launched an advertising campaign last summer. Research showed two-thirds of those interviewed could recall the ads and their message.

But men again proved a problem. Interviews showed while they wore life-jackets when out with family, they didn't when with their mates. "There's a bit of an unwritten rule that you're a bit of a geek if you've got your life-jacket on at the boat ramp," says Heath. They responded with Colin Meads. This summer's television campaign has "Pinetree" at the boat ramp looking as safe as the All Black scrum when he was locking it.

"We're shamelessly targeting blokes saying you are not any less of a man if you wear a life-jacket," says Heath.

The anecdotal results - all there is to go on before further research is done this year - are positive. Archibald says: "If you went and looked at (people in] fishing boats off Rangitoto and Motuihe today, at least 60-70 per cent would be wearing life-jackets. A few years ago I would suggest you might've got 20-30 per cent."

Add to that the boat show displays and the efforts of dealers, most of whom discount safety gear, and it seems the water authorities are doing all they can in terms of education and awareness. Yet fatality rates remain resistant, prompting the suggestion that education has hit its limits and sterner steps are required.

Making boat education compulsory, leading to some kind of skipper's licence, is the most commonly discussed option. The other is to register boats as we do cars.

Says McPetrie: "It is an extraordinary situation where people in cars have to have training and pass exams before we allow them on the road, yet at sea there's no such requirement."

But regulation of any kind draws howls of outrage from boaties, who rightly insist the vast majority are safety-conscious. There are fewer boats used less frequently, with more care and in a vastly wider space than cars, they argue.

"Boating is seen as the last bastion of freedom in New Zealand because we've got such a great coastline. It's seen as our God-given right to buy a boat and take off if we want to," Heath says.

Archibald says both licensing and registration would probably be misguided and impractical. As the advisory group reported, our fatality rates are much the same as Australian and US states which have regulations, he says. As for practicality, most accidents happen in vessels under 4m long; kayaks, jetskis, wind-surfers and - far and away the biggest problem - tin dinghies.

He reels off the potential difficulties: How do you set the tests for these varied crafts? Does every child in a kayak need a licence? How do you register the boats on the back of farms and every P-class yacht or check the licences of boaties in remote places?

"The big boats in Westhaven you can go and grab, but that's not where the main problem is," he says. "If it's not enforced properly, a la the road, it becomes meaningless. We have sufficient laws in place to govern boating today."

John Durkin doesn't buy those arguments and his missing eye makes a strong case for regulation. In 1988 Durkin was diving for scallops off Hatfields Beach and, like Langton, was hit by a propeller as he surfaced. Only the good fortune of a doctor on the beach saved his life. The accident was a hit-and-run and, although witnesses identified the boat, its driver denied his crime. Without a registration number, police couldn't prosecute.

"He did wrong and knew he did wrong, but got away with it," says Durkin. Saunders shares such concerns.

"It's all very well having people being educated, but at the end of the day if somebody does something wrong you have to be able to identify them and to do that they need to have a unique ID number."

But, he sighs, in fear of the boating lobby politicians run a mile.

McPetrie says registration might not directly save lives, but the knowledge they could be identified would make the feckless few more accountable and aid long-term behaviour change. Even the advisory group's report acknowledges this, and the way its members are choosing their words suggests change could be on the horizon. Talk about regulation involves phrases such as "no immediate plans" and "at the moment it's not the preferred option".

The implication is clear. Boaties have two years at most to improve their safety record. If fatality rates haven't fallen by then, they can expect a change of tack from authorities and a new wave of legislation.