Given we live in a country with the ninth largest coastline in the world, according to Wikipedia, you’d think Kiwis would take water safety more seriously. That we don’t is a sorry story told by the statistics: 90 dead last year; 94 in 2022 and, already this year, 12 dead. The long run average is 82 deaths annually, but sadly we’ve gone well above that in the past two years.
Of those who have drowned, 82% are men. So, these numbers represent mainly fathers and sons, husbands and partners, uncles, mates, colleagues – there are human faces, and stories, behind the figures. And let’s not forget, the numbers don’t consider the trauma of the “near misses” and those saved.
As a keen fisherman, I spend a lot of time around the water – and I’m now thinking of going to live on a boat. I simply can’t believe how hopelessly casual we are about safety in, on, and around the water and how little respect we have for it.
With water, adverse events happen so suddenly that preparation is everything – it’s usually far too late afterwards. Knowledge is power and ignorance can lead to death; yours, or someone you love.
The work required in this area is massive, especially given our water safety and boating laws have slipped behind other countries. It’s fair to say our laws are outdated; our approach to water safety borders on state and council negligence.
Right now, not much is compulsory; staying alive appears voluntary and is often down to little more than some good luck. To seriously change the way we do things will require a cultural mindset shift that could take a generation.
Many recreational boaties won’t like this. Some families will think it’s not needed. But sometimes, the naive, ignorant, stupid and downright unlucky need to be saved, or at least given the best chance of survival. It starts with accepting we have to do better and identifying why we’re not. Let’s go back to the statistics: by early February, there had already been 12 drownings this year.
Education fails, regulation prevails
Overall, we’ve got a mishmash of regional boating laws, depending on where you are. Councils such as Auckland state: “If your boat is 6m or smaller, everyone on board must wear their lifejacket unless the skipper says it is safe to remove it.” But why put your life into the hands of the skipper where the only requirement or qualification needed is that he or she is behind the wheel?
The rules we have are largely voluntary and therefore immediately become mere suggestions. They’re either a good reminder or they’re ignored or, worse, sniggered at. We have relied on personal responsibility, and people being trusted. Many can but a good number can’t, so that’s been a flop.
Compulsion and regulation work, because they come with consequences. Think seat belts and the use of cell phones in cars. We need tough new laws and regulations that people are forced to follow. There must be a national standard. Let’s drop the mind-boggling and confusing regional differences depending what boat ramp you launch from.
Change the law to set a non-negotiable higher entry point for getting out on the water. Have penalties that are meaningful and an enforcement regime that is resourced and serious about making the law work.
If you already do all the right things – and many do – then you have nothing to fear or worry about. But new laws around boats, water safety and what it takes to be a skipper are overdue.
We allow the cowboys to exist
The cowboys – or should that be pirates – are still out there, supported by a succession of hands-off governments, councils and agencies that take half measures for fear of upsetting someone.
Anyone can buy a boat and operate it as long as they can pay for it. Actually, it’s worse than that. If you’re behind the wheel of the boat for the day - and it may not be your boat, you’re suddenly a skipper with responsibilities, undertakings and power over those on board who must do as you say.
But in truth, you don’t need to know anything (although ignorance of maritime law is not an excuse, and you can be fined for breaches). You don’t need a licence, and your unfortunate passengers, who might rightly think you know “stuff” about the sea because you’re the skipper, have to follow your orders. You might not know anything, but their lives are in your (possibly incompetent) hands.
So, if some are offended by being forced to obtain a licence for themselves and their boat, and lifejackets being compulsory marine wear, let’s offend as many of these people as we can until they learn that’s the best way for them, and those who venture out on the water with them, to survive.
It’s a shift that will surely come only through a massive rewrite of our laws. Dozens of European countries went this way with boating and water sports many years ago - they require boat owners to be licenced, boats to be registered, skippers to have certain minimum qualifications and knowledge.
Australia, too, has totally changed its approach to boating. States have introduced tough new standards such as requiring the masters of all powered vessels to obtain a marine licence, even jet ski riders. There are big fines and enforcement if you thumb your nose at all this. In Western Australia, after years of out-of-control behaviour at sea, they now drug and breath test boaties on the water.
But here, there is no such thing.
Nanny state?
With lifejackets, we need to say, “Wear them, it’s the law”, and those laws need to be backed up by enforcement. Some will regard this as “nanny state”, but public health and safety is never nanny state if it’s applied with commonsense. We may have stopped Kiwi kids from climbing trees, but somehow we still allow them to go out onto the high seas where wearing lifejackets may be up to the skipper. They are supposed to be worn in “situations of heightened risk”, but not all skippers may recognise the risk.
Some people throw their arms in the air at the thought of a heavily regulated boating environment, but this is one of the last areas that has escaped a massive health and safety push. Regulation saves lives. Seatbelts were never put in cars until it was mandatory to do so and mandatory to wear them. Now they save hundreds of lives each year. When pool fencing laws were introduced, drowning deaths around the home nearly halved and the overall trend has remained downward.
So, we need to get away from “nanny state” thinking because it’s about commonsense written into laws that everyone understands. It’s about regulating for the dumb and dumber who continue to consider themselves bulletproof – waterproof – and greater and stronger than any force of nature.
Some say let them go and make the mistake, but the problem is, other innocent people lose their lives or put themselves at risk rescuing them. It’s about protecting them, too. Laws and enforcement will save lives.
We’ve got info that can help. We know from freshly supplied data, courtesy of Daniel Gerrard at Water Safety NZ, where Kiwis are drowning. It’s at the same spots year after year, which should make it easier to stop the deaths. All the main west coast beaches in Auckland are black spots, and a rock near Raglan that fisherfolk flock to every year. There’s a spot in Southland and Lake Pupuke on Auckland’s North Shore.
Fresh thinking
Maybe we can better police those high-risk areas. Maybe, on bad and rough days, we close certain beaches, with prominent signage saying: “Do not enter the water”. After all, we don’t enter the water when raw sewerage closes beaches, so why not close them for fear of loss of life during poor weather?
At that Raglan fishing spot, maybe we could stop fishermen at the gate on bad days. And because people fish for a food source, do we give them a $50 dollar voucher to buy fish at the local supermarket as a way of turning them around? Because, if these people fish to feed their families and not just for fun, this will put something in the chilly bin. It has to be cheaper than a rescue involving three helicopters, five land vehicles and dozens of search and rescue volunteers, and the heart break of having a dad or mum, but usually dad, who never makes it home.
Learning to swim is part of the NZ curriculum: “All students will have had opportunities to learn basic aquatic skills by the end of year 6.” It needs to go beyond learning to swim to include learning about aquatic safety, how to float, survive at sea and risks at beaches such as rips and how to spot them.
This kind of education can’t be sacrificed to the hour a day of compulsory reading, writing and maths. Clever educators will think of ways of combining these. Let’s do water safety and then read about the sea and swimming. Let’s write some short stories about what we learnt at the beach, then some maths based around winds and water.
Do we rethink our relationship with surf clubs, or at least their relationship with the beaches they’re at? Do the clubs that have been in fixed spots for decades still mark the safest part of the beach in an environment that is constantly changing and moving, or is the spot in front of the surf club the place where people used to die? Rather than investing millions in new clubrooms, is it better to spend money on mobile patrols to more remote areas of a beach where people swim and it’s hard to stop them?
The whole water safety environment needs to be turned on its head. There simply isn’t enough money to waste on campaigns and gimmicks that don’t work or reach their target. We need to be blunt and leave nothing to interpretation. If no one can be bothered writing our own standards and laws, copy, cut and paste Australia’s (go on, flatter them).
We’ve been far too lenient and lethargic in this area. Someone needs to be willing to, well, push the boat out on this before we have any more horrendous tragedies at sea.
