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Safety & Equipment Audits |
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- The Club actively encourages safe sailing. Think safety, sail safely. The sport of sailing and particularly racing and ocean racing, involves some degree of risk as does even a social cruise to the Basin. The Club is very proud of its excellent safety record. However we believe this can only be maintained if we actively pursue a range of initiatives aimed at minimising the risk to sailors and boats.
This section of our website deals with safety equipment and our Club’s requirements and how we manage the related processes.
We use two sets of regulations, for racing activities the Special Regulations of Yachting Australia commonly referred to as the “Blue Book” and for cruising activities we use the Cruising Regulations or “Green Book” which our Club has been instrumental in developing. Both of these documents are modelled on the International Sailing Federation's (“ISAF”) Special Regulations. In addition, all vessels are required to comply with the Marine Safety (General) Regulation 2009 which in our case is administered by NSW Maritime even if the vessel never leaves their mooring or marina berth.
Vessels that do not participate in any club events are still required to complete and lodge annually an equipment inspection form that demonstrates compliance with the minimum requirements of the above legislation. For the interest of all vessel owners and operators, the legal environment under which we all operate (ignorance of which is no excuse for non-compliance) can be accessed at:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_reg/msr2009291/
Active safety management is a constantly evolving activity. Internationally, the ISAF Offshore Special Regulations are reissued every second year. In Australia, the racing Blue Book is reissued every four years and the Green Book is reissued on a needs basis. In addition, within these reissue periods there are amendments to all these regulations as issues arise such as the tragedy of the Flinders Island Race with the loss of PriceWaterhouseCoopers and two renowned offshore sailors’ lives.
The other key aspect of safety is training and it is incumbent on all masters of all vessels to not only ensure that all safety equipment is onboard, in date, properly maintained and in service, but that everybody on board knows where it is located and sufficient people are trained in the use of special equipment. Again the Club provides an extensive ongoing program of professional training programs, some of which are free of charge.
Please use this section of our website to review your own safety compliance. Due to the differing requirements for racing and cruising activities there is some separation however it is worth reviewing all sections regardless of your specific requirements as there can be some issues specifically required for racing that can be a really good idea for cruising and vice versa, and realistically, many of us do a little of both.
We have tried to organise the website for ease of access of information as follows:
- What Safety Category for me: explains the different levels of safety categories based on your type of activity and can be accessed here.
- Preparing for an Equipment Audit: provides some insights to the issues you will face with an equipment audit and how to arrange for an audit on your boat. These notes can be accessed here.
- Forms: has the necessary forms that you will need to complete and lodge prior to arranging your audit.
- Progression notes: seek to provide an insight to some of the issues you will face in upgrading to a higher level of safety equipment. Also within this section are notes on specific issues you may encounter and can be accessed here.
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