Anonymous wrote:
Fiji, awesome. Slight thread drift - don't register her as 'NZ Ship' then, because the whole Cat 1 thing runs against the spirit or "ethos" of how you have voyaged offshore in all your years of sailing, and I can't see you changing your ways to meet a checklist of what they need. Plus it is $1K to register, and needs to be renewed after only 5 years, and they whack you with another thousand to renew.
Sorry Guys, but I have to differ on this one. When we went to New Caledonia I put Footprints through Cat 1. I looked at other options of registering offshore, but in the end it did not stack up. I know my situation might differ from some other cruisers in that we were cruising as a family, but it was not expensive, and it was not onerous.the boat was not 'loaded down with safety equipment', and as a responsible Mariner I would not have chosen to sail offshore without the safety equipment that NZ Cat 1 required me to have. I have absolutely no regret at having to comply with the Cat 1 requirements, and if I ever get to go offshore again I will very happily equip my boat to their 'checklist' because I think that it is the minimum that any responsible offshore sailor with a crew would have on their boat. Yes, the Part B registration only lasts for 5 years, but the cost of that was also quite minimal compared with other ongoing costs that we have these days, such as vehicle registration, and ongoing housing costs if we live on land. All in all we feel that our 3 month holiday in New Caledonia was very inexpensive, if we had been able to carry on cruising for 6 months, or years, then the investment and compliance required for New Zealand registration and Cat 1 with have been so insignificant to not even count.
Hi David, I cant hold a candle to your experience, nor Annie's, but you both have diametrically different views on this one it appears - and you both have my utmost respect.
The "check list" of "requirements" has grown significantly in past few years, including things like proving GZ curves and righting moments of your boat, proving you have been offshore as crew before , needing to have a long distance radio, having to attend and pay for a safety seminar where you get dunked in the water in a big swimming pool type situation (a recent addition to cat 1 requirements) etc etc etc.
The safety gear certainly will cost a few thousand, and throw in another thousand bucks to register, and it all adds up. But what price safety I guess...but the counter argument is Roger's Mingmings' would both have failed cat 1.....which would be maniacal as his boats are probably safer than 99.9% of boats that sail offshore from NZ each year. I am doing best I can to copy Roger's ideas in my boat refurbishment, but they can still fail me, example, as my bilge pump is going to exit into the cockpit as its the only place it can exit as my stern is sealed off aft.
Plus, when I sail offshore for the first time in the years ahead, I want it to be my first time offshore period - I don't want to experience offshore sailing on someones elses boat and under someone elses command first...I want to do it alone, by myself single handed, and prove it to myself I can do it, and the only way to do that is...to do it yourself - so because of this , that philosophical way I want to approach things will automatically fail me with Cat 1 inspector as I have not crewed - even as rail meat where you could theoretically do nothing but swap as dead-weight from port to starboard all the way to Fiji or New Caledonia on some race yacht as a bit of rail-meat, and that would count I guess - but as I said, I don't want to do that.
I guess I want to be responsible only for myself, and I don't want to crew on some meaningless passage with some boat and captain I don't know from a bar of soap, just so I can get that bit "ticked" off the cat 1 checklist.
I guess in the years ahead I can slowly accumulate all the cat 1 gear, gain as much experience in NZ waters that I can, and then if they still fail me for being lacking either in experience or some missing gear when the big day finally arrives when I want to cast off for the horizon, then I will just have to put my little yacht on a container ship and ship her somewhere without cat 1 requirements and also register under a different flag, which theoretically I could do as I have an EU passport as well as a Kiwi one.
Anyway, this is all for the future for me personally, but I really am not going to put up with some guy with a clipboad telling me I can't sail offshore on my boat when the time comes.
Annie, I hope you don't mind the slight thread drift from the building of Siblim, but I guess it is somewhat relevant as to where you actually do end up registering Siblim.