Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Wednesday 25 May 2011

So where does this leave me in terms of viewpoint?

Yesterday I reported what the newspapers had to say on the coastguard re-organisation proposals. Today, I give my viewpoint.
I did want to try and find arguments for and against the proposal to give some form of balanced viewpoint, because, despite what some commentators have said about me, I am actually very fair and open minded and always want to see an issue from the two opposing points of view. However, despite 40 minutes of trawling the internet it became clear that there is very little good reported about the MCA proposals. In fact I couldn’t find much at all, other than the senior leadership of MCA supporting the viewpoint. However, the coastguards I did speak to locally were pretty clear that despite the 1990’s reorganisation and appraisal of the MCA, the service still needs more modernisation and investment and this comes at a cost at a time of economic recession. Linking coastguard stations together with a better infrastructure seemed to be often quoted. Fair point! I think it is a really critical issue for many coastguards. Some I spoke to argued in favour of reducing the number of centres as well and seemed to accept the inevitable conclusion that reducing centres would lead to reduced staffing.

Well despite that, locally and nationally there has been a huge outcry and actually I do agree with many of the arguments put forward. What I will say before sharing some of my concerns, is that the onus is on us, the dissenters to come up with alternative proposals that meet senior MCA, government, local coastguard and the maritime community needs. Standing up and protesting is easy. Standing up and coming up with a win-win situation for all is a mite harder but necessary!

So here are my concerns with the proposals as they are at present, bearing in mind the point I’ve just made. I will at some stage try to think about possible other solutions or proposals. They won’t meet everyone’s needs but with fairness to the MCA and government, at least I will have tried. I certainly will be attending local meetings where taking a proactive approach to finding a workable solution is encouraged.
Firstly, this link to Hansard gives an interesting perspective about some of the inaccuracies in the original proposals put out by senior coastguards. I cannot comment on whether they are all true but it was MP’s standing up in this debate and I suspect many were very well briefed!

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110324/halltext/110324h0001.htm
Next, the huge public outcry has come from a huge variety of groups and people from all walks of life – no pressure groups, no organised approaches – a totally diverse cross section of our society and I think that is interesting in itself. The meetings I went to or friends went to fell into one camp – out rightly hostile to the proposals and that is an honest, fair summary! I read somewhere on a forum that important bodies such as the British Canoe Union and many youth adventure organisations had been left off the official consultation list – ridiculous frankly! We have countless water sports centres in this region all with a vested interest in what happens. And wow, are there canoeists or are their canoeists out on the Sound most weekends and its lovely to see them all too! They surely must have a viewpoint.

The importance of and potential loss of local knowledge seems to be a major concern for all those against these proposals and as far as I can gather, protesters feel there doesn’t seem to be much to allay their suspicions that a central command approach will actually lead to as good a service as exists now. I’ve heard and read countless times the point about how often at inshore incidents the majority of people/boats in trouble give their positions in terms of bearing and distance from well known landmarks. Someone said well over 90% of incidents give position in this way. That seems to be a strong reason for local knowledge! The argument that local knowledge comes through a good database and specialist advisers in the two national centres is nonsense frankly. We’ve had a few cases in the south west where emergency 999 callers have not been located by such databases despite giving detailed descriptions of where they are. Local knowledge counts.

One person on a really good small boat forum made a point that the official consultation document highlighted the need for maximum flexibility to respond to emergencies and the value of a huge range of networks in which this should be done. Apparently MCA drew attention to the fact that coastguard stations are currently only linked in pairs and this is why it needs modernising. I think is wrong but I would need to confirm this later. I’m pretty sure Brixham is linked with several others as is Falmouth. The gentleman, who seemed very well informed, went on to say that the proposal isn’t a network of coastguard stations as MCA would suggest but it is a system by which an individual station has a link to its command centre but that it is and a command centre has a link to all outlying stations. Outlying stations wouldn’t necessarily link to each other ....so where is this networking talked of in the proposal?

There have been countless points made about the confusion over local place names with several examples being given i.e. the risk of a national centre deploying assets to the ‘wrong’ place as a result. The issue of local dialects has also been raised as an issue for communication. I’m from North Wales so I understand that argument immediately – no one understands us! I read somewhere that at a Holyhead meeting, the first question was asked in welsh and the panel had to send for an interpreter – priceless!

Many concerns were expressed over the idea of closing sub centres at night! I think I’m right that several of our most serious incidents in the south west in recent times have been at night!

Finally, I have read in various places that the savings the coastguard are talking of making are not quite as big as one might at first think. I can’t find where I read this, so this must be taken with a pinch of salt because I may have the figures wrong. As I recall somewhere it said that the savings made would be in the region of £130 million spread across 25 years so about £5 million per year? I’m all for that if the system that is put in place genuinely works. However, my faith in the current proposals is deeply shaken due to everything I have read. Consequently I can’t see how a £5 million saving per year is at this moment giving better value for money to what we have now. Oh and one more thing. The government had argued that the current coastguard set-up dates back 40 years and needed to be revamped to meet 21st century challenges. That is nonsense. They had a complete review and adjustment in the 1990’s – read the Hansard entries. This is a blatant piece of government misrepresentation I think!

Locally, I know the fight to save the Brixham station has seen more than 10,000 signatures handed to Shipping Minister Mike Penning as part of the Save Our Station campaign spearheaded by the Herald Express, a local newspaper.

And that’s it

I welcome the extension of consultation. I’d welcome proposals which are not full of inaccuracies or misinformation. I think the onus is on us who have raised our opposition to the proposals to help the MCA and government come up with ones which are workable for all. Protesting is easy. It’s morally wrong if you then don’t try to work constructively with everyone to try and fix the issue for the benefit of all involved. Meanwhile, I would like to know what the positives are of the current proposals and would wlecome any sensible commenst outlining them. I want a balanced consideration of this issue and I want to understand the senior MCA viewpoint.

Steve

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