Archive - SPRING 1998

The Loss of the Dong Won 529

When things go bump in the night - the Dong Won 529 grounding by Ian Munro, of  Stewart Island Ferry Services

At 0300hrs on October 6 I was roused from a great sleep, the only unbroken one I was to have for several nights, by Bernie Nolan, the local cop, putting me on standby with the Foveaux Express for the possible rescue of the crew of a Korean trawler aground on the  Breaksea Islands.

I asked Bernie if he was sure that it was Breaksea, Stewart Island, not Fiordland, as it was hard to imagine how a broken down vessel could end up on Stewart Island with an offshore wind. But he assured me that the information was correct.

I spent the next 30 minutes trying to imagine situations that could put a ship aground anywhere on the Breaksea  Group of six islands, when Bernie rang at 0330hrs to say it was all go, and we organised two extra crew with the rubber duck and for the district nurse to accompany us as one of the crew was reported to have broken an ankle. There was much speculation on what we would find, as everyone had had the same thoughts as me: that it would be almost impossible for a vessel to drift from sea into this area with the southwesterly conditions.
By 0400hrs, Graham Amos, one of our regular skippers, and myself had collected the ferry from its swing mooring and were on our way south with two local rescue coordinators, Ron Dennis and Mark Donald, and the relieving district nurse, Simon Graham who had been rudely awoken from his first night's sleep on Stewart Island to find himself heading he knew not where with a bunch of strangers.

After 40 minutes steaming, we all knew how the vessel had ended up where it had, as it was obvious that she had been full steam ahead straight up onto the outer end of the Outside Island. Thirty metres further to starboard and she would have sailed happily on her way.

The vessel still had all her lights on and the main engines going when we arrived, and as the weather was reasonably fine and the water deep around the vessel, we were able to get in really close. We decided that any attempts to pick up the crew would be much safer in daylight, and suggested this to the Maritime Safety Authority to communicate with the crew, who didn't seem to understand English.

We could see the crew were not in any danger, as they were all sitting on the stern of the ship with their lifejackets on, (We believe some of them were still wearing them when they got off the bus in Timaru.) looking very much like spectators in a grandstand at some sports event, but making it very clear that they "wanted off."
By this time Richard Hayes from Te Anau had arrived in his helicopter and the FV Malandrew had arrived on the scene, and Maritime Safety had advised the crew that they would be taken off the vessel by helicopter and transferred to the ferry.

With the chopper sitting on the rocks by the ship's bow and us all drinking tea like any good Kiwi in a time of crisis, we thought that we had everything under control until daylight, when the crew decided to lower two life rafts and try to abandon ship.

They couldn't keep the life rafts alongside the boarding ladder they had over the side of the ship, because the strong tide flowing under the stern held them away, and there was about 1-2m of slop surging up the ship's side onto the rocks.

The crew of the Malandrew, a paua boat, launched one of their dinghies and with considerable skill held the life raft as close as possible to the ladder, where one of the divers and Mark Donald off the ferry helped the Koreans into the rafts, which they then towed  out to us to take aboard.

Although we had been informed that one of the 38 crew had a broken ankle, we couldn't find any injuries, even with the best of sign language. Only the smell of garlic, stale fish and body odour caused us concern. 
When we had all the wet crew aboard, we told them that if they had listened to us they could have had a ride in a helicopter and dry cloths. The skipper, who had a little English, informed me that the ship's officers wanted to be put aboard the sister ship Dong Won 903 about two miles out to sea. But this would have been too dangerous, because of the sea conditions, and we spent the next half hour on the VHF and the cell phone before we managed to get the ship to follow us into the lee of Breaksea Islands where we made the transfer by  rubber duck to the Dong Won 903 had to take them into Bluff the next day so that they could be interviewed by the MSA. But I guess they would have had time to sort out a good story. We then took the remaining crew to Bluff, 30 miles away from the rescue site, where they caught a bus to Timaru and we were left to fend off the press.

One amusing incident which sticks in my mind was one of the wetter crew. When he came into the cabin of the ferry barefooted, he looked around with a very concerned look on his face until he spied the sick bags in the racks behind the seats. He very carefully blew one up and placed it over one foot, squeezed it tight around his foot, then repeated the process for the other foot, before sitting down with a smile on his face and going to sleep.

I spent the next four days under charter to the MSA and Sanfords, mainly carrying oil dispersant and jet aviation fuel for the choppers to keep the oil at bay, and carting some of the amazing amount of flotsam that came off the vessel to Bluff.

Most of the rest of this saga has been well covered already by the press and no doubt there will be the formal accident report which will follow.

Disaster averted
The stranding of the Dong Won 529 off the Breaksea Island, appears to have been caused by undetermined circumstances of which most mariners will understand as we cannot make a formal comment ahead of any official report. Local fishermen feared for their livelihood when oil began to seep out, conservationists were concerned for marine life, animal and island welfare, as were the politicians, in fear of the repercussions which might flow from the incident.

The Southland Regional Council took control once the vessel grounded, then the MSA took over when the oil began to spill. DoC assisted Massey University to set up a first response wild life aid station on Stewart Island. Fortunately, the oil slick which developed, quickly dispersed and any environmental impact appears to be minimal and localised. Despite intensive searches, no birds were found covered in oil and the one dead seal found, died from natural causes.

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The Magna Carta - a different view                    by Peter Ellery

Clive Atkinson's explanation of the Magna Carta and its offspring, the Treaty of Waitangi, was very good as far as it went, and I agreed with it, up to the part where it suggests that the current proposals on Maori customary non-commercial fishing regulations are either illegal, or that they diminish the customary rights of all New Zealanders.

As Clive quite rightly points out, the Treaty of Waitangi is an offspring of the Magna Carta. British law required that it be so.

But the Treaty of Waitangi is also an expansion of the Magna Carta, in as much as it also provided for Maori in the position of treaty-partner, and clearly acknowledged that Maori should retain tino rangatiratanga over those natural resources that were important to them. These are statements that recognise rights that are of a higher priority than those made available to all Ordinary citizens under the Magna Carta.

As a build on the Magna Carta, the Treaty of Waitangi is not any lesser expression of rights, nor is the Magna Carta a higher law. Quite the opposite. As a peace-settlement treaty, it quite clearly provides for rights that are above those of the common law rights of citizens. It does nothing to lessen the right of any individual to be able to take his or her bag limit from the common resource. What it does provide for is a management capability in natural resource management for Maori.

Tino rangatiratanga is often translated these days as the equivalent of ownership on a collective basis. However, there has never been any concept of ownership of fish or any other seafood. No Maori, individually or collectively, has ever owned any more fish than any Pakeha. The fish belong to Tangaroa, the God of the Sea.

Every culture from the beginning of history has had and been responsible for a stewardship role over fisheries (and all other natural resources). Among Maori, responsibility for that stewardship and guardianship for the future is the concept of kaitiakitanga.

Maori were guaranteed an active part in the stewardship role to be carried out over fisheries by this nation, in the Treaty of Waitangi. From the signing, to relatively recently, that role has been ignored and diminished by successive governments.

Taiapure and the proposed Customary Regulations are today's efforts to restore some of the guarantees of the treaty.

The proposed Customary Regulations do not provide any individual Maori person with any more individual rights than any Pakeha person, nor do they diminish any Pakeha person's rights at all. They do provide for better expression of, and control of, the communal take for the functions of the marae and in conjunction, provide for the ability to better express tino rangatiratanga over localised fishery issues, by providing the ability to propose regulations and bylaws to the Minister of Fisheries for the protection and sustainable use of localised fisheries. Such regulations and bylaws cannot discriminate against anybody because of their race, colour or creed, as decreed in the Magna Carta.

If the Minister is satisfied that the proposals have the support of the majority of the fishing community concerned, and that they further the cause of sustainability, they will be gazetted into law, potentially a true expression of partnership in the managing of the common resource. Just as the fishery is not in the same state as when the treaty was signed, nor will the tino rangatiratanga be.

It seems to me, that to work in today's world, with today's fishery, the expression of that tino rangatiratanga will have to be:

* democratic to representation from the local fishing community
* compatible with the Quota Management System
* kaitiakitanga and sustainable harvesting, must be the driving motivation behind all management objectives.

Most Pakeha fishers that I know believe that our fisheries are way overdue for a dose of guardianship. Between Taiapure and the proposed Customary Regulations, there is an unprecedented legislative capability for local people to manage local resources for non-commercial harvesting.

Ultimately, in a free society it is not possible to gain a lasting solution to a problem without the consent of the people. Unless all people are involved at an early stage in the development of and reasons for controls in management initiatives, there will invariably by disagreement and noncompliance.

What we need is for fishing communities to be able to share and support this structure that enables them to propose protective regulations over their share of the resource.

For Maori, that means being democratic with this capability, and achieving the balance between tikanga and modern science that will produce the best protective management for the people's share in our coastal fisheries, into the future.

For Pakeha, that means accepting that we can work with a structure that has a Maori name and is based on Maori principles of guardianship.

It can be done and we, as a nation, could lead the way in non-commercial fishery management, based on a mix of aboriginal and common-law rights, as we have in commercial management, with the Quota Management System.

Clive Atkinson responds:
I found Peter Ellery's interpretations, placed on the spirit, meaning, intent and effect of the Magna Carta versus the Treaty of Waitangi most interesting. But he is not correct in his understanding of the Magna Carta.
They are both documents of equal constitutional importance. But over 1000 years of constitutional history, development and law simply doesn't fade away because our politicians or academics say it should.

The Charter of Magna Carta was also a peace treaty between the sovereign and the subject. The Crown has no legitimacy if it fails to honour the fiduciary relationship created at the time of sealing the Magna Carta. This is a relationship based on trust, partnership and good faith. The same applies to the treaty. But, unlike the Treaty of Waitangi, the Magna Carta has been confirmed a further 38 times throughout history.

In fact, the Magna Carta created the precedent for the Treaty of Waitangi. it's just that our parliaments have completely ignored the rights in the Magna Carta while elevating those in the Treaty of Waitangi. Our education system is also seriously flawed in this context. But then, throughout history, the Crown has rarely honoured its agreements with anybody.

In the now famous United States case, Trustees of Dartmouth College v Woodward (1819), it was held Ò...a royal charter mains binding on legislature. The Magna Carta and the treaty are both royal charters and are equally binding.

But as Matt (a Benedictine law monk) told us in 1215 when writing about the Magna Carta: 'Neither are we to think that the charter of King John contains all the laws of England, but only principally such as are the greatest moment. The Charter, therefore, is not voidable at the king's nonage, and if there could have been such pretence, that alone would not void it, for such are the ancient Laws of customary right and immemorial custom confirmed in Parliament.

The Pipe Rolls (official records) dating from 1130 speak similarly.

With regard to fisheries, the Magna Carta actually prevented the Crown from assigning rights to itself or anyone else of privilege. That was to prevent the Crown, as it was want to do, from building fish weirs across rivers and harbours for the king's personal food larder and sport and also those of his friends. Ordinary people were then able to once again take enough fish to satisfy their food needs and celebrations. The same applied to hunting game, collecting firewood, and so on.

Now it seems that only Maori have express rights. Moreover, when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed and Maori were given the right of British subjects, it was simply declaring specific food, fish, and forest rights in the treaty which already existed for all British subjects. There was nothing special about the treaty in that regard.

It is clear from the records of the time that the Magna Carta was, in fact, the first treaty of conservation.

If only we could have a Magna Carta Tribunal equal to the Waitangi Tribunal, then things would change for the better for all New Zealanders. But I'm afraid that Doug Graham and the government don't agree. Until we do, New Zealand will never be able to stand as a mature nation in the family of nations. It seems to me that from a political perspective it continues to divide and rule.

The Magna Carta versus the Treaty.

I found Peter Ellery's interpretations, placed on the spirit, meaning ,intent and effect of the Magna Carta  v  the Treaty of Waitangi most interesting. But he is not correct in his understanding of Magna Carta. They are both documents of equal constitutional importance. But over 1000 year's of constitutional history, development and law simply doesn't fade away because our politicians or academics say it should.

Whereas the Magna-Carta is incorporated into New Zealand Law, the Treaty of  Waitangi as such is not, in fact it was described as not being a law in "Portrait of a Profession in the Centennial Book of the New Zealand Law Society". For  150 years the Treaty was declared a nullity by the courts.

The Charter of Magna Carta was also a peace treaty between the sovereign and the subject. The Crown has no legitimacy if it fails to honour the fiduciary relationship created at the time of sealing the Magna Carta. This is a relationship based on trust, partnership and good faith. The same applies to the Treaty. But unlike the Treaty of Waitangi, Magna Carta has been confirmed a further 38 times throughout history.

In fact  the Magna Carta created the precedent for the Treaty of Waitangi, it's just that our Parliaments have completely ignored the rights in Magna Carta while elevating those in the Treaty. Our education system is also seriously flawed in this context. But then, throughout history, the Crown has rarely honoured its agreements to anybody. If the Crown, as it should have, had honoured the obligations and guarantees in Magna Carta when it arrived in New Zealand there would have been no need for the Treaty of Waitangi.

In the now famous U.S. case "Trustees of Dartmouth College  v   Woodward (1819) it was held ".......a royal charter remains binding on legislature"  Magna Carta and the Treaty are both royal charters and are equally binding.

But as Matt (Benedictine law Monk) tells us in 1215 when writing about Magna Carta - "Neither are we to think that the charter of King John contains all the laws of England, but only principally such as are the greatest moment The Charter, therefore, is not voidable at the Kings nonage, and if there could have been such pretence that alone would not void it, for such are the ancient Laws of customary right and immemorial custom confirmed in Parliament.

The Pipe Rolls (official records) dating from 1130 speak similarly. With regard to fisheries the Magna Carta actually prevented the Crown from assigning rights to itself or any one else of privilege. That was to prevent the Crown, as it was want to do, from building fish weirs across rivers and harbours for the king's personal food larder and sport and also those of his friends. "Ordinary" people were then able to once again take enough fish to satisfy  their food needs and celebrations

The same applied to hunting game, collecting firewood etc. Now, it seems only Maori have express rights. Moreover when the Treaty was signed and Maori were given the right of British subjects it was simply declaring specific food, fish, forest rights in the Treaty which already existed for all British subjects. There was nothing special about the Treaty in that regard. It is clear from the records of the time that Magna Carta was, in fact the first treaty of conservation.

If only we could have a Magna Carta Tribunal equal to the Waitangi Tribunal then things would change for the better for all New Zealanders but I'm afraid Doug Graham and the Government don't agree. Until we do New Zealand will never be able to stand as a mature nation in the family of nations. It seems to me that from a political perspective it continues to divide and rule.  It is vital, therefore, to read and understand the spirit, meaning, intent and effect of  the Magna Carta and the Treaty of Waitangi as a whole document rather than, as so often happens, take parts of them in isolation.

Most of our fundamental rights come to us from the Magna Carta which was indented to be the basic foundation for an honourable partnership between the State and the people and the fountain of law and constitutional systems of New Zealand, indeed, of much of the Western world itself. For myself the principles of the Magna Carta were designed to protect the rights of all New Zealanders, whereas the Treaty is being used to take that protection away from all New Zealanders. If that is the case it will be the general public who will need to commence our activism to reclaim our ancient, undisputed  and admitted fundamental rights which have been so grievously violated.

Clive Atkinson
Greytown

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TUI as the ship not the hulk      By J.F.Campbell, Lieutenant Commander RNZN 

HMNZS TUI

The Ship's keel was laid down in 1961 and launched in June 1962 at Christy Corporation in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin and delivered to the United States Navy on 21 January 1963 as United States Naval Ship Charles H. Davis.   She was one of nine specifically designed 'CONRAD' class oceanographic research ships built for the USN between 1962-69, the class led by Robert D. Conrad in 1962.   The class was named after notable naval oceanographers and hydrographers, equipped to perform acoustic experiments on sound transmissions under water, and for gravity, magnetism and deep-ocean floor studies.   She was operated by the Naval Oceanographic Office, a department of the Military Sealift Command, as part of a pool of ships before being placed in reserve in the mid 1960's.
         
The New Zealand Government was offered Charles H. Davis on loan by the American Government for five years from 28 July 1970.   After a partial refit in Brooklyn, New York, Charles H. Davis was renamed TUI (after the previous ship - a Bird Class trawler employed in mine sweeping duties and operations in the Pacific during WWII and as a training ship after the war), and was formally commissioned into the Royal New Zealand Navy and handed over to the New Zealand Government on 11 September 1970 at Brooklyn.   After sea trials off New York HMNZS TUI sailed for New Zealand on 24 September 1970, via Panama and Tahiti.   She arrived at Wellington on 7 November 1970, then proceeded to Auckland to complete her refit, arriving in mid November 1970.    Her lease was extended a further five years in late 1975, and in 1979 her lease was extended for a further 15 years.

NEW ZEALAND SERVICE
      
TUI conducted sea trials March 1971, and after scientific equipment had been installed and tested, she began a programme of work for the Defence Scientific Establishment (DSE, formerly called the Naval Research Laboratory), Auckland.    Since then TUI went unobtrusively about the kind of research she was designed for, primarily underwater acoustics, calling from time to time at various NZ ports.    Sometimes TUI worked in Australian, Indian Ocean and South Pacific waters, on Auckland University research and with DSIR scientists, and with other oceanographic ships (HMA Ships Diamantina  and Kimbla in 1977-78, and the DSIR's ship Tangaroa).    TUI took part in several American research programmes, some of which extended across the Pacific Ocean from near the coast of Peru or the west coast of continental USA.    Though TUI's acoustics research is mainly to do with the detection and tracking of submarines, particularly after she was fitted with the FMS 15/2 passive towed array system in the late 1980's, much of her research work was available to other science and industry spheres, and some data was useful in the compilation of hydrographic charts.   

Occasionally TUI was involved with ceremonial duties and fleet exercises, notably her last operational deployment to Mururoa as a "White Sentinel" for the New Zealand Government during the French nuclear tests in the later part of 1995.    TUI was decommissioned on 18 February 1998.
         
EQUIPMENT

The ship was fitted with automatic steering and recording system and both the engine and bow propulsion unit can be controlled directly from either of two consoles on the bridge.   The navigational outfit included satellite navigation, radio direction finder, radar and echo sounder.  An EDO echo sounder and precision Depth Recorder were also fitted.   All this equipment was state of the art when the ship was commissioned but, with few upgrades during her operational life, by 1995 most of this equipment was outdated but still very functional.

Available for scientific work were the Operations Room, aft of the bridge, a Wet Laboratory aft for handling all water sampling, small core and dredges, and a large Dry Laboratory aft fitted with racks for a variety of electrical and scientific equipment.    The Wet and Dry Laboratories open on to the starboard waist and Quarter-deck.    A Photographic Laboratory and dark room were also provided.

To enable a wide range of acoustic, physical, chemical, biological or geological measurements to be undertaken, special deck machinery was fitted.   This included electrical cable handling facilities, comprising a hydraulic cable hauler with a take-up reel (which can carry up to four miles of cable) and associated measuring and handling equipment; two bathythermograph winches and two oceanographic winches, both capable of carrying 30,000 feet of wire.   One pair was fitted for use with Nansen reversing water bottles, small corers and dredges.   The other pair was fitted with armoured electrical cable for use with a velocimeter and other electrical instruments.  

The ship also had a deep anchoring, coring and trawling capability using a heavy duty hydraulic winch with a choice of two wire storage drums, one of which had 30,000 feet of tapered wire and the other 30,000 feet of 1-3/4" wire. A special davit was fitted on the stern for deep trawls, and a hydraulically operated 'A' frame was available for handling heavy packages over the stern.   A unique feature were the two transducer tubes, 3 feet in diameter, which extend from the upper deck, right through the hull and open to the sea at the bottom.

With the exception of the A frame these capabilities were removed form the ship in the mid 1980's.   The space between the main structure and the funnel (among other things the ship was nick named the Floating Funnel due to the proportionately large funnel compared to the rest of the ship) was cleared along with all the winch equipment on the quarter-deck during the 1984 refit to make room for the Ferranti FMS 15/2 passive towed array.   The array, a series of highly sensitive hydrophones placed inside a pressure filled hose (resembling an enormous garden hose) trailed approximately one mile behind the ship at depths up to 1000 feet, was stowed on a large hydraulic driven reel on the quarter-deck.   The displays for the array were located in a standard small container just forward of the funnel with direct links to the bridge and Operations room.    The entire system could be lifted on and off the ship in two days at the Devonport Naval Base, Auckland.   This enabled TUI to be employed in other tasking by the RNZN or DSE that did not require deep water acoustic information.
         
ALTERATIONS

Cable-handling gear (over the bow through to the stern), and new gallows at the stern were fitted for TUI's RNZN service.   Her port main engine was replaced during a 12 week refit in 1973.  During 1975-77 she received new scientific and navigation equipment and auxiliary machinery, to improve her usefulness and performance.    TUI was given a major refit in 1979-80, after her loan was renewed.    In 2-3/84 TUI was refitted at Lyttelton under private contract, the first time since WWII that a large RNZN ship had undergone refit in NZ away from Devonport.    Subsequent refits have also been done at Lyttelton with the exception of the last refit in 1994 which was conducted at HMNZ Dockyard, Auckland.   Towed array equipment was fitted in the mid to late 1980s as well as dividing the dry laboratory to make room for an eight person mess deck (dorm).  TUI had her bow thruster removed for her final deployment to Mururoa in 1995 to allow her to berth at Rarotonga.

MISHAPS
         
When shifting berth 'dead ship' at Brooklyn, NY, on 11 September 1970 soon after being commissioned, TUI was struck on the stern and slightly damaged by the tug Michael Moran (288 grt, 1913).   TUI had a breakdown of her main diesel generator on 12 February 1981 while working in the South Taranaki Bight.   Unable to make headway with her bow thruster, she was towed to Port Taranaki by the Maui supply ship Austral Tide next day. After temporary repairs she sailed for Auckland on 17 February escorted by HMNZS Taranaki, where she was apparently taken in tow and is reported to have been towed at 14 knots - the fastest the ship has ever gone!  

In August 1978 TUI was sent to Raoul Island to bring back to Auckland the men who had been aboard the motor vessel Picton, wrecked there on 20 August 1978.    TUI's cutter capsized during the shore-to-ship transfer.    In 1992, while conducting research work close to the coast, TUI grounded off the Mahia Peninsula resulting in the loss of her bow thruster.  

In 1995, while returning to New Zealand from Mururoa, salt water from the cooling tank above the starboard main engine leaked onto the generator while on full load creating a small fire which was extinguished in four minutes.   The generator could not be repaired and the ship returned to New Zealand on one engine with a maximum speed of eight knots.
     
PARTICULARS

          
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Candy samples many walks of life    by Dee Pigneguy

Candus Gale Pettus, or Candy, as she is known, took her first steps on a sailing boat. Her father was an oceanographer at the Woodshole Oceanographic Institute in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and she spent much of her spare time sailing on the family yacht around Falmouth Bay to Martha's Vineyard.

When she was five, the family moved to California, where her father had an oceanographic laboratory and a research vessel at San Diego. Once again, Candy was involved in yacht racing and club activities. As a teenager she worked for the yacht club, taught sailing and parked a lot of boats in the marina. These were mainly up to 18m in length, both sailboats and motor launches, and had owners who were too rich or too drunk to do it themselves. The bigger vessels had their own private skippers. They were allowed to tie up at the end of pontoons, thus avoiding the trauma of having to manoeuvre in the marina.

At the University of California, Candy gained degrees in molecular biology and biochemistry, and sailed on the university team in competitive racing. She placed second in the national intercollegiate sailing championships, and in 1972 she represented the United Snipe fleet in the western hemisphere sailing championships in Cartegena, Colombia.

Candy decorated her university dormitory with photographs of vessels. Pride of place went to her Custom Boats calendar. The month she met her future husband, Darryl, the calendar photograph was Gerry own wooden racing yacht (circa 1960). She had beautiful classic lines, even though she was relatively modern. The young man that entered her room and started chatting her up let his eye stray to the calendar and said 'How would you like to go racing on that yacht?'
Candy had to admit: 'With a pitch like that, what's a girl to say?'
They went racing together and won! As it turned out, not only did he have contacts like that, he could do her calculus homework.

She and Darryl married at 18 while still at university. The social issues of the time,   Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War, shaped her life. There were many issues and causes to fight for. Increasingly they felt like social and political refugees of a system they tolerate. They considered New Zealand and felt they could make more of a difference there than as individuals in the United States.

They arrived in New Zealand in 1976 with tourist visas and no money, but they had been accepted at the University of Auckland to do research work in cell biology. Once again the social conditions changed their direction. New Zealand was experiencing the era of the Muldoon government, and a closed society with the tightening of the immigration regulations. If they were going to stay, they had to get jobs.

So Candy followed her profession and became an accountant. From a very early age Candy had been developing her little bag of skills. She had worked on accounts to earn money to put herself through school and university, and now she felt competent to work as an accountant. Her husband worked in the boatbuilding industry. Their jobs allowed them to apply for and be granted permanent residence.

Now that they were residents, they wanted to put down roots. Their search for the right climate, the right price and proximity to good surf beaches led them to Hokianga, where they bought land. They visited on weekends and holidays from Auckland in their 1937 Morris 8, but within a year, made plans to live closer to their land, and took up teaching jobs. Candy was the science teacher at Taipa Area School in Doubtless Bay. Teaching certificates had also been added to her little bag.

In 1980, a daughter, Jazmin, was born. Finally in 1981 the family moved onto the property into a 22sq m hay barn and Candy got a job teaching at the Opononi Area School as head of the science department.
Candy had developed a love of flying from her glider pilot father to add to her sailing skills. The two were so similar -  the feel of air rushing past, the silence, the feeling of being completely at one with the environment - and Candy resist another experience.

She continued to enjoy sailing by teaching children in the Opononi Family Yacht Club. she enjoyed the tight little community, with active adults the family A second daughter, Solana Del Mar, was born in 1982. Candy and Darryl continued to put their heart and soul into building up a home and a long-term secure environment. Though many people may have seen their lifestyle as poverty'

In 1988 Candy bought the Sierra. She was looking for something to do with boats. As an only child, her father had taken her everywhere. He had never prevented her from gaining opportunities because she was a girl, and neither parent had ever made an issue of the dangerous stuff'

The idea of the Sierra developed from wanting to use the Hokianga and develop a timetabled passenger ferry service.

The Sierra, an historic vessel, had been built in 1912 to service the Andrews Stores scattered around the Hokianga and Whangape Harbours. For 42 years she had plied the rivers, towing and barging, and in the 1920s she had transported schoolchildren to Rawene District High School.

Sierra had a high profile. Although only two people had been born on the boat, countless others claimed to have been conceived aboard, because 8hp engine meant she had to wait for tides when she took people to the dances and pictures on Friday and Saturday nights.

According to local old people, she had magnificent velvet cushions down below. No doubt they had plenty of time to appreciate them as they were tied alongside the wharf waiting for the tide.

Sierra left the Hokianga about 1950. The Subritsky Brothers bought Hokianga Ferries and brought Sierra to Auckland to work on the construction of the Auckland Harbour Bridge. By the early 1960s, she was a Blue Boat on the Rangitoto run. Candy bought her from Fullers Auckland as they were going out of business, sailed her to Whangarei and trucked her home.

Thus in 1988 Sierra was relaunched and Candy, along with a partner, began a new life phase. Candy crewed until she got her LLM in 19990, when she took over the business herself.

Her teenage years changed life yet again. She felt the girls hadn't chosen her lifestyle and felt a need to broaden their horizons and introduce them to knowledge and experience in the world outside their valley, a world quite different from that represented on television. So they came to the city. Candy looks back with some amusement now as her girls gauge a young worth by his ability to drive a 4in nail.

Her children were empowered by being part of the process of the community, and she feels they now have pride and ownership in Opononi. Candy sees that these ties have been reinforced by coming to Auckland for their secondary schooling. They regard Aucklanders as having zero chance of survival in a world where Opononi is the home of the real people.

At present, Candy has a Master of Business Administration tucked into her skills bag and a job with Auckland health care, where she is manager of research and is working towards a PhD in management.

Candy is a member of the New Zealand Maritime Association, which she says opened her eyes to the wide range of maritime occupations available to women. She says she is heartened by the increased awareness and collective voice of women at sea. Personally it has brought her a circle of friends and a network to broaden friendships.

When Professional Skipper spoke to Candy, the Sierra was a victim of the extreme conditions experienced on July 1, and she sits on the slip at Whangarei. An insurance assessor will decide her fate.

For the first time in her life, external realities have taken a critical decision out of her life, and her dream of making the Sierra to Opononi what the Earnslaw is to Queenstown hangs in the balance.

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New Zealand's Hydrographic Services     by George Shelvocke
         
It is very pleasing to read that there is an ever increasing volume of correspondence on the vexing matter of this nation's hydrographic services.

Dee Pigneguy's article is to be applauded. It is unfortunate, however, that the discussion has not yet reached the intensity necessary to stop the "rotten bridge" collapsing on this "route over a dangerous chasm" which the government has chosen to follow.

The consequences of continuing down this path will be disastrous, expensive, and extremely difficult to rectify. Mr Spittal does not wish to "debate government decisions in the media," but this debate would not be necessary had the government heeded the sound and experienced advice that was given before this track was chosen. Nor would it be necessary had mariners-at-large been aware of the changes being enacted with such obscene haste.

Questions must expect a response on whether a full cost/benefit analysis was undertaken before the decision was made to remove hydrographic services from the control of the Navy.

What were the figures used to justify the funder/provider split, or was the decision based only on some incomplete and unproven economic theory?  Questions should also include a re-examination of the "supporting" data presented in the Porritt and Heath Reports, of which only the latter was dedicated to hydrographic services. Compared with the Porritt Committee's deliberations, the Heath Report was a rather hurried affair prepared over a Christmas period and without sufficient notice or time given to potential contributors so that full and reasoned arguments could be submitted by all who were interested.

Both reports ignored the professional opinions of the experienced hydrographic surveyors who contributed. Both reports failed to adequately differentiate between surveying for research purposes, and surveying as an act of sovereignty and to fulfill national obligations for the safety of the mariner at sea.   In response to the Spittal letter, why is it necessary to import hydrographic expertise from overseas when there is an adequate supply already in New Zealand?

Several issues have apparently been overlooked since LINZ took over the control of hydrographic services. These include work and support for other Pacific Islands countries which the Navy used to undertake every year, providing a form of welcome assistance to the islands, and training and experience in different environmental conditions for New Zealanders.

In addition, have these countries been individually consulted by LINZ to obtain approval for data on their waters to be transferred to what will eventually become a publicly available database? There are issues of sovereignty and probably complex copyright issues to be addressed for both New Zealand and the island nations. Indeed, the Crown copyright of New Zealand-owned material becomes a vexing matter when payment of royalties is to be shared between government departments. 

The infomercial page by Hydrolink raises the ante.  As I understand the situation today, the Navy has lost the rights to produce some 80 percent of our charts and the warehousing of all the national charts. There is not one service offered or planned by Hydrolink that the Navy did not already provide or could not have introduced some time ago, had the necessary resources been provided when requested.

The creation of a new infrastructure and the upheaval which is taking place cannot be without additional cost to the taxpayer. What are those additional costs so far and what are they expected to be, not setting aside redundancies and un-employment?
 
With the chart centre now in Wellington and the bulk of customers coming from north of Hamilton, how long will it be before the range of available charts, or their quality, are reduced, or the unit costs increased, to cover the additional freight costs? 

When will the innocent public and the purveyors of maps and charts be able to appreciate the differences between hydrography and topography, and the vast differences in skills between the personnel who survey and draw the product?

It is poor logic to speak of topographic data and hydrographic data in the same terms. The types and amounts of information collected  to produce a nautical chart and a land map of the same surface area to the same scale are vastly different, and an ability to handle digital data does not make nautical cartography. How long will it take for an accident to arise as a consequence of chart production or correction being carried out by an inappropriately skilled cartographer, as opposed to a specialist nautical cartographer?

Charts, of whatever form, require the constant overview of experienced mariners to ensure the customers' needs are paramount.  What seagoing experience is employed by Hydrolink to replace the Hydrographer's overview?  As a final comment on the claimed capability, Hydrolink has yet to demonstrate any "track record to provide the hydrographic and bathymetric services".

The capabilities of individual parts do not make a capability as a whole, any more than links make up a chain, unless they are fully forged to form one.  Equally, the chain itself is not useful until it has been thoroughly tested.

Mariners, keep your eyes open.

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