One of the happy memories of my childhood was going fishing with my father. We had a weekend place at Rosebud on Port Phillip, Victoria, Australia.
It was at the time when Australia's population was only about six million people. Tyre punctures were common as we motored the 42 miles from Melbourne to Rosebud over rough corrugated roads. Petrol was cheap but had to be hand pumped up to an overhead glass reservoir for fuelling as electicity had not reached Rosebud in those early days.
The fishing was great and we caught mainly flathead, whiting, garfish, barracouta and small snapper. Sometimes a fishing line would run out with such force that it could not be controlled and would then snap when the line emptied on the reel. We often wondered what sort of fish we had lost. Later experience would suggest that these were big snapper. It was their characteristic to run, after taking the bait, and you needed at least 200 metres of line on the reel to accomodate the run out.
21 lb snapper caught off Rosebud in later years.
Years later, when I had my own family, I decided to buy a boat. There had been a tremendous advance in boat construction with the use of fibreglass hulls and outboard motors were well developed.
At this time a licence was not required to go boating in Victorian waters. Although I felt somewhat experienced it seemed extraordinary and exceedingly unsafe that inexperienced people were able to buy a boat and go off to sea without knowing anything about seamanship or knowledge of the regulations. There had already been a number of boating fatalities.
It was about this time (the early 1970's), that I decided to enrol in a ten-week course in Basic Seamanship run by the Australian Volunteer Coast Guard Association. It equipped me well for many years of happy and safe boating. I subsequently joined the Coast Guard and became actively involved in the Association.
My interest was very much in boating safety, and with the assistance of the Victoria Water Police in making their accident data available for analysis and with input from Australian Bureau of Statistics, it was possible to conduct a nine-year survey of recreational boating accidents in the State of Victoria, Australia.
The survey showed that the boating fatality rate was nearly twice the rate of that in the USA. Another disturbing statistic was that only 50% of the fatalities were wearing a life-jacket. There were other inadequacies revealed by the survey, and there were also some anomalies in the boating regulations at that time. Clearly, changes were necessary in the management of boating safety and in 1986, the State Government of Victoria, established the State Boating Council to look after all aspects of recreational boating.
Licensing
Finally, in 2002, the State Government of Victoria introduced licensing for power boat operators dating from February 2002 gradually being phased in with a deadline of February 2003.
New Marine Regulations
New marine regulations were introduced on December 1, 2005. There were important changes relating to the wearing of lifejackets (PFD's).
Full details can be seen at Marine Safety Victoria.