Asylum seekers and fear

[melbournegirlinny]

Here's an excellent article from The Age, Melbourne's newspaper, retelling what happened with some boat people back in 2001 just prior to an election and drawing parallels with today's situation and how Gillard and Abbott are handling it.

 

Birds of different feathers, but what is so scary?

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Hi Sandra

 

It is an excellent article.

 

That said, many a time I have arrived in North France or the Channel Islands looking every inch like a half drowned rat because I chose to go there aboard a privately-owned yacht and the sea was rough in the English Channel on the way over. If the trip was scary for some reason (eg the rudder fell off one of the yachts on one of the trips) I've probably looked shocked and frightened as well but on that particular trip a lifeboat came out and I was too busy with the towing arrangements and concentrating on what the lifeboat cox said on the radio to worry about appearances.

 

Plenty of yotties have been to Oz in very small boats with very small, short-handed crews:

 

index

 

Tom & Vicky Jackson are very old sailing friends of mine from the UK and I've been aboard their boat Sunstone many, many times. Sunstone is only 40ft long. They are exceptionally capable sailors and Sunstone is an exceptionally capable, well-maintained yacht. However, if the vessel is just about capable of floating it will get to Australia, for sure. Tom is one of the most pernickety people I've ever met for making sure that his beloved boat is OK. 99% of us are nowhere near as fussy as he is but we get our own boats to the desired destination all the same. All that you have to do is to point the boat in the right direction, after all. Australia is a hard place to miss because of its size. Once you can see the land it is not difficult to work out which way to go in order to get the boat into a harbour.

 

Tom would have 50 fits if he had ever set foot on Aquilon, which belonged to my late husband Jim. Some would definitely say that Aquilon was "rickety," "not seaworthy" and the rest of the nonsense. Admittedly, the navigation lights and the radio did once observe the best traditions of a Rolls-Royce on the same night. They didn't "pack up." A Rolls-Royce does not do anything so naff. They merely "failed to proceed." Which was a bit hairy but the hull was 100% sound so Aquilon was definitely not going to sink.

 

It is a mite illegal to be without nav lights but if they "fail to proceed" whilst you are at sea, well, that's a Peril of the Sea, frankly. They worked when I checked them in Harbour before leaving, so I don't know why they 'failed to proceed' later. I muttered at Jim but he wasn't worried. He trusted Aquilon's hull because he looked after the integrity of the hull like most people would look after a baby.

 

Apart from that, "If not duffers, won't drown," as Arthur Ransome said in 'Swallows and Amazons' and he was absolutely right. The crews of the boats carrying the asylum seekers are definitely not duffers and the boats might look ghastly but very few of the boats actually sink.

 

Therefore I am not impressed by a landlubber of a journo telling me about the alleged

Horrors Of The Sea. They are not that bad if you know what you are doing. Any commercial fisherman in Oz will confirm what I say.

 

Cheers

 

Gill