Too many leaders

There were seventeen electronics companies listed in the Southampton show guide under the heading “Communication and Navigation”. Five more, including Furuno, Eagle, and Brookes and Gatehouse, somehow found themselves hived off into the “Charter and Holidays” section.

But the remarkable thing is that out of those 23 companies, no fewer than thirteen were described as being “leader”, “leading”, or “number one”...  or words to that effect.

Now, I’m all in favour of people taking pride in a job well done. And I know we’re not supposed to take advertising too literally.

But if more than half of those taking part an event are “leaders”, the word is meaningless. And if it’s meaningless, why bother saying it?

Still, I suppose it’s better to be a “leader” than to be “discerning”. Because according to the programme, the “more discerning” visitor to the London Boat Show will be able to pay £85 for a Platinum ticket. Take away the £40 that another couple might expect to pay for car parking and non-platinum tickets to the show, and it seems that the only people likely to stump up £170 for a pair of Platinum tickets will be those who have failed to “discern” that they are paying sixty five quid a head for a croissant and coffee, a glass of fizzy plonk, and a “buffet lunch”.
  

Canoes and body boards become “ships”

Paul Clark is the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Motoring and Freight Services Agencies. Despite a job title that sounds as though he’s got something to do with van hire, it somehow fell to him to announce the DfT’s proposals for a new law which -- he said -- would “regulate the safe use of all watercraft by bringing them into the scope of the merchant shipping legislation.”

Actually, “announced” is a bit of an overstatement. With an average of twenty such pieces of so-called “secondary legislation” winging their way through Westminster every working day, MPs have far more interesting things to occupy their time. So the “announcement” appeared only as a written statement.

The Minister for Rent-A-Van didn’t actually spell out the fact that the new law would make it an imprisonable offence for the “Master” of a three-foot bodyboard to endanger his two-pound “ship”.  But he slipped the keywords “safe” and “safety” into the announcement five times, to make it clear that anyone who dared to object would be dismissed as mad, bad, or dangerous, and left it to his civil service puppet-masters to flesh out the details.

They did so in a consultation document that was distributed to such centres of maritime expertise as the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, and the National Federation of Anglers – but not to organizations such as the British Canoe Union, Amateur Rowing Association, or the British Surfing Association.

According to the MCA, it’s all the fault of the Law Lords. They, in a case concerning a collision between two personal watercraft, described the MCA’s argument that the rider of a personal watercraft was the “Master employed in a Ship” as “misconceived”. They even told the MCA that it would have won if it had prosecuted the rider under the completely different piece of legislation that brings the Colregs into English law. That bit of the judgement seems to have been conveniently forgotten, though,  and the DfT is now happily building on the urban myth that says Jetskis are exempt from the collision regulations.

It would be easy to say that anything that brings your particular pet hate under control is A Good Thing. That, of course, is what the DfT is banking on, and it pretty well sums up the RYA’s reaction to the proposal.

But there are bigger issues at stake than whether PWCs are annoying, oarsmen are rude, or sailing dinghies get in the way.

When Parliament voted in favour of an Act that included the words “Master” and “Ship” it’s a pretty fair bet that most of the Members were thinking of professional officers, and substantial commercial vessels. The Act in question is less than fifteen years old, so if Parliament had intended it to mean “the owner of a jetski” or “a kid on a bodyboard”, surely they would have found a form of words that said so?

But the DfT doesn’t agree. The upshot is that a bunch of unelected, unaccountable civil servants and their tame minister are setting out to change the law, without any realistic parliamentary scrutiny – and all because three old buffers in suspenders and silly wigs had the temerity to tell them they were wrong.

Divided by a common language
I’ve never understood why anyone should feel proud (or ashamed) of having been born on any particular bit of this little ball of wet rock, wobbling its way round eternity. So I am always rather bemused by people who claim to be “proud” of their country’s flag.

But on my way to the NMEA Convention in Florida, I had to admit that the Stars and Stripes, on varnished wooden poles and topped by polished brass eagles, looked good. It made the airport immigration hall a far more cheerful – and dignified – place than the drab grey bunker that “welcomed” me back to my mother country.

The Immigration officer who looked at my passport in the States took my fingerprints, but at least she was pleasant about it. The battleaxe who did the same job at Heathrow  took nothing more than time – hers and mine. She seemed convinced that if she glared at me for long enough I would break down and admit that I’d stashed a few kilos of cocaine, a couple of illegal immigrants, or half a dozen AK47s into my overnight bag.

I might even be frightened enough to own up to having more than 100 millilitres of mouthwash.

Even the American cops seemed relaxed and friendly. Perhaps it was just that their badges were so big and so heavily embroidered that they didn’t need the flak jackets of their British counterparts. Or maybe it was that they kept their weapons in buttoned-down holsters, instead of strutting around like all those Dixons of Dock Green in Terminal One -- swaggering around with guns poised and trigger fingers crooked, ready to blast off a few rounds of automatic fire into a crowded arrivals hall.

I came across a similar contrast between our countries when, having arrived at the convention, I took the fourth seat at a breakfast table where three gents were already deep in conversation. I introduced myself – as a journalist – and they responded. One worked for RTCM (the Radiotechnical Commission for Maritime Services), one for the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and one for the USCG (US Coastguard.  Had I sat down to breakfast with their UK counterparts, I’m pretty certain you’d have heard the shutters slamming down within seconds. Not these guys.  They were open, welcoming, and keen to include me in their discussion of how VHF channels might be reclassified and adapted to digital voice and text messaging.

It’s impossible to put a value on that little conversation, but one thing is for sure: it cost the US government nothing. What a contrast between that and the dishonesty and distrust that characterises the British Big Brother.