Safety at sea message getting through

A girl suffered severe cuts to her leg which got stuck in a rusty washing machine that someone had dumped in the sea.

Elsewhere, a boat owner who had been speeding close to shore told reproaching swimmers he was not breaking the law because the bay had no swimmer zone markers.

The number of such occurrences have luckily dropped since the Malta Maritime Authority's yearly Safety at Sea campaign started nine years ago. But with swimmers and boats crowding the bays on Sundays, safety was still a big headache for the authorities, Oscar Borg, MMA's chief executive officer, admitted.

An increase in the number of seacraft forced the authority to increase regulations and to gradually introduce precautionary measures such as areas reserved for swimmers, marked by red and yellow buoys. Law enforcement, carried out by the administrative law enforcement section of the police and the Armed Forces' maritime squadron had become tougher and the fines stiffer.

However, Mr Borg insisted, safety was an issue that went beyond the law. "Why should we take safety precautions because they are enforced by law? Isn't it for the benefit of all if a speed limit close to shore is respected," he asked.

While more people were taking the necessary precautions when out at sea, the MMA said some boat owners still complained that items such as life jackets, a working VHF radio and a fire extinguisher were "extra".

In August last year, a fisherman got lost at sea when the engine of his kajjik stalled when he was rather close to shore off Delimara. It took the army 60 hours to locate him and, finally, to rescue him, after an American aircraft spotted him 60 miles off the south coast. The fisherman had left both his VHF radio and his mobile phone at home!

"Safety is about common sense. The law does help but it is never enough," Mr Borg said.

When the campaign got underway, the MMA started using publicity spots on television. They were expensive and had no long-term impact on people.

"The authority went for repetitive and short messages on radio stations and eye-catching billboards that attract the people's attention. People listen to the radio everywhere and we've found this to be a very effective medium," Mr Borg said.

He said the advantage of a short message was that everyone could spread it and people did in fact encourage each other to obey what "the radio told them".

"The campaign has borne fruit in the sense that most people no longer breach rules out of ignorance," said Mr Borg.

He said the public had an important role to play in enforcing rules since it was impossible for the police or AFM dinghies to be everywhere at the same time, especially when sea traffic increased during the "busy" summer days.

"We get many complaints about speedboats or jet-skis over-speeding close to shore. Unfortunately, however, people who report the cases to us, usually a day later, fall short of providing a registration number of the boat that allegedly infringed rules. This makes it impossible for us to trace abusers," Mr Borg said.

He said the campaign was aimed at creating awareness through education, without the need of "excessive" policing. "A good example was the basic seamanship course that many boaters now attend to obtain their nautical licence, required by law for whoever drives a motor boat with an engine of 75 horse power or more.

"People had been reluctant to go 'back to school', as many had put it. The course was initially met with some resistance, especially by people who had owned a boat for a long time." However, Mr Borg said, the course turned out to be useful to these people as well. "Most had never learnt how to approach a cardinal mark or how they could identify the position and direction of a vessel by night, for example."

He said the general reaction of boat owners who had attended the course was very positive and more people at sea were aware of how the sea could be enjoyed properly by all.