Boat industry slams safety 'non-compliance' claims

The government-appointed Australian Recreational Boating Safety Committee (ARBSC) is currently reviewing the Australian Builders Plate (ABP) Standard – among other things it requires that boat builders assess the size of an outboard engine fitted to a boat and the number of passengers it can carry – with the aim of improving safety for owners.

By law, the ABP is fitted to every new recreational powerboat sold in Australia (with some exceptions, such as sailing boats and human-powered boats) to encourage “appropriate and responsible use of the boat”.

Marine safety authorities have left it up to boat builders and importers to self-regulate how they calculate the safe engine power, handling and passenger capacities that the ABP must display.

A review of the current standard identified what the ARBSC claimed was “widespread non-compliance” that was delivering “potential unintended and undesirable safety outcomes” for new boat buyers.

The watchdog said non-compliance was mainly found on boats less than 4.5m in length. It is believed that some of the ABPs inspected as part of the ARBSC review had been rated for up to double the number of passengers the hull could safely carry.

The consultation paper even links the death of three boaters whose punt was swamped on Port Phillip Bay in 2015 to non-compliance with the standard. The report says overloading “was a contributing factor” in the flat-bottomed boat’s fatal capsize in rough weather.

However, the Boating Industry Association of Australia (BIA), which represents the interests of many Australian boat-builders, said the statement about the industry’s lack of compliance was over-simplified.

“The level of non-compliance can be anything from not having an ABP fitted to a boat on display at a boat show to something… as simple as the documentation is not quite right,” BIA member services general manager Nik Parker told boatsales.com.au.

“There is no evidence that we’ve seen that there is a widespread problem with non-compliance related to the technical and safety specifications in the standard,” he said.

Instead, Parker said concerns expressed about the ABP stemmed from the fact that it had taken too long for anyone from the government to follow up on the self-regulation process to check if it was working.

“The ABP standard was let loose in Australia in 2006 and there was little follow-up by the regulators to see how it was going,” Parker said.

“It [the ABP standard] is a national standard administered by a collection of states, and some of them have even varied slightly the national standard when implementing in state regulations.

“We’ve had this standard put on the market for the industry to use, but there needs to be a much better process and engagement by regulators in education, audit and compliance,” he said.

One problem the BIA has identified with the current ABP standard is that some boat builders had interpreted its wording to allow them to pick between three different safety standards – Australian, European and US – when calculating the load a vessel can carry.

It meant some boat-builders mistakenly believed they could cross-shop between safety standards for the ratings that would maximise passenger and engine loads.

According to Parker, even when manufacturers fully complied it was possible for the ABP’s rating system to generate “unusual numbers”. He said, however, boat-builders generally took a conservative view when calculating capacities.

“If a boat manufacturer is looking at a 4.5m boat and the numbers said it could carry seven people and they say ‘I don’t believe that’, they can put a smaller number on the boat,” he said.

“In a lot of instances, we’re finding a boat will be underrated [for carrying capacity] rather than overrated.”

Parker said another problem was that while overseas standards had evolved, the 13-year-old Australian standard had remained static.

One change proposed for the standard includes encouraging Australian boat-builders to consider a minimum level flotation standard for boats less than 6.0m in length – a move that would add to the cost of a new boat.

Research shows level flotation, which allows the passengers to stay inside a boat even when it is fully swamped, greatly increases the chances of surviving an incident.

Also in the industry focus is how information on the ABP is displayed to boat owners, including how owners interpret the symbols used to show passenger, engine and carry-on luggage capacities.

“The ABP uses a suitcase symbol to show how much carry-on weight a boat can handle. That will say it can carry anywhere between, for example, 200-300kg of equipment,” Parker said.

“The question we often have asked is does that include the weight of the additional equipment already on the boat when they buy it, such as trolling motors, bait tanks and eskies, but not necessarily carried on by the boater, and the answer to that question is yes.

“When you factor that in it means that there’s only 5kg to 10kg per person of carry-on capacity left,” he said.

“But boat builders have often misunderstood this and quote a carry-on load that is only say 50kg, whereas the boat is good for maybe 250kg. It’s something everyone is learning about.”

The symbol used for a passenger, meanwhile, represents someone weighing 80kg, meaning a boat rated for six passengers could easily be overloaded if each passenger weighed 100kg.

The ARBSC has also hinted at what regulators are likely to target in future reviews of the standard.

A priority will be to look at how maximum engine weights are rated for boats when accounting for the equipment that comes with them, including house and engine batteries, fuel tanks, and carry-on loads.

The proposed changes to the ABP standard are open for industry comment until January 31, 2020.