MEDIA RELEASE

For immediate release: Thursday 21 October 2004

Check your moorings – or risk losing your boat

That’s the message from Tauranga harbourmaster Jon Moore after three boats broke free in high winds over a single week. One of the boats came ashore at Pilot Bay but was towed off with no damage. The other vessels, a large catamaran at Omokoroa and a trimaran in the Tauranga causeway, were caught up by nearby vessels.

In all three cases, Mr Moore says the moorings had not been inspected within the timeframe required by navigation and safety bylaws, which is every two years. For this official inspection, moorings must be lifted and checked by a licensed mooring inspector, he explains.

But Mr Moore strongly urges mooring owners or users to check moorings themselves more frequently – preferably annually. They can do this by diving down and having a look. “If you’re not happy, then call in a mooring contractor,” he says. “It’s better to play it safe, than to have your boat break loose and take off without you.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>