Fah Kiew Tu

You sleep better and don't have to keep track of so many lies. 8 more days and I can go out to my boat. Fixing stuff and working on the dinghies while I wait it out. Incidentally IIRC you mentioned some time ago in another thread a Swanson nesting f/g dinghy. Well, I found one for sale in Sydney & bought it. It needs a bit of repair work but looks pretty reasonable. I plan on weighing each dinghy - aluminium 8', Chameleon glass/ply and Swanson. Be interesting to see the results. FKT

Yep I grew up near there. Hard rock bottom along there, you're not going to do much dredging. When I'm in Sydney I use that ferry service a lot. I wish there was more water depth. FKT

AFAIK you've a max of 6 weeks o/s before the pension stops if you're on an old age pension. Superannuation pension, no limit. AFAIK. Not personally affected but that's what a mate of mine says and he's on the pension. So you can go for a holiday but not live o/s. FKT

You're missing the point - the holiday makers came home, a large contingent of Aussie expats WORKING OVERSEAS had commitments that they couldn't just walk away from. Been there myself, got lucky. I was working in Tucson until literally 3 days before 9/11. Had I not returned when I did, I would have been stuck for a while. FKT

The holiday makers, maybe. What about all those Aussies with jobs, contracts, rental agreements et al? Friend of mine was lucky - he was in Australia when the shit hit the fan. Normally he'd be working on a rig tender or barge in the Middle East. Can't get back to work now, crews there can't get home, some won't be able to get back if they do. It's a bit more nuanced than you're making out. And FWIW my mate is an Old Australian, born in Lightning Ridge, not a blow-in. Lots of others too. I'm very, very grateful my youngest daughter came home from her travels last Christmas. She was going to stay o/s for a further 12 months. As for dual citizenship, that's another can of worms and there I basically agree with you. We shouldn't permit it. You can stay a citizen of another country and have permanent residency, or you can apply for Australian citizenship and surrender your previous one. At least this virus has slowed down the Aussies desperately trying to qualify for an Irish citizenship so as to get entree to the EU. PDW

I can 100% guarantee you that I could fake a GPS track log. Dunno about AIS, haven't bothered looking closely and it really came on the scene after I stopped doing marine datalogging systems. But GPS? Piece of piss. Feed it into OpenCPN, take a set of screen shots and I can prove I've been (or not been) anywhere I choose. Sooner or later all you guys on foreign flagged vessels away from your home country are going to have to go home. The only real likelihood of avoiding this is a vaccine. Not holding my breath. That's why we don't want any more. Good chance we'll be stuck with you. It's somewhat unfair; it would be possible to declare a port of entry or 2 with the rules being that your boat goes into secure storage and all crew go into mandatory quarantine for 2 weeks starting from date of arrival, following this you can live aboard but not move your boat about the place. Possible, I say. But ATM, forget it. Zero political will. We have tens of thousands of Australians overseas who want to come home and can't because of restricted flights and restricted availability of quarantine accommodation. No way we're going to give up some of those quarantine spots to visiting cruisers. A very good argument could be made that the numbers of quarantine beds available are artificially restricted and I'd fully agree. There are other things and more things that could be done. However, the fact remains that cruising yachties simply do not rate and will not rate. You are not a priority and you won't be one any time soon. Any of you in a country prepared to allow you to stay - STFU, keep your heads down, play nice and do your best to police the arsehole contingent, because you really don't want to piss off the authorities in this environment. Not unless you fancy doing a non-stop passage back to the USA anyway. FKT

This. IMO snow & ice is best observed from the inside of a heated pilot house. If at all. FKT

Shrug. You can pay for an electrical upgrade once and benefit from it forever. Or you can fuck about with toys and suffer. Found out something interesting WRT inverter generators (at least the one I have) recently. They won't start an inverter welder. That was annoying. The wire makes contact, a little flash happens and then nothing. Welder is fine, generator is fine, they just don't like each other. I suspect not enough current demand to get the generator to rev up. It's only a 10A 240V MIG running 0.8mm flux cored wire so no current hog. Those Bosch table saws look interesting. I could do with a portable unit. My big cast iron behemoth with the 3HP 3 phase motor only gets moved about with the help of a pallet jack. FKT

You just need a better power supply. I have no problems running a 25HP 3 phase 120 cfm air compressor. Push the button, done. FKT

Do those exalted Hobart club members even know where Port Esperance *is*? FKT

This. In normal conditions I'm happy with overseas cruisers, I've helped more than a couple out with shoreside assistance, machining work etc. But - they're really insignificant overall. If the lot of you went away nobody in Australia really would notice or care. We're certainly not going to make special accommodation for you. I *might* were it up to me, but it would be on terms that would have most of you screaming to high heavens, at least until you figured out that I didn't actually give a fuck if you said no. Hell we have thousands of Australians overseas who can't get home and airlines are charging business class or first class fares for the limited number of seats on offer. You think anyone cares at all about rich people with yachts on pleasure cruises? Give me a break. And don't give me the line that you're not rich - anyone who can afford not to work and owns an ocean-capable boat is rich compared to even the vast bulk of the First World population let alone the rest of the planet. You may not be the 0.1% but you're certainly the 5%. I just transited from NSW to Tasmania and am currently sitting out 2 weeks self-isolation. Had to get permission in advance to cross State borders here in Australia, and I'm a citizen returning from one of my residences to another after a few months working. Police dropped by last night to check that I was following the isolation rules. If we're doing this internally we certainly don't want a bunch of people on boats coming in from overseas and wanting to be tourists. The whole of the Qld coast is subject to cyclones so I can't see any benefit coming here to escape cyclones anyway unless it was Coffs Harbour or further south. That's not the most common route from the South Pacific. I have some sympathy for those who left their home ports before say February of this year, maybe even late March, but even for those, if you're in a safe haven, can stay but don't want to - too bad. The world has changed, it took months before I could see my first grandchild, I may not be able to get to my daughter's wedding, for sure a lot of her friends from overseas can't get to Australia for it. We all have bits of our lives fucked over. FKT

There's no compelling humanitarian reason to let them in to either Australia or NZ. They can fly home if they think their life is at risk. Sure their boat might get trashed by a cyclone but that's just a material/financial loss and a risk they willingly accepted in the first place. Not our problem. I'd probably open one port for entry into Australia with the caveat that you leave your boat and go into 2 weeks quarantine at your expense on arrival and no, I wouldn't count passage time towards the 2 weeks because I don't trust you not to go to a reef somewhere and party on. That provided you demonstrate that you have sufficient finances for us to deport you by fastest means (ie air) in the event that you break any of our laws. End of cyclone season, you leave from your port of entry. We can't even move without jumping through a lot of hoops between States here and can't leave the country without prior approval so why in the world would we want to add rich cruising yachties to the mix? Their desire to sail into a cyclone area doesn't mean we have to bail them out. FKT

This. Every post I read from BJ and a number of others, the disconnect is stunning. They're in a bubble of self-reinforcing thought, they know they're right and people who disagree with them *are* deplorable. Their real problem is, people who disagree with them vote. They'd rather that not happen. Maybe it's because I hang out on a major metalworking & machining forum well away from rich to middle class people owning big toy sailboats, but I'm damned worried that Trump is going to get re-elected. These latest riots are going to help him a lot. Yeah *protest* and marches are well justified, but incitement to riot has NEVER been an excuse for riot. The people who want to hide behind the First Amendment sort of forget about the bit saying *PEACEFULLY ASSEMBLE*. The first rock, bottle or molotov thrown crosses the line from peaceful to violent, and a violent crowd is a rioting mob IMO. If Trump does get re-elected, a lot of people are going to scream to the heavens, but very few will indulge in a bit of self-reflection. That's the problem when you are certain that you're right. Got 2000 km of travel to do so I'm out of here. Have fun. FKT

Long time ago yeah, but I doubt the fundamental hierarchy of intelligence/requirements have changed at all. Most cops aren't all that bright and there's no real reason why they should be; a lot of their work is repetitive and boring. Of course back then only maybe 10% or less went to university anyway as they hadn't been debased by including teacher's colleges, CAE's and technology institutes as universities. Now it's even worse as they dropped standards even further in the pursuit of foreign students with low standards of spoken/written English but deep (parents') pockets. Chickens coming home to roost ATM. 2 of my children are employees of the G8 universities and the eldest used to be before deciding there were more challenges & less shit in the private sector. Not to mention money. And my first wife is a professor at one & associate with teaching/PhD supervision rights at others so I hear a lot about the current state. So I've a fair idea what's what. From your own quote, all a police wannabe needs is a VCE. Doesn't even state how good a pass it needs to be. FKT

Some might be. Depending on country. Here the scale pretty much went: Brightest cohort went to university. Next to teacher's colleges/colleges of advanced education. Next to technical and further education/apprenticeships. After that, police. Maybe. About on a par with enlisted military recruiting, definitely not officer level. Promotion by time served provided no major fuck-ups. So an IQ around average but not much more at entry level. Judging by the level of stupidity that's shown I doubt things have changed any. I've respect for the difficulty of the job but not a huge amount for the average cop, frankly. FKT

Exactly. Rule No 2 - the gun is *always* loaded. OK it's not or shouldn't be but you must act as though it is. I taught my kids those rules before they were 8 years old and we wouldn't let them play shooting games either - the rule was that you never point a gun at a person, real gun or toy gun, no exceptions. When you've got rural land in the family these lessons get taught along with driving a tractor with a 'crash' gearbox, why you don't drive sideways on a slope, safe use of quad bikes, chainsaws and other potentially lethal power tools. Also how to swim because it's really easy to drown in a muddy farm dam. Can't say I think the world my grandson is going to grow up in is any sort of improvement. Typical boring old fart attitude sure but still. FKT

True. When I lived in Tucson 20 years ago it was utterly unremarkable to see someone carrying a handgun. Concealed carry was also common according to my workmates. Pointing it at another person or waving it about so as to cause the muzzle to track across a person or persons is another matter entirely. I've no problems with the first and huge problems with the second. I'd react very badly to having a gun pointed at me regardless of whether it was deliberate or accidental. FKT

USA it would seem. FKT

Yeah good luck with that. I used to have a SeaSpace Corp setup on a ship I was responsible for, pulling data off of NOAA and DMSP birds. That gear could track from below the horizon to below the horizon. 450mm gimbaled dish with all axis drive motors. You want bandwidth you need a tracking antenna. Then you need to protect it from the weather. Then you need a *substantial* mount to keep it stable. Then you add software. Geostationary birds are a different thing, lot further out though so more power needed. IIRC the Fleet 77 system had a substantially bigger dish. Been 12 years since I was responsible for any of this stuff so probably got a lot smaller by now. I do know that Iridium sucked for data throughput though. FKT

Given that you don't know the difference between levy and levee - I'm not likely to take you seriously. FKT

Language is a tool. The meaning of 'uninterested' and 'disinterested' is quite radically different. If you guys either don't know the difference or can't be bothered to distinguish between the 2, shrug. I hope that one day you don't find yourself relying on someone who's uninterested in your plight. As for 'colonial'? Hah. The UK as it is after WW2 contains the dregs of the old Empire. All the people with gumption got out of the place for better opportunities as fast as they could. Thank fuck we don't have that toxic class structure and the sucking up to their 'betters' as defined by what school your parents could buy your way into that the UK still has. FKT

I could have built 3 *more* houses in the time it took to build one 12m boat. Only consolation is, if I built another I could do it a lot faster. Apart from the minor detail that if I actually went to start on one, my life would come to a premature end, that is. I've still got a 1954 IH TD9 tracked loader to rebuild so it's not like I'll run out of stuff to waste money on any time soon. FKT

Have you ever lived/worked in Indonesia? Because that logic (to use the word loosely) was how things work there WRT motor vehicle accidents, if you're an expat. If you weren't there and driving, the accident couldn't have happened, ergo it's your fault. Anyway this entire thread is just bullshit. You want to stop open carry & concealed carry, there's a mechanism to do that, it's already in place, just nobody pushing for this has the balls to actually go there. Hold a Constitutional Convention, propose an amendment or repeal of the 2nd and get it ratified. Job done. Anything short of this is just trying to excite the punters with zero actual effect. It's boring. FKT

I thought you were supposed to be educated? The correct word is UNINTERESTED not *disinterested*. FFS. An old BBC hack and you make mistakes like that? FKT

As a matter of fact, I am rich. Just not in money because, unlike so very many of your compatriots, I never aspired to be. Rather solve interesting problems. Famous old saying - every man should have a son, build a house and plant a tree. In this century, every person should have a child, build a house and plant many trees. Done that, now a grandfather, built 3 houses and a boat, planted an orchard. I'm rich. FKT