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Plotting the right course
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Life on the waves is, of course, now much safer than in the past thanks to electronic navigation systems – including radar and GPS – accurate charts and radio communication. However, as numerous incidents each year confirm, there is still plenty of room for error – which is where the Coastguard service comes to the rescue.
The service is there in the background all the time fulfilling monitoring and advisory roles, but its public profile is raised enormously when it becomes involved in rescues and other emergencies.
The service in local waters has a first rate track record, but we can expect it to operate even more effectively now that the formerly separate organisations based in Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney have united to form the Channel Islands Coastguard.
Improved levels of co-ordination over a common sea area is a development that obviously makes sense, but there are other reasons to welcome this initiative. It is, for example, evidence of that much talked about but seldom honoured principle, greater co-operation between the Bailiwicks, actually being transformed into practice.
Meanwhile, another recent event has served to remind Islanders that although the era when our community earned a major part of its living from activities intimately linked to the sea are gone, shipping and ancillary businesses are still of great importance to the economy and the community.
Through hosting the international Red Ensign conference, the Island has shown that it has a voice where international maritime matters are concerned and that its views are listened to. As Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur has pointed out, the conference also reinforced the Island’s commitment to further development in the marine sector.
This, we should remember, encompasses not only businesses that deal directly in shipping and shipping services, but also less tangible assets such as the Jersey Shipping Register. As Senator Le Sueur has suggested, there is room for the development of this little-known but significant part of the economy – a process which will no doubt have been afforded new impetus by this week’s Red Ensign meetings.
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