Don’t blame the maps

Expert rubbishes patrol boat’s excuse for accident

A NAVIGATION expert has rubbished a suggestion that problems with charts may have caused a Commonwealth patrol boat to run aground on the Great Barrier Reef.

Australian Border Force officials, in a Senate Estimates hearing in Canberra last week, said there were “issues” with navigational charts covering the area, about 100km northeast of the Lockhart River, where the Roebuck Bay struck a coral reef on September 30.

The patrol boat, which recently underwent a multimillion-dollar upgrade to its surveillance and navigation systems, received significant damage to its hull. An 8m long hole was ripped into the structure. The vessel is undergoing repairs in Cairns.

Cairns Charts and Maps owner Matt Templeton, who served nine years in the Australian Navy, said the area where the patrol boat ran aground, Henry Reef, was well covered by navigational charts.

“The quality of the data there is reasonably good for somewhere relatively remote,” he said. “It’s actually unexpectedly good.”

The Roebuck Bay struck the small reef about 1am while travelling from Thursday Island to Cairns.

It is understood the vessel was travelling at a speed of about 16 knots.

Mr Templeton said, despite the reef being well mapped, caution was still needed while navigating through it.

“The chart is what it is, and where you are operating, it is well-charted, so (Australian Border Force) should be able to operate there quite comfortably,” he said.

“If they were operating in some of the other areas, adjacent to it, you’d obviously have to do that with a lot more caution.

“That would generally require lookouts, an appropriate speed, and obviously a lot of attention towards the (electronic navigation) system, or incorporate the paper chart, fixing to improve that spatial awareness.”