Boating in shallow waters requires due care

Sir,

Few would have failed to notice the bitter irony following the death of a UN soldier who was diving and subsequently run over by a police patrol boat. After all, the police boats are there for the protection of swimmers and to check the legality and safety of boaters alike.

As a small boat owner, I often see unmarked divers and swimmers, who obviously require no buoys, swimming in the entrance channels to fishing shelters reserved for boats only.

I know they shouldn’t be there but as it happens so often, it seems only the responsible thing to keep dead slow on ones’ approach into the harbour entrance.

I was therefore amazed and saddened to witness a police boat approach the entrance to the Golden Coast fishing shelter at about 20 knots (around 30 KPH) just two days after the death of the UN soldier – especially as this is the home port, and possibly even the same boat, involved in the original incident.

I would have thought that a little care, contrition even, might have been in order.

Robert G. Brew,
Protaras

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