NZ and the ICC Test
As explained in our previous post, to get an ICC (International Certificate of Competency), which is required for insurance and to drive a boat in Europe, we had to travel to NZ.
Of course there was the obligatory 2 hour delay after boarding our Qantas flight on the tarmac, but smooth sailing after that.
We arrived in Christchurch a few days early and spent a bit of time in the city. It’s a small city, but has some fantastic areas, in particular the parks and childrens playgrounds, which were apparently built in the aftermath of the huge earthquake in 2011.
From there we travelled up the coast to Picton (which is where the Ferries leave for the North Island). Picton is a gorgeous little town to spend a day or two.
On the day of the exam we took out the vessel we had hired and after quite a long safety briefing we were underway.
We had about 4 hours to kill before the examiner was arriving, so we spent the time practicing MOB (man overboard) routines, and pulling up to mooring buoys. As I was doing the exam I was skippering the vessel and at the helm most of the time. This meant that Nataliya had to do all the hard work. Lots of work with the boat hook to grab pretend people out of the water, and hook up to the buoys. So she worked a lot harder than I did.
We worked out a nice little system for the buoys whereby Nataliya would stand at the bow and point in the direction of the buoy with the boat hook. This enabled me to know if I needed to adjust to port or starboard. We had a few hand gestures, 3m, 2m, 1m and stop. We’re not sure if we’ll have radios or headsets early on in our journey, so being able to effectively communicate to each other when on board (particularly when operating double-handed).
We did take some video, but didn’t realise it was in time-lapse mode. So here is a couple of extremely quick snippets, so proper video will have to wait for another post.
We then headed back to pick up the examiner, and organised to park at the diesel waiting T-head dock. The tide was pushing the boat away from the dock, and I managed to get everything pretty wrong. Firstly, we completely forgot to prepare lines. Our fenders were out on our starboard side, but none on the port side. Our prop walk was towards port, so although I pulled up nicely alongside, any forward power would push us away from the dock. The dock was also very low so you could only access the dock from the very rear of the vessel. Nataliya managed to hook the dock cleat and while she was tying it up, I left the helm and jumped onto the dock to realise the rear of the boat was being pushed away too quickly. I had committed the cardinal sin, leaving the vessel before she was tied up properly. Thankfully Nat had tied on the bow line. She was now on the boat by herself, and couldn’t get to the helm in time to throw it into reverse to swing from the bow line and bring the aft back around to the dock. The boat did however swing all the way around (thankfully there were no other boats on the dock) so her port side was aligned with the dock, and Nat quickly found a spare fender to prevent any damage. When then tied her up and I got a well deserved dressing down.
Nat did wonderfully well in the situation, and the take aways are, prepare before attempting to dock and don’t leave the vessel until it’s secured.
It was then that I looked over to see the examiner giving us a wave. Rather embarrasing start, thankfully that wasn’t part of the exam! Then of course the actual jetty door was locked so I had to move the boat anyway to the fuel dock. Thankfully that went much smoother.
The exam wasn’t too difficult, having recently done all the theory (of which I remembered about 80% with some lights and sounds my achiles heel) it was really just the practical part which I had to nail. Thankfully with the practice we had gotten in earlier, pulling up to a mooring buoy and doing man overboard drills went smoothly.
Being a single engine vessel he also gave me quite a few tips on manouvering it in tight areas which helped. I then had to take her to dock and do a stern-to mooring next to another vessel. This went surprisingly well without incident.
In the end we had a great day, I passed and we had a great trip to NZ (albeit it only 4 days). If anyone is looking to do this practical for an ICC license, feel free to reach out to me and I’ll provide the contact details.
Oh, and I have to call-out the car in front of us as we drove back from Picton to Christchurch that evening. We were following at a safe distance, but he was driving very erratically. It took me a while to figure out what he was doing. Literally every car or truck coming the other way, he would swerve a few metres to the left and brake losing about 15kms each time. Once there were three cars on literally a straight section of road and he went from doing about 80kms to 30kms. We were stuck behind him for about an hour, as most of it was windy roads, but honestly it was some of the worst driving I’ve ever witnessed. Once we begin our journey we’ll be boating and biking so we’re hoping those on the water have a bit more sense!
