Jet Boats on Sydney Harbour.

JET SKI’s VS JET BOATS

Before I start this article I want to state that yes Jet Boats are fun and we do believe they should share the harbour along with everyone else including jet skiers.

Here is an extract from Oz Jet boating on Sydney Harbour

Quote directly from their site

“The boats are designed and built by Oz Jet to perform the ultimate spins, and awesome jet boat stunts. Experience Sydney Harbour at high speed with fish tails, wave riding, and massive sideways slides like a race car! You will be amazed by our awesome power brake stops, where the jet boat comes to a complete stop within two boat lengths, and incredible 270^o spins. At speeds of up to 45 knots (about 80 km/h) not only will you feel the wind in your hair, but the adrenalin pumping through your body. It's extreme and loads of fun.”

Now my argument is here, if Jet Skis were to do this in Sydney Harbour they would be fined for irregular driving, in fact if jet Skis were doing this anywhere they would be fined.

Before I continue I want to highlight a few facts about these Jet boats, they are

1. 1.       Triple the size – 9 meters in length
   
2. 2.       They have triple the amount of horsepower – 2 x 5.9 litre, Turbo charged engines with twin jets
   
3. 3.       And are capable of high speeds - 45 knots (approx. 80 kilometres per hour) - at this speed each jet pumps 500 litres or water per second

You can just imagine the amount of noise these machines produce.

Continuing our argument: WHY is it that these Jet Boats have it different? Are we so Different? They use the same JET propulsion system, thedifference is they are triple the size, have more horsepower and are faster.

They are able to do everything that Jet Skis have been banned for allegedly doing.

Some of the annoying and unsafe acts that Jet skis have allegedly done in the past consist of “Power Brake Stops”, Fishtails, Wave Riding & Spins all which is stated from Jet Boat Companies.

Is this happening in the Harbour? Can’t be. Or can it?

In the NSW Maritimes boating handbook it actually states

PWC are not permitted to be used for ‘irregular driving’ within 200m of the shoreline

. Examples of ‘irregular driving’ are:

• driving in a circle or other pattern
• weaving or diverting
• Surfing down or jumping over or across any swell, wave or wash.

This means that PWC are required to be

operated generally in a straight line within 200m

of the shoreline.

Why do Jet Ski’s & Jet Boats have different rules?

WHY are there two sets of rules here?
WHY haven’t they banned them?
Why are they allowed to perform such things?

This is outright discrimination.

Here we are getting bad named for doing this and there are actually people doing still to today doing this as we speak in the middle of Sydney Harbour, The best Harbour in the world and we want the luxury of having our kids grow up with the type of luxuries we had when we were young.

We do not have anything against these jet boat companies and we do feel that they should be allowed on the harbour but so should we and everyone else that wants to use it.