NSW: Copeton Dam safety campaign this weekend
NSW Maritime boating safety officers will be patrolling Copeton Dam this weekend as part of a campaign to enforce new safety regulations.
“NSW Maritime will have four patrol boats and four Boating Safety Officers (BSOs) conducting patrols of the Hunter inland waterways, conducting safety equipment checks,” NSW Maritime chief executive, Steve Dunn, said today.
He said officers would be checking that vessel were carrying the correct safety gear, and that there would be “a focus on education and compliance with the new lifejacket laws that came into place on November 1 this year.”
The operation coincides with a fishing competition on the waterway.
New lifejacket rules in NSW apply in the following circumstances:
- · Lifejackets must be worn by children less than 12 years old
- In a vessel less than 4.8m
- When in an open area of a vessel less than 8m long that is underway
- Lifejackets must be worn by all boaters in a vessel less than 4.8m
- At night
- On open (ocean) waters
- On alpine waters, and
- When boating alone.