BSRA and CityCat interaction 2016

By Rachael Kininmonth - 27/04/2016

The BSRA and Transdev have coordinated an interaction between rowers/coaches and CityCat Masters, to educate on the safety issues that implicate all river craft. In particular, the communication centred around visibility issues, river rules and how each craft can enhance their experience,  while limiting the impact on the other, and still maintaining a great relationship of shared respect.

Lourdes Hill College were the first scheduled with Robert Clark from Transdev. Robert took them from Hawthorne to QUT on the 5:48am journey. The point of this timing was for the rowers and coaches to appreciate the changing light conditions from the CityCat Master perspective. The 40 tonnes of the CityCat and 500 metres to stop against 350 kilos in a Quad (including rowers) and approx 15 metres to stop was an alarming statistic to process and consider. But when the river rules are followed everyone is safe.

The lessons learnt included:

  1. ensuring there are compliant lights on boats
  2. wearing highly visible clothing
  3. staying on the correct river “third”
  4. not entering the exclusion zone when a CityCat is occupying the terminal space
  5. moving quickly through an exclusion zone

LHC CityCat

Feedback from a parent that came along in a supervisory role:

Dear Rachael, Robert and Kathy

Thank you for this morning’s expo with the rowing LHC girls and the chance to ride along as an observer. As we discussed, it’s great to see such active risk management in practice. The leadership by the BRSA and Transdev in this space is impressive to observe – on the surface, a trip up and down the river the girls use most days seems simple, but the fact it was so well executed with relevant communication, demonstration and scenario modelling, made it into an example worth sharing widely.

As an interested parent, I found it most valuable and intend to keep sharing the message amongst the other rowing folks I interact with and certainly from a work perspective we are always looking for examples of active safety leadership instead of only using lessons learned from things that went wrong.

I congratulate  BRSA and Transdev on this initiative and hope others gain much from the experience.

Regards,
Richard Jenkins
Quality Manager, Construction Services and Management Services, ANZ