Upliftings

About Jet Boating New Zealand

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JBNZ is a national organisation of 2,600 members, made up of nine branches and area committees. 

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The organisation has a strong focus on safety, education around the legislative framework, and training new members in the art of jet boating. We are a recreational boating organisation primarily focused on family boating. Sprinting, racing and commercial operations have their own organisations.

One of our objectives is to foster relationships with other stakeholders, including the regulators of surface-water activities — particularly rivers.

Jet boating rivers, like sailing, requires a specific skill set. Jet boaters must learn to read the water in order to progress up a river safely. One of the most important things JBNZ does is take groups of new or inexperienced boaters on trips so they gain enough knowledge to be safe and to enjoy their boating.

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Why we do it?

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A variety of reasons — but there is something very special about the freedom river boating gives in accessing the back country, fishing, exploring, and recreating with people who share similar interests.

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The Framework

 

Understanding upliftings means understanding the layered legislation that governs surface-water activity in New Zealand. The story starts in the late

1950s and reaches into the present.

 

The 1958 Baseline

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Since 1958, the coastal waters of New Zealand have been subject to a five-knot rule within ten chains of the shore or a structure, and within thirty yards of a person or craft, under the Motor Launch Regulations. This was some five years after the first jet boats started plying the waters of New Zealand.

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Other motorised boats were already on rivers — paddle boats up the Whanganui, for example — and those boats used rivers without a formal legal framework, but kept to the right (starboard) side of the channel. So much of New Zealand had been accessed by craft on rivers; these rivers were the roads of the day.

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The Admiralty Act 1973 and Inland Waters

 

In the 1970s, the Admiralty noticed that there was a ship of over 500 tonnes — i.e. one subject to international seizure rules — operating on an inland water. The ship was the Earnslaw on Lake Wakatipu. This required coastal and international rules to be applied further.

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The navigation safety rules were then applied to inland waters — those above tidal influence — in 1974, following the enactment of the Admiralty Act 1973, which covered all territorial waters: "the waters of any lake, river or stream". By then the rules had become metricised: the five-knot distance from shore or structure became 200 metres, and 30 metres from a vessel or person.

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This Act did not limit its definition of a ship to sea-going vessels, but to any vessel that could be used for navigation. In this way, the five-knot speed restriction for rivers can be seen as a historical anomaly or accident of history. Upliftings, however, are not just about jet boats.

International collision rules.

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With the introduction of the Admiralty Act 1973 came the application of International Collision Regulations — which govern vessel traffic worldwide — to rivers as well. Passing port to port, keeping a proper look-out, safe speed (Maritime Transport Act 1994 Rule 22): this is not just about five-knot rules.

Water Recreation Regulations 1979

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The Water Recreation Regulations 1979 (originally 1974) were made under the Harbours Act 1950. Rivers had been boated for twenty-five years prior to the application of those regulations.

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Because of the application of coastal rules, jet boaters and other boats found themselves boating unlawfully when proceeding up a river at over five knots. To remedy this, it became necessary to uplift the speed and separation clauses of the Water Recreation Regulations — clauses 7(1) and 7(2), now replaced and saved by Maritime Transport Act 1994 Rule 91.6(a) and (b), enacted in 2003.

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Notably, the uplifting of five-knot rules had already been taking place for waterski lanes in coastal areas since 1958.

 

The Resource Management Act 1991

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The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 separated activity and environmental matters into the District Planning process. Maritime Transport Act 1994 Section 33M, in 2013, directly delegates the powers to territorial authorities and confirms the jurisdictions.

Regional Council bylaws (2003 onwards)

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Regional Councils did not have bylaws until 2003 — except those with a Grant of Control, which declared their rivers and lakes to be harbours. Those areas were Bay of Plenty, Queenstown Lakes District Council, Bon Accord Harbour, and Northland. Maritime NZ had jurisdiction before 2003, and still has it for a large amount of the country.

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Fifty-two years of advocacy

 

Jet Boating New Zealand has been working with upliftings for fifty-two years. The early committee of the then New Zealand Jet Boat Association tried to negotiate blanket upliftings for the whole country with the Marine Division of the Ministry of Transport. Not successful. So on a case-by-case basis, the uplifting regime was applied — and that work continues today.