By John Guy

The Caribbean Safety and Security Net has matured to a point requiring significant upgrade.

Thanks to the fine work of a net controller, her husband, and others, this net has become an important institution. Cruisers, tourist agencies, and various journals and newspapers seek and publish data from the net's web site, and cruising guides refer to it as a source of information. Thousands of cruisers listen and/or speak to the net every year, and some long-term cruisers and long-term marina residents faithfully start their days by listening to this net. Information provided on this net is repeated on local VHF nets. The spreadsheet on the site of the Caribbean Cruising Association records incidents described orally on the morning net. The spreadsheet is a laudable resource. However, it has the effect of giving greater credibility to reports although few, if any, are independently verified and the names of both sources and victims are not provided.

Since this net has a significant and loyal following, and respected journals quote from it, the cruising community should offer to assist in improvements that will begin to raise the level of content to standards expected of public journalistic sources. While always volunteer-directed and operated, net controllers and supporters should aspire to professional standards by utilizing professional resources for information. The comparison should be to Eric and George, amateur radio operators who daily and voluntarily provide weather data from national weather services and other agencies. The importance of safety and security is comparable to the importance of weather. Therefore, the Safety and Security Net should use the most reliable sources, both for incident accuracy and contextual accuracy.

No individual, acting alone, can handle the huge job of raising the standards of this net. The job must be accomplished by many volunteers, methodically developing new ideas and procedures over the next several years. Persons who will relish the opportunity to help are long-term cruisers and residents around the Caribbean who either have personal interest in safety and security, such as members of organizations similar to the Coast Guard Auxiliary, and representatives of marinas and of other businesses that benefit by the cruising economy. A note on the Association's web site publicly invites persons to become involved, to offer suggestions, and to work on behalf of the net. We all should take notice. If we are not in a position to provide personal assistance, we should consider sending financial contributions.

A first suggested innovation is to form a volunteer board of advisors to include a public health official, a representative of a coast guard organization who has connections throughout the islands, a representative of the Associated Press or similar network, an experienced police official with extended personal relationships, a person involved with promoting the Caribbean as a tourist destination, an insurance specialist and an attorney knowledgeable in maritime law, and persons with other talents that appear useful to the net. Among the board of advisors should be persons fluent in French, Spanish and German to help gather information from non-English speaking sources. This board should formulate standards and goals. Then, the individual advisory board members should assist in recruiting local correspondents in every island. A strong board of advisors might bring financial support from safety and security agencies or even from chambers of commerce or similar associations. Long run, cruisers will be willing to contribute.

Considering the magnitude and potential personal expense and time to develop the net, a cadre of ten or fifteen different controllers should work the airways, rotating among themselves like amateur radio operators on the maritime mobile net. Most of these controllers, if not all, should be land based and have immediate access to telephones and to the internet, like the individuals who provide weather information. With time, the group of controllers should develop a consolidated telephone directory of health, police and search and rescue resources in the coverage area. With this directory, the controller always can lead a questioner to a reliable source. At some point, the directory should be published on the association's web site.

The net controller should record each session. On review of the recording, possible errors and misstatements will be obvious, as will incomplete stories, thereby encouraging elaboration on the subsequent day.

All broadcast reports should follow a format. The format should include the name of the individual reporting, the name and location of his/her vessel or business, the name and location of the victim, and a statement about how the information was obtained, whether first party, second party, etc., or from a public agency. If the incident reported is dramatic, such as a boarding or threat to life, a volunteer local correspondent in the area should quickly verify the data and elaborate on the circumstances. Often, the least useful source of information is the victim, or a report from an acquaintance of the victim. While accurate, these reports contain an element of emotion as well as an element of self-interest that tends to distort content. In almost every case, a victim might have avoided a problem by acting in a certain way. Information that gives other cruisers ideas about how to avoid problems, or how to act during a crisis, is immensely valuable, but seldom provided. Objective volunteer reporters can obtain this information, and present it reliably and usefully.

Contextual accuracy is more important than incident accuracy. A single dramatic incident in one area gives the impression of a serious long-term threat, while the absence of reports from an area gives the impression of safety and serenity. Both impressions are false. The only data having predictive quality is crime rate information provided by local police and maritime law enforcement agencies. Volunteer local correspondents can obtain crime rate information by a phone call or review of printed or Internet reports. The correspondents could post this information to the association's web site, and net controllers could refer listeners to these data, especially following broadcast of a serious incident.

Local correspondents also could provide oral or published reports not reported on the net. I believe that most incidents are not reported because victims are not familiar with the net or do not want to make the effort. I also believe that some victims place themselves, their vessels, their families and their personal finances at risk by broadcasting a report. Insurance adjusters and claims personnel might not respond favorably to some broadcast reports. If an incident is violent, professional criminals might seek retribution against a person or vessel that threatens their activities by broadcasting descriptions. In most cases, victims should report only to recognized authority and report on the net only with the guidance of recognized authority. The insurance and legal talents on the board of advisors can help to deal with the conundrum that the public needs information but the victims need privacy.

The board of advisors should review information presented on the web site. Presently, some data goes back to 1995 and is out of date and non-predictive. Creation of this reporting system was a major event in the evolution of the Safety and Security Net from an informal morning chat and exchange to a formal reporting entity that should have journalistic integrity. A web site record of a dinghy theft in 1996 is not useful, while a 2004 report of a violent incident exaggerates apparent risk. Standards of publication should be adopted.

Several times a week, the Safety and Security Net controller disclaims journalistic accuracy, statistical accuracy, and predictive quality. The controller is correct to make these disclaimers. However, several journals provide information from the net, thereby ignoring the disclaimer and inadvertently suggesting factual accuracy. If the net strives to reach journalistic standards, the need for the disclaimer will be reduced, and readers of journals that quote the net can have greater confidence in the information.

A great challenge for this net is to obtain the cooperation of listeners and participants. To maintain the focus on safety and security, those who voluntarily broadcast incidents should take care to formulate presentations and should avoid commentaries not relevant to safety and security or to the effective distribution of data. Among reports that are not appropriate or useful was a campaign by one participant to protest a new bridge tax in Sint Maarten. This is local politics. Another was from an unidentified male voice reporting that a yacht was driven onto a reef and was sinking. The voice did not provide a useful analysis of the cause, which could have been anything from heart attack to bad navigation to lack of charts. In another incident, a male voice in the north asked about the frequency of ciguatera in the southern islands. A male voice responded: “I ate barracuda and I am not sick.” In this case, the questioner went to the wrong source, and ignorance responded. Most difficult are live reports of shootings and boardings. One boater reported firing shots “and winging” a departing thief thereby announcing an act frowned upon by every civilized society: taking the law into one's own hands. Still another reported a boarding and shooting death on a catamaran northeast of Los Testigos but without elaboration or assessment. Both reports captured the hearts and imaginations of listeners, in a couple of cases causing personal consternation. Considering the power of these broadcasts, they should be delivered with care, verified, and placed in the perspective of general crime rates in the area.

The Safety and Security Net is a magnificent effort, arising entirely out of the voluntary good will of individuals. The finest persons I know are volunteers. They run great projects and accomplish tasks impossible for government or private business. The volunteers who created and maintain The Safety and Security Net rank highest on my list of fine persons. They put time, money, and hearts into the effort. If these volunteers had not worked hard, the net would not exist, and proposals for its improvement would be irrelevant.