Pattaya tries again to register boat owners

0
1182

Nat Jabjai, Deputy Director-General of the Marine Department and Rewat Phoriang, Director of the Pattaya Marine Office continued efforts to bring order to the city’s boating industry, calling in hundreds of owners to register their vessels and businesses.

Deputy Mayor Ronakit Ekasingh led the June 12 meeting with top Marine Department officials. Boat operators were instructed to file boating licenses, business licenses, maintenance records, and inventories of safety equipment. They also were told to fill out forms listing information on boat crews.

Nat Jabjai, Deputy Director-General of the Marine Department, addresses boat owners in the latest efforts to get them to register their vessels and businesses and bring order to the city’s boating industry.Nat Jabjai, Deputy Director-General of the Marine Department, addresses boat owners in the latest efforts to get them to register their vessels and businesses and bring order to the city’s boating industry.

The session also offered lessons on maintenance of boats and safety equipment.

The meeting, also attended by land- and ocean-based police and the Pattaya Business & Tourism association, was needed after only 100 of Pattaya’s 300 boat operators turned May 19 to hear Pattaya officials announce their latest set of proposed marine regulations and details of a 31 million baht plan for buoys stretching from the mainland to Koh Larn.

The meeting was to preview regulations to control the speed and course of speedboats and designate specific areas for water sports other than swimming. Three speed-limit buoys and six navigational buoys are planned, as well as 21 buoys to demark zones for jet skis, banana boats, parasailing, scuba diving and sea walking.

Nat said the meeting was important as it gave boat operators knowledge on safety and raised awareness about the need for safety in the tourism sector.