Perhaps ALL politicians lack backbone.

Strange. I thought she would have much more backbone and far less faith in her country's so-called independent judiciary. Perhaps the lack of backbone demonstrates that the CBE was not that impressive an award.

“The Queen has directed that the appointment of Rolf Harris to be a Commander of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, dated 17 June 2006, shall be cancelled and annulled and that his name shall be erased from the Register of the said Order.”

Stripped of his medals after having become the victim of a lynch mob? A monarch is supposed to both have and to display backbone.

S/V Nina Time and Tide.

We know that the Nina was Dancing With A Gale and finding her dance partner not particularly to her liking. I would not want to characterize the Nina's contacts with the volunteer meteorologist as acts of desperation but it does bespeak a certain urgency of purpose. Clearly the electronics were not working too well since the final text was never sent. If at 6:00pm the Nina were still afloat her electronics may have deteriorated even more. It seems spray would be the first thought at to cause though I do imagine there could well be other reasons for signal strength to be so close to background noise that the message would not be sent.

Shipping lanes and known AIS signals have never been plotted, this seems strange. Later storms have not been plotted for the correct area. A number of events could have taken place that would have allowed little time for deployment of the EPIRP but one wonders: these were experienced blue water sailors, they had life lines, life vests, knives.

Experienced blue water sailors, with two inexperienced deckhands aboard, would still know to go over emergency procedures and would have focused their attention on freeing the EPIRB from its bracket and turning it on. There would have been lifelines tied to all aboard though the wise sailor always has a knife to cut his lifeline if he really and truly needs to. Loss of the garboards, the strakes closest to the keel, has been suggested though no particular reason has ever been given. This catastrophic event would have capsized the Nina, possibly flooding it first. Even at nighttime there would have been time for the EPIRB before people started severing their life lines and hoping to get to a life raft.

How securely are life rafts stowed? No use losing it just before you need it but usually they do have quick release mechanisms of some sort.

French satellite data might be more useful than commercial satellite data, particularly since France and New Zealand have rather strained relations. RCCNZ had a poor record with a search for an eleven meter steel hulled sloop yet this would be an excellent radar and thermal signature for search missions.

We all remember the Norwegian sailboat that made it from Bermuda to Ireland without ever being spotted despite various Coast Guard and satellite searches. They never turned on their radio so as to save the battery strength and altered course slightly due to initial storm damage in Bermuda waters. It was a small boat in a big ocean. The Nina, on the other hand, has an EPIRB and is well over due by now, so there is little real expectation that she is still afloat even if capsized.

When gadgets betray us?

A New Zealand chain of no-frills supermarkets had its computer turn on the lights and unlock the doors of one of its stores at the normal opening time of 8:00am on Good Friday, a holiday on which there were no employees present. Apparently someone called the police at 9:20am reporting that truckloads of groceries were being removed but several shoppers simply went to the self-scan checkout lane and proceeded in a normal fashion until one shopper happened to scan alcohol and the scanner automatically stopped functioning while it awaited managerial confirmation of the purchaser's age. It appears that some shoppers who entered the store simply left when they realized something was amiss. Apparently there were those who took advantage of the situation though and prompted the calls to the police. Police in New Zealand are of course not armed but had no trouble dealing with the situation and the store's manager intends to take no action during a period of time in which he trusts the various shoppers will voluntarily do the right thing by coming in and paying for their groceries now that the store is open and properly staffed.