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| Down Under |
| Indonesian navy washes up on Australia's East Coast |
| 2007-08-23 |
| EIGHTEEN sailors from a beached Indonesian Navy training vessel have been found beside the road near Rainbow Beach north of the Sunshine Coast after their vessel was driven aground. The vessel is understood to have been in Australian waters on route to APEC in Sydney. The sailors, wearing life jackets and speaking little English, sparked concerns they were illegal immigrants from a fishing boat but the men were later discovered to have been from the tall ship Arung Samudera, which beached in bad weather on Inskip Point. Inskip Point is just north of Rainbow Beach, about 210km north of Brisbane. The crew walked into Rainbow Beach police station at 3am today. ABC radio said the men were found this morning on Rainbow Beach near Gympie by local man Bob Elmer. Mr Elmer said he found the men on a road behind the beach wet and shivering but looking relaxed. The men told him they were Indonesian and were travelling on a boat from Cairns to Brisbane when their boat broke down. "There were about a dozen people standing on the road and from what I could understand - and I'm not real good at listening to Indonesians talk - they said they were coming from Cairns to Brisbane and broke down and washed up on the beach," Mr Elmer said. "We've just been trying to organise the police and the SES to help." The southern area of the Queensland is being lashed by huge seas and high winds whipped up from a low moving slowly north. Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman said it was understood the 12 men were Indonesian naval officers on the 40m sail training vessel Arung Samudera. "We believe they were travelling to Brisbane," she said. |
| Posted by:Oztralian |
| #4 Indonesia and Australia are very close geographically. But, I would guess there are a lot less Australians who speak Indonesian than Indonesians who speak English -- even though Indonesia is the fifth most populous country in the world, and its language is an official language of Singapore and Malaysia, and also is not infrequently spoken in the Netherlands. English and Indonesian come from very different language group families. Knowing one language really will not help you to learn the other. And, a lack of practice of disparate languages really makes one rusty -- which is probably the case with the Indonesian naval cadets -- since English is commonly learned at the higher educational levels in Indonesia. For example, saying something like “Can you help me? I am a naval cadet and my ship just got grounded in a storm. Boy, I wish I had more training on sail powered ships, or was on a ship that had a motor!”“Would look something like this in Indonesian: “Bisa kamu menolong saya? Saya seorang kadet militer angkatan laut dan kapal saya hanya kandas di angin topan. Ya, saya menginginkan saya sudah belajar lebih banyak di kapal layar, atau kami akan pakai kapal yang mempunyai mesin!” |
| Posted by: cingold 2007-08-23 21:22 |
| #3 How much Bahasa Indonesian do you speak? Take it easy on these kids. Jack, re-read my post. I ran down Indonesia's government for not manning the ship with people who had some command of English. After all, they were being sent to an English-speaking nation so it would only make sense to include one or two fluent people. Likewise a competent captain and first mate, but we won't go there. Besides, Indonesian isn't this world's de facto second language. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-08-23 16:41 |
| #2 Hey, Zenster. How much Bahasa Indonesian do you speak? Take it easy on these kids. They are cadets in the Indonesian Naval Academy. Looks like some did speak English unless ole Bob Elmer knows more than "terima kasih". |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2007-08-23 10:26 |
| #1 So, these assclowns managed to run this three-masted yawl rigged beauty aground? Indonesia couldn't even bother to man the vessel with crew that spoke a smidgen of English? Afraid they'd all jump ship in Oz? |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-08-23 04:39 |
