toad_oftoadhall
New member
.
Last edited:
Atalanta of Chester/Hanne Knutsen trial
- Thread starter woodstock
- Start date
A1Sailor
...
Have you been paying attention?
It was reported at the time that all on board were RNSA members.
Last edited:
Grumpybear
New member
It all becomes clear: Michael Shrives ... who is general secretary of the RN Sailing Association ... was navigating the Atalanta.
A blue flagger. The hunt for a rational explanation for a boat to sail out of its way to ram the bow of a tanker can cease.
What a small minded and gratuitously nasty little man you are.
DownWest
Well-known member
It all becomes clear: Michael Shrives ... who is general secretary of the RN Sailing Association ... was navigating the Atalanta.
A blue flagger. The hunt for a rational explanation for a boat to sail out of its way to ram the bow of a tanker can cease.
Berk hardly begins to describe you.
Oh, I noticed the smiley, as a sort of get out card.
Poignard
Well-known member
Doesn't offend me, O reptilean one.
On the contrary, it explains why, every time I cross the Channel, ships keep trying to run me down.
flaming
Well-known member
Seems to confirm the "thought it was going to turn to starboard" theory. His evidence also seems to suggest that it was plain misunderstanding of where the ship was going, rather than a reckless "we might win the race" call to chance it that was the problem. I feel like going back to the original 2011 thread and writing "I told you so" all over it.
Interesting that the navigator seems (if the reporting is to be believed) to be taking a fair proportion of the blame for being in front of the ship. I guess only the skipper can be charged, so saying that the nav is the one who messed up might help him no?
Makes sense from a racing POV, any good crew will split roles and whilst the helm is often the skipper it's the nav who makes the decisions about where to go and when to tack etc. Can't believe it hasn't occurred to me before, but of course when I helm I just trust the nav to tell me where to go. Of course I take action if there's something imminent, but the point where I would overrule the nav as to which side of the big ship we're passing would probably be pretty close. Mainly because that's not my job, my job is to steer the prescribed course and the nav's job is to avoid all hazards and plot the best course to the next mark. In that situation I'd expect the nav to be the one watching the ship whilst I concentrated on keeping the boat under the kite and moving fast. After all it'd be the nav's fault if they'd hit the brambles or gurnard ledge - what's a tanker in the Solent but another hazard to be avoided?
Uricanejack
Well-known member
I have allways been opposed to the concept of criminal charges and a trail to find out what happened.
I read the article in the link about the testemony of the former comander. reported to be the navigator. According to the navigator the acused skipper was trying to start the engine while the navigator was "stuck in the headlights"
The concept of charging the skipper is an outdated concept.
Unless he or she intentionaly chose to ignore advice and regulation.
In reality and recognised as best practice it should be a team concept working together to run the boat with the skipper relying on input from his team to advise on the best course of action the final desision resting with the skipper.
While blame is best avoided.
It is possible the team in some way failed to realise the true situation developing basing thier desision on an assumtion about the other vessels action which turned out be wrong.
Or some of the team may have realised but failed to comunicate thier concern, making an assumtion the other crew member be it skipper or navigator, lookout, grinder or rail ballast had the situation under controle.
Last edited:
sarabande
Well-known member
hang on, chaps ! Using the navigator as an exculpatory reason is not acceptable.
Atalanta was warned in no uncertain terms by the patrol boat well in advance.
And under what circumstances is a skipper NOT responsible for what goes on aboard his boat ? Don't confuse the role of steersman and 'Captain under God'.
Atalanta was warned in no uncertain terms by the patrol boat well in advance.
And under what circumstances is a skipper NOT responsible for what goes on aboard his boat ? Don't confuse the role of steersman and 'Captain under God'.
flaming
Well-known member
I didn't (and haven't ever) said he is blameless, nor I do even remotely think that. I just the narrative given by many on here of a racing yacht chancing its arm and risking everything for the prize was simplistic at best.
It's an interesting point though that the legal concept of one skipper responsible for all the actions of a yacht is contrary to best practice onboard racing boats.
We are one of the rare boats where the owner/skipper does not helm, he is the nav. But the vast majority of racing boats are driven by the skipper, who then delegates the nav to someone else. Quite frequently the someone else is actually a much more experienced sailor than the skipper, who is skipper primarily due to his ability to write big cheques.
"Trust your nav and just drive the boat" is probably the best bit of advice you could give to a new racing skipper in terms of getting further up the fleet, so many times you see boats where the skipper is questioning the tactical calls and all the time the boat is sailing slow.
Twister_Ken
Well-known member
I think Flaming is right. The answer is to bang the lot of
them up. Not as if the RN needs them that badly.
them up. Not as if the RN needs them that badly.
sarabande
Well-known member
Flaming
I did nearly fifteen years racing as nav from Cowes and in RORC under the circumstances you outline (with the owner as skipper). On the rare occasions we were close inshore, the skipper handed over to Ian Lallow or other talented local, but always made the strategic decisions about where to go. My job was to make sure the skipper had all the info on which to make those decisions; he simply had no time to work out whether e.g. N shore or S shore was the better bet.
I can't see any other format of the command and control heirarchy than the delegated (or de facto) skipper being totally responsible for the boat's course, even though that course may be given by an owner/nav. Your boat must have some clear understanding of who is really in charge, or is it just 'understood' who makes the decisions as a result of years of precise and effective team work ?
To me, the Atalanta incident is an example of failure to work out the myriad "what ifs" and possible domains of other craft.
I did nearly fifteen years racing as nav from Cowes and in RORC under the circumstances you outline (with the owner as skipper). On the rare occasions we were close inshore, the skipper handed over to Ian Lallow or other talented local, but always made the strategic decisions about where to go. My job was to make sure the skipper had all the info on which to make those decisions; he simply had no time to work out whether e.g. N shore or S shore was the better bet.
I can't see any other format of the command and control heirarchy than the delegated (or de facto) skipper being totally responsible for the boat's course, even though that course may be given by an owner/nav. Your boat must have some clear understanding of who is really in charge, or is it just 'understood' who makes the decisions as a result of years of precise and effective team work ?
To me, the Atalanta incident is an example of failure to work out the myriad "what ifs" and possible domains of other craft.
flaming
Well-known member
So if you'd piled into Gurnard ledge with the kite up, who would have taken the blame?
For us the chain of command is simple, I'm responsible for not hitting anything in the immediate vicinity, the owner/nav is responsible for avoiding hazards. So if I misjudge a situation with another boat, or hit a mark etc, then that's my fault. If we hit the Brambles that's the nav's fault. (Touch wood, neither has happened for quite a while!) When we meet a ship, which of course is moderately frequent in the Solent, it's the owner/nav who makes the call as to whether we're going to cross in front or behind. So actually in our case for meetings with ships the nav is acting more like the legal definition of skipper - which he should as he is!
But during the prestart where he's frequently below sorting out the course etc, I'm making all the decisions. If I managed to thwack a cruising boat or something at this point, it would still, legally, be his fault when clearly it's mine.
But this isn't the only boat I've ever sailed on, and I've done Cowes as skipper twice and nav 4 times. Whenever I've been nav I've taken full responsibility for the course of the boat, including ALL other traffic. For round the cans racing that is the tactician / nav's job.
DJE
Well-known member
DJE
Well-known member
Surely the reckless part was putting the boat within 1000m ahead of the tanker and thinking you could predict his movements with precision?
Big ships might need all the channel to cope with varying wind and tide conditions and sometimes to avoid other small boats.
lpdsn
New member
I agree almost entirely with you on the way a boat should be run. The skipper still has to be responsible for the safety of the boat and crew though, which is why virtually everything else has to be delegated to give him the space to consider safety, especially if the skipper wants to helm too.
A good racing boat's organisation is much closer to the commercial concept of a bridge management team than is usually found on a cruising boat.
As nav I would definitely mention a ship to the skipper as soon as I spotted it would be coming our way and would give him updates on anything significant that happened. I think he might be rather disappointed if my first words were "there's a tanker coming for us about 50 feet the other side of the spinnaker".
That said, it seems to have gone wrong in this case. Regardless of how things were being run before, from the moment the pilot boat got involved the skipper of Atalanta should've been focused on safety not racing. Ironically, it seems as though he was, just not effectively. Based on the facts that have come out so far, keeping racing would've been a good avoiding tactic in this case.
flaming
Well-known member
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/107...__says_yacht_skipper_who_crashed_into_tanker/
Today's news report.
He says it goes from a safe situation to an unsafe one in minutes due to the unexpected course of the tanker after it sounded to turn to starboard. Does that stack up?
Assuming that the tanker was doing 15 knots (think that's right...?) then by my maths it covers 463m per minute. So it does 1000m in just over 2 minutes. Add in the opposing speed of the yacht (7kts) and we get 22 knots, and that's outside of the zone to collision in almost exactly 1 and a half minutes. If he's arrived at the edge of the exclusion zone just as it signaled, then he's probably justified in continuing at that point as he thinks it's going to turn, and will be well gone before he gets there. But it doesn't turn straight away. Then it signals to Port. How much time has that used up when all the time he's getting closer? Now he needs to get out of the way, but he probably has less than a minute to do so, and all the time he thinks it's going to turn to starboard any moment now.
I can see how the initial situation went from ok to bad rapidly, and I can see why he would have a mindset not to turn to port as he's expecting the tanker to go that way any time now. Clearly that was flawed situational awareness on the part of the yacht, but I'm not happy about calling it criminal.
Today's news report.
He says it goes from a safe situation to an unsafe one in minutes due to the unexpected course of the tanker after it sounded to turn to starboard. Does that stack up?
Assuming that the tanker was doing 15 knots (think that's right...?) then by my maths it covers 463m per minute. So it does 1000m in just over 2 minutes. Add in the opposing speed of the yacht (7kts) and we get 22 knots, and that's outside of the zone to collision in almost exactly 1 and a half minutes. If he's arrived at the edge of the exclusion zone just as it signaled, then he's probably justified in continuing at that point as he thinks it's going to turn, and will be well gone before he gets there. But it doesn't turn straight away. Then it signals to Port. How much time has that used up when all the time he's getting closer? Now he needs to get out of the way, but he probably has less than a minute to do so, and all the time he thinks it's going to turn to starboard any moment now.
I can see how the initial situation went from ok to bad rapidly, and I can see why he would have a mindset not to turn to port as he's expecting the tanker to go that way any time now. Clearly that was flawed situational awareness on the part of the yacht, but I'm not happy about calling it criminal.
Angele
Active member
Can't see the relevance of the fact that he had a flat overlooking the Solent and a brief career as an investment banker? Or is it that because he is (A) comfortably off and (B) a banker and therefore must be guilty...
A1Sailor
...
Can't see the relevance of the fact that he had a flat overlooking the Solent and a brief career as an investment banker? Or is it that because he is (A) comfortably off and (B) a banker and therefore must be guilty...
Neither can I - but if he is asked the question he is obliged to answer...
Angele
Active member
Understood, but why did the reporter feel the need to add it to the article? It is totally irrelevant to the case (unless having a window looking out on to the Solent is part of his defence....).
bedouin
Well-known member
Perhaps that was in answer to the assertion that he didn't know how fast the ship would turn.
No, a naval officer who regularly raced in that stretch of water, and even had a flat overlooking the Solent, would have no idea about ships would he
