alant
Well-Known Member
Final responsibility, still remains with the Skipper.
Beneteau First lost her keel, four good men lost at sea.
- Thread starter haydude
- Start date
Final responsibility, still remains with the Skipper.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
They have a duty of care anyway, so I can't see how getting them to approve their own passage plan (which I know was someone else's idea, not yours) will help things. And what if there is no separate owner or company - what if s/he's the skipper?
In theory, yes. In practice if you had a young skipper, dependent on the company for employment and references, and they said "You will sail on such-and-such a date and you will take such-and-such a route and you will not abandon the boat or ask for help unless it is actually sinking" then it might not be easy for the skipper to make a truly independent decision. That examples was generic, by the way, and does not refer to Cheeki Rafiki, about the communications between whose skipper and owner I of course know nothing
alant
Well-Known Member
I don't know your background, but I do remember when I started skippering.
The thought that something would go wrong & injure/kill any crew, focused the mind very quickly.
This applies to all skippers of course, not just commercially endorsed types.
Yes, pressure can be brought by owners - I can remember being berated (together with another skipper/instructor), because we were putting extra mooring lines on whilst in Lake Yard marina (Poole) in anticipation of the F11/12 (was already F9+). He said that as professionals, we should demonstrate to the quaking day Skipper/Comp Crew on board, "how to do it"!
Both told him where to get off (politely
), regardless of any future work - he later apologised.alant
Well-Known Member
Really?
Rigger Mortice
N/A
Yes, we all know that.
The point was being made in response to the suggestion that some external body should approve a passage plan before a boat leaves port.
alant
Well-Known Member
The point was being implied, that the Liquid Vortex situation was influenced by the company over ruling the skipper, nothing mentioned about an "external body" -"Wasn't that the very problem that ended up with Liquid Vortex going out when a Force 10 was forecast? Pressure to get to London or Southampton in time for a Boat show IIRC."
Capt Popeye
Well-Known Member
Am I right in understanding that in the US there is a Govt body that can impound or otherwise deny a craft /skipper the right to go to sea.
I understood that the US have quite rigerous enforcement regulations and a rigerous CoastGuard (or some body) that enforces the regs.
I understood that the US have quite rigerous enforcement regulations and a rigerous CoastGuard (or some body) that enforces the regs.
Robin
Well-Known Member
USCG can insist on a voyage being terminated. I have read on US fora of this being done even for minor rule infringements like not having the required (and labeled as USCG approved) kit on board, type and size of fire extinguishers for example or heads/holding tank valves being locked off to prevent overboard dischage in a no discharge area or wthin 3 mile limit . IIRC correctly they issue some kind of go back and start again tixcket that means you have to prove compliance before leaving for another try.
Complying with the rules is not always easy, leastwise to understand. We each have highly expensive UK bought fully automatic inflating lifejackets with built in harnesses, crutch straps, lights and whistles that we brought with us but as all of these are not stamped 'USCG Approved' and without that stamp are not considered acceptable but yet some $9 Wal-Mart foam filled lifejacket specials are deemed OK and we inherited 4 of these with the boat which get us past that hurdle, we leave them in our davit carried RIB in a bag ready for use in that where similar rules apply and quick deployment to the cockpit of the main boat if asked to show we have them 'to hand by an 'official' We have our heads/holding tank valves directed only to holding tank and no direct discharge overboard and they are not only cable tied locked but are behind locker dors that have hasp and staple locks preventing access to them except by the captain, he who only has the padlock's combination. anal for sure but heck these guys carry guns and we wouldn't want to be shot for a turd planning on making a run for it.
notwithstanding the local regulations and the armed enforcement folk it is very common to see large coolers chock full of cold beers being loaded on board runabouts and small inshore fishing boats especially over holiday weekends like Memorial day weekend just passed.
I took a local safe boaters course and exam recently and got my lifetime pass certificate, it entailed answering a bunch of multiple choice questions, some really dumb ones included but hey some folks round here are dumb. :ambivalence:
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JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
You are conflating two completely different ideas: Capt Popeye's suggestion that all yachts should have their passage plans approved by an authority and the possibility that an owner/operator might bring pressure to bear on a skipper.
alant
Well-Known Member
I was replying to riggermortice, not captpopeye.
Tranona
Well-Known Member
Many European countries do have categorisation that determines where and what you can sail. They are usually based on boat size, level of equipment, qualifications of skipper or engine power - or a combination. They usually come with compulsory inspection and registration and mostly predate the RCD so do not use the RCD categories - as Tim explained they are driven by trade requirements, not necessarily "safety". Thankfully we are free of such constraints in the UK.
Somewhat perversely the categories are used in one or two countries as a basis for tax relief, so there are leasing schemes that apply a 50% reduction in VAT for boats in Cat A on the basis that an oceangoing boat would spend at least 50% of its time in international waters. No prizes for guessing which countries operate such schemes.
VO5
Well-Known Member
DownWest
Well-Known Member
Small example: My little boat is classed as Cat C, because I built it. I must carry basic equipement like, 3 red flares, anchor, sound source, compass and LJ. Also because of the 'C', I must not go further than 6nm from a 'safe haven'. But, as it a sail powered, I do not need a licence. I do not know anybody who has been quizzed about this, but if things went wrong.....?
Portugal has extensive licensing of skippers and boats. You cannot use a boat unless you have the minimum marinheiro ticket and the boat must carry a minimum of safety gear, distance limits from safe havens also apply.
Portugal has extensive licensing of skippers and boats. You cannot use a boat unless you have the minimum marinheiro ticket and the boat must carry a minimum of safety gear, distance limits from safe havens also apply.
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robertj
Well-Known Member
If I owned this particular model of boat, a keel removal renew bolts etc would be in order for peace of mind.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Does that mean you would not be allowed to cross the Channel, for example?
Sailfree
Well-Known Member
Can I suggest you plugin brain before ranting. There have been 1000s of lives lost at sea in boats ranging from 6' to 1000's. In each case the failure was caused by circumstance the boat was inadequate to cope with. It is unrealistic to consider designing a GRP yacht to be bombproof. Beaneteau have made probably over 10,000 boats with bolted on keels and you rant on about this one failure.
Many of us own boats of a similar design made by various manufacturers. I have asked in a thread on PBO what sensible test can be done to discover if a keel bolt has failed due to a previous unknown incident of unknown magnitude.
Let's get a sense of proportion please.
snooks
Well-Known Member
E39mad
Well-Known Member
A lot of people are either criticizing or believe it is the keel bolts that are cause of this tragedy.
That maybe so, but those bolts are attached through a GRP laminate structure (usually heavily reinforced in the keel area) and with the pictures shown it would appear to my layman eyes that the keel took part of the laminate structure with it which MAY point more towards a serious failure of the GRP structure or a combination of both.
Solely X-raying keel bolts on a fairly regular basis will not show damaged laminate and is in my view not the total answer to checking all is well.
That maybe so, but those bolts are attached through a GRP laminate structure (usually heavily reinforced in the keel area) and with the pictures shown it would appear to my layman eyes that the keel took part of the laminate structure with it which MAY point more towards a serious failure of the GRP structure or a combination of both.
Solely X-raying keel bolts on a fairly regular basis will not show damaged laminate and is in my view not the total answer to checking all is well.
Tranona
Well-Known Member
Belgium ?
Not as far as I know - think about countries that produce lots of big yachts and have governments with a history of biased subsidies to favoured industries.
snooks
Well-Known Member
One reason peeps are talking about keel bolts...Say there are 10 bolts, one fails, 9 are doing the job of 10, another one goes, that's 8 and so on until the load are on the hull is reduced to say 1/2 of what it should be. The bolts are no longer the weakest link and the keel takes out hull as well. So it is possible the bolts in the middle didn't go, by that time the hull around it could have been weakened or the weakest point.
Obviously if the hull wasn't strong enough it would have taken out an area the size of the keel. It didn't.
If the keel bolts hadn't gone (not that anyone knows whether this is what happened) then the hull wouldn't have been subjected to all the pressure from the keel across a reduced area.