boat hit by large ship of Salcombe

[elioti]

Got a pic of this today, a sailing boat hit by a large ship 30 miles out from salcombe in the channel the ship didnt stop to help, carried on. Apparently the single handed skipper was tired and decided to sleep for an hour, but slept for 10! Was awoken when he was hit by a large vessel! The rnli towed him in to salcombe sunday just gone where he currently lies on a mooring.

 

[elton]

Did he sleep through the collision?

 

[paultallett]

I guess he's just got to be thankful he still has his life.

 

[elioti]

thats what i thought, lucky his boat was a metal one! has a big dent the otherside! Whats crazy is the big tanker didnt stop, probably didnt even notice....makes you think!

 

[Searush]

thats what i thought, lucky his boat was a metal one! has a big dent the otherside! Whats crazy is the big tanker didnt stop, probably didnt even notice....makes you think!

That was my thoughts, a wood or GRP one would have been cut in half & no-one would have known what happened to the lone sailor. Nasty.

I hope they can trace the ship on AIS & radar records & throw the book at him!

The Channel is far too busy to be sailing in if that tired, tho, so the yottie isn't entirely blameless. Little & often is the only way to snatch a rest if solo.

 

[VicS]

Jeez... for one awful moment I thought I recognised the boat!

 

[Elessar]

so the yottie isn't entirely blameless.

big dent on sbd side. But of an understatement SR.

 

[Kutierezharyi]

the good news is that the skipper is alive....... was the boat empty?

 

[gravygraham]

This incident has echoes of the Ouzo (sp?) tragedy from a couple of years back. Fortunately without the loss of life this time.

 

[Talulah]

As the skipper had fallen asleep for ten hours instead of one it may have been daytime when he napped but dark at the time of the collision. Hence I'm speculating that no nav lights were turned on.

 

[prv]

big dent on sbd side. But of an understatement SR.

There's loose sail all over the deck, so it seems highly likely that he was under sail at the time of the collision. So which side he was hit is irrelevant, in purely theory terms he would still have been the stand-on vessel.

Agree that "not entirely blameless" for spending ten hours underway in some of the busiest waters in the world while asleep is a bit of an understatement though!

Pete

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

There's loose sail all over the deck, so it seems highly likely that he was under sail at the time of the collision. So which side he was hit is irrelevant, in purely theory terms he would still have been the stand-on vessel.

Agree that "not entirely blameless" for spending ten hours underway in some of the busiest waters in the world while asleep is a bit of an understatement though!

Pete

He might well have been the stand-on vessel, but he also has an obligation to maintain a look-out at all times, and there's no exemption to rule 5 for being single-handed.

Cheers
Jimmy

 

[paultallett]

IMHO col regs or not..... there would only ever be one winner, that would certainly define my actions.

I don't know if I'd ever beable to sleep with whatever it may be looming down on me at sea!!

 

[jfm]

He might well have been the stand-on vessel, but he also has an obligation to maintain a look-out at all times, and there's no exemption to rule 5 for being single-handed.

Cheers
Jimmy

This highlights another problem in Colregs, which I've criticised on here many times because they are so badly drafted. If the facts are as speculated on here, we have one boat breaking the power-give-way-to-sail rule, and another breaking the "keep-a-lookout" rule. Both those are serious rules. To muddy the waters further, perhaps the sailboat had no lights and was in shipping lane not crossing perpendicularly. The Colregs say nothing then about allocation of blame, or the relative importance of the breached rules, or anything useful at all when there is an argument to ensue about who pays the repair bills (or worse, in the case of death/injury).

They need a thorough re-write. Big job i know, like a 10 year project maybe...

 

[albineer]

Aren't they both guilty of failing to keep a proper lookout? If so, would they both be liable for prosecution?

 

[jfm]

Aren't they both guilty of failing to keep a proper lookout? If so, would they both be liable for prosecution?

I don't think you can assume that of the ship. They may well have had good/customary lookout procedures and just missed the sailboat. It may have been dark and the sailboat had no lights. We just don't know.

Obviously if the sailboat guy was asleep then he seems guilty under the keep-a-lookout rule

 

[prv]

He might well have been the stand-on vessel, but he also has an obligation to maintain a look-out at all times, and there's no exemption to rule 5 for being single-handed.

Sure, I'm not arguing that. Just saying that Elessar's point that the dent is on the starboard side, indicating that he would have been the give-way vessel had they both been under power, is almost certainly irrelevant, because he wasn't.

Clearly that doesn't excuse a vessel careering up the Channel with everyone on board fast asleep, it would be bonkers to suggest that it did.

Pete

 

[prv]

The Colregs say nothing then about allocation of blame, or the relative importance of the breached rules, or anything useful at all when there is an argument to ensue about who pays the repair bills (or worse, in the case of death/injury).

The regulations themselves don't. I would argue that they'd be too complicated if they tried to (plus you try getting every maritime country on earth to agree to the exact phrasing of your rewrite). But when the action moves from the sea to the courtroom, I believe all the principles you refer to are well established, and are laid down in an expensive tome that's sometimes mentioned in these forums but whose name I forget. "So-and-so on the Collision Regulations", or something like that, and costs a couple of hundred quid as only maritime lawyers buy it.

Pete

 

[Me_has_a_Boat]

This highlights another problem in Colregs, which I've criticised on here many times because they are so badly drafted. If the facts are as speculated on here, we have one boat breaking the power-give-way-to-sail rule, and another breaking the "keep-a-lookout" rule. Both those are serious rules. To muddy the waters further, perhaps the sailboat had no lights and was in shipping lane not crossing perpendicularly. The Colregs say nothing then about allocation of blame, or the relative importance of the breached rules, or anything useful at all when there is an argument to ensue about who pays the repair bills (or worse, in the case of death/injury).

They need a thorough re-write. Big job i know, like a 10 year project maybe...

The Col Regs are pretty clear - Both vessels have a responsibility to avoid a collision. In this case both would have been at fault. rare that any collision is judged 100% against one party.

 

[prv]

Aren't they both guilty of failing to keep a proper lookout? If so, would they both be liable for prosecution?

I believe the courts generally apportion blame in collision cases on a percentage basis. I read somewhere that 100% blame one way is quite unusual, as in hindsight there's usually something that could have been done better. I'd expect this one to go mostly against the sleeping yachtsman, with some against the ship who should nevertheless have spotted and avoided him. Whether or not he was showing lights will of course make a difference

Pete