bump

[steveeasy]

Hi ,
Had a bump last week. Straight away I went to the marina where it happened and gave my contact details and notified them what had happened. I was hoping to make contact with the owner. was told it did not work like that. Is it normal to exchange details ?.

Steveeasy

 

[Poignard]

Hi ,
Had a bump last week. Straight away I went to the marina where it happened and gave my contact details and notified them what had happened. I was hoping to make contact with the owner. was told it did not work like that. Is it normal to exchange details ?.

Steveeasy

Well I would certainly exchange contact details. Perhaps the marina staff are reluctant to give other owners' contact details for some reason.

I have only bumped a boat once causing some very slight damage. I contacted the owner, apologised profusely and asked him to inspect his boat. He called back to say the damage (a scrape to his wooden rubbing strake) was trifling and to forget all about it. I left a bottle of decent Scotch whisky in his cockpit and he was very pleased with that little gesture. Everyone was happy and any embarrassment I felt at the time has long since faded away.

 

[lw395]

In my experience, it ranges from the guilty party sorting a repair and telling you when it's all done (Hi, I smashed your nav light, I hope the new one is OK?) through to them fleeing the country for two years.
Most people just accept small scratches on a give and take basis within reason. Many of us have been on both sides of this over the years.
What the issue here, you want the marina staff to contact the owner for you and they can't be bothered? Were you at fault?

There's a saying 'worse things happen at sea'. In my experience worse still happens in Marinas, especially French ones.

 

[Poignard]

...
Most people just accept small scratches on a give and take basis within reason. Many of us have been on both sides of this over the years.
...
There's a saying 'worse things happen at sea'. In my experience worse still happens in Marinas, especially French ones.

That's true. If you are a fusspot about such things it's best to avoid France. However, any deficiencies in boat handling skills there are more than compensated for by the charming apology one receives from the assailant; often the precursor to a few drinks.

 

[laika]

I was hoping to make contact with the owner. was told it did not work like that. Is it normal to exchange details ?

A lot of people seem to make hand-waving "data protection" statements to avoid doing any work but in a case like this it's probably reasonable: I wouldn't want a marina giving out my contact details without my permission. I would imagine the appropriate protocol is you give your details to the marina with permission for them to give them to the owner, the marina passes those to the owner and they get in contact with you

 

[steveeasy]

In the first instance I did not want the owner to turn up not knowing. So I was keen to notify him straight away. the marina said they would look at it next week. I also wanted to offer my sincere apologies, I felt really bad about it.

Unfortunately the boat was moored on a pontoon that had specifically been excluded for use as moorings as a planning condition due to navigational safety concerns. Ive seen it happen several times and unfortunately it has caught me out this time. not the owners fault at all, and in reality it should never have happened.

There shall be no moorings on the south west side of the pontoon adjacent to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Reason: In the interest of navigational safety

Steveeasy

 

[Poignard]

I wouldn't want a marina giving out my contact details without my permission.

I would want them to use a bit of common sense and not act like jobsworths.

If someone damaged my boat and wanted to contact me I would not have the slightest objection to the marina staff giving the culprit my contact details. In fact I would be annoyed if they didn't.

 

[laika]

If someone damaged my boat and wanted to contact me I would not have the slightest objection to the marina staff giving the culprit my contact details.

This presumably proves the point that different customers require different handling, marina staff are in a difficult position and need to err on the side of caution. Their responsibility should be to pass on the details and, where applicable a message from the other party immediately. If someone damaged my boat I would want the marina to contact me as soon as they were informed and allow me to chose what method I preferred to contact the nice, considerate, but unfortunate other party.

 

[westhinder]

I would want them to use a bit of common sense and not act like jobsworths.

If someone damaged my boat and wanted to contact me I would not have the slightest objection to the marina staff giving the culprit my contact details. In fact I would be annoyed if they didn't.

+1

 

[Stemar]

I would prefer that they take the culprit's details and pass them on to me with an idea of the damage. Then I can decide if I want to follow up or not bother.

 

[duncan99210]

The marina staff are constrained by the limits placed on them by GDPR: they will be breaking the law if they release contact details to you. Simple as that.
However, they are also under a duty to pass on the details of any incidents as swiftly as possible to all parties concerned. So a “some time next week” ain’t good enough. The response should be: “thanks for letting us know, we will get in touch with the owner of “Saucy Sue” directly”. Given the ease of data sharing, this shouldn’t represent any sort of challenge even if there’s no office staff on duty at that time.

 

[laika]

Clearly here Steve has done the honourable thing, there would doubtless be no harm in giving him the owner's details and the marina has been remiss if they did not *immediately* contact the owner. However imagine this scenario. Creepy stalker type sees young, attractive, apparently single boat owner. Goes to office. "Oh I seem to have bumped Skylark of Slough. Can I have the owner's address and phone number?". What do you expect the office to do?
- Give out owner's details
- Make their own judgement about whether the requestor seems respectable (based on what??)
- Go to the boat and give out the owner's details if they think there's any damage
- Call the owner and pass the creepy stalker type's details and message

It shouldn't be up to marina staff to decide whether someone looks respectable or not. It shouldn't be up to marina staff to judge whether there's damage that needs addressing (that's up to the owner). The marina staff don't have a reliable mechanism to determine how the requestor is going to use the owner's contact details or whether they're a nutter. The only sound course of action is to immediately contact the owner and allow them to decide how to contact the other party (e.g. from their junk email address or by phone with caller ID withheld)

 

[Poignard]

Clearly here Steve has done the honourable thing, there would doubtless be no harm in giving him the owner's details and the marina has been remiss if they did not *immediately* contact the owner. However imagine this scenario. Creepy stalker type sees young, attractive, apparently single boat owner. Goes to office. "Oh I seem to have bumped Skylark of Slough. Can I have the owner's address and phone number?". What do you expect the office to do?
- Give out owner's details
- Make their own judgement about whether the requestor seems respectable (based on what??)
- Go to the boat and give out the owner's details if they think there's any damage
- Call the owner and pass the creepy stalker type's details and message

It shouldn't be up to marina staff to decide whether someone looks respectable or not. It shouldn't be up to marina staff to judge whether there's damage that needs addressing (that's up to the owner). The marina staff don't have a reliable mechanism to determine how the requestor is going to use the owner's contact details or whether they're a nutter. The only sound course of action is to immediately contact the owner and allow them to decide how to contact the other party (e.g. from their junk email address or by phone with caller ID withheld)

Oh for heaven's sake. Aren't you rather over-engineering this?

 

[laika]

Oh for heaven's sake. Aren't you rather over-engineering this?

Security is all about the contrived edge cases. If there exist some cases where it might not be ok to give out personal details to anyone who asks then they shouldn't be given out if an acceptable alternative exists, which it does: the marina immediately contacts the owner.

 

[prv]

If someone damaged my boat I would want the marina to contact me as soon as they were informed and allow me to chose what method I preferred to contact the nice, considerate, but unfortunate other party.

We were on the receiving side of this situation a couple of years ago and this is exactly what happened. Another skipper took a chunk out of our topsides on his way out (I still don't understand how; it was a wide fairway especially relative to his 22-foot boat, and he should have been proceeding along it not lying cross-ways jabbing his bow roller into boats moored along the sides...). He tied up again immediately after hitting us and went up to the office to report. The office contacted us straight away, but didn't give him our details, allowing me to go and inspect the damage (and send photos to my co-owners who were out of the country) and us to think through and discuss our position before speaking to the other skipper instead of having a surprise awkward phone call out of the blue. That's exactly what I would have wanted in terms of contact.

(That said, a better response from the marina would have been to go and take a look themselves and ideally email photos; they didn't do this and just told us "he says he's made a hole", which could have been anything from a deep scratch to a 2-foot hull-side window, and made for a worrying few hours before I could get over for a look.)

Subsequently I slapped a rough coat of polyester resin over the damage to prevent any more bits of GRP falling out and water getting in, we continued with a planned cruise, and on our return were lifted out at the yard of our choice, and the hole and paint invisibly repaired with the cost paid by his insurance. We had some other small bits of hull work done at the same time at our own cost. All went as smoothly as it could in the circumstances and no hard feelings either way.

Pete

 

[[3889]]

I hit a moored boat at my home port on a dark and stormy night. I'd never seen anyone aboard so I left a note in a weighted freezer bag in the cockpit with my details. I never heard anything and could see no damage after a daylight inspection.

 

[Skylark]

I would want them to use a bit of common sense and not act like jobsworths.

If someone damaged my boat and wanted to contact me I would not have the slightest objection to the marina staff giving the culprit my contact details. In fact I would be annoyed if they didn't.

I had this experience 3 or 4 years ago. It seems that a visiting boat made a bit of a mess of trying to park his boat and let the wind blow it broadside against my anchor. He reported the incident to the marina and the staff gave him my phone number. The assailant did not contact me. Fortunately, I did not sustain damage and I stood the cost of scraping GRP from my anchor.

 

[Blue Sunray]

I would want them to use a bit of common sense and not act like jobsworths.

If someone damaged my boat and wanted to contact me I would not have the slightest objection to the marina staff giving the culprit my contact details. In fact I would be annoyed if they didn't.

If they gave my details out I'd petty swiftly report them to the Information Commissioner's Office, different people, for different reasons, have different approaches to their personal security so the marina staff have to be cautious on such matters.

 

[wombat88]

Marinas...

I had the marina take a chunk out of my boat with their Transit pick-up whilst ashore. OK so accidents happen but what I got very irate about was their failure to tell me before I found the damage for myself.

I now no longer trust them. I assume they were hoping to carry out a repair before I found out.

That the repair has been done and apologies made is not the point. I fear that 'them up there' in marina management have lost touch with their customers, if I could move I would but the convenience etc etc.

 

[Resolution]

The marina staff are constrained by the limits placed on them by GDPR: they will be breaking the law if they release contact details to you. Simple as that.
However, they are also under a duty to pass on the details of any incidents as swiftly as possible to all parties concerned. So a “some time next week” ain’t good enough. The response should be: “thanks for letting us know, we will get in touch with the owner of “Saucy Sue” directly”. Given the ease of data sharing, this shouldn’t represent any sort of challenge even if there’s no office staff on duty at that time.

Just bumping this reply which is commendably succinct. GDPR is part of our lives now. Marinas (and many other organisations, eg yacht clubs) will have to work with its restrictions on disclosure of personal data.
Peter