Cheeki Rafiki deaths: Yacht firm boss guilty

alant said:
Needs to be a sailor as well then.
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What are you talking about?

It is much easier to get your point across (if you have one) by explaining what you mean, and that usually requires writing sentences rather than just a string of words.

It would also be helpful to know why you are trying to raise an issue about surveyors when it does not seem relevant to the case under discussion.
 
Uricanejack said:
I do not know what the point of the prosecution of D Innes and Storm Force was. p
Probably several different reasons.
People died. Those people have friends and families who are probably quite angry after reading the MAIB report
There friends and family put thier trust in Storm Force as a reputable sailing school and charter company.
In 2 cases to be trained and work as Yacht Masters on commercial Yachts
And in 2 cases to get expierince

Storm Force was and is a commercial business taking paying punters out to sea on small commercial vessels.

I don't see why the responsibility would change because the boat was less than 45ft

I agree keels should not fall off big boats or small boats

The question of commercial or not was answered by judge and jury
It was commercial.

A couple of questions for you as a professional manager in the shipping business

Would you ever send one of your ships on a voyage it was not certified to undertake. Of course not.
Would you take advantage of a regulatory loop hole. Depends on the loop hole and risk.

Now the actual question
If one of your Captains called you and repotted they had done some damage to the ship and had a problem with some required gear. The ship is in Bongo Bongo and there is no repair facility

You would call or suggest Capt call. Lloyds, insurance, P&I
And ask if it's ok to move ship to a port where parts and repairs are available

What would you do if MCA or Lloyds or Insuarnce orP&I said no it's not ok.

Curse and swear. Probably
Call his boss. And ask him to be reasonable
Air freight a new anchor and repair crew toBongo Bongo

Or just say the MCA are wrong and sail anyway
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Stop being difficult.
 
Well, well. Was that the objective of the RYA and MCA ?

I presume any D&O insurance evaporates with the trading status ?
 
Uricanejack said:
I do not know what the point of the prosecution of D Innes and Storm Force was. p
Probably several different reasons.
People died. Those people have friends and families who are probably quite angry after reading the MAIB report
There friends and family put thier trust in Storm Force as a reputable sailing school and charter company.
In 2 cases to be trained and work as Yacht Masters on commercial Yachts
And in 2 cases to get expierince

Storm Force was and is a commercial business taking paying punters out to sea on small commercial vessels.

I don't see why the responsibility would change because the boat was less than 45ft

I agree keels should not fall off big boats or small boats

The question of commercial or not was answered by judge and jury
It was commercial.

A couple of questions for you as a professional manager in the shipping business

Would you ever send one of your ships on a voyage it was not certified to undertake. Of course not.
Would you take advantage of a regulatory loop hole. Depends on the loop hole and risk.

Now the actual question
If one of your Captains called you and repotted they had done some damage to the ship and had a problem with some required gear. The ship is in Bongo Bongo and there is no repair facility

You would call or suggest Capt call. Lloyds, insurance, P&I
And ask if it's ok to move ship to a port where parts and repairs are available

What would you do if MCA or Lloyds or Insuarnce orP&I said no it's not ok.

Curse and swear. Probably
Call his boss. And ask him to be reasonable
Air freight a new anchor and repair crew toBongo Bongo

Or just say the MCA are wrong and sail anyway
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The point of prosecution -

Pour encourager les autres.
 
Tranona said:
What are you talking about?

It is much easier to get your point across (if you have one) by explaining what you mean, and that usually requires writing sentences rather than just a string of words.

It would also be helpful to know why you are trying to raise an issue about surveyors when it does not seem relevant to the case under discussion.
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"competent surveyor with a good tack record ":rolleyes:
 
syc1 said:
Well, that's a group of individuals out of a job!

Hope it helps someone feel better.
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Most of the professional YM types I know work for a different School each month.
The same number of punters will be there, the same amount of work for YMs etc.
Hopefully a few less corners cut?

I enjoy my work, but I'd rather live to retire from it.
 
Uricanejack said:


Quote Originally Posted by Minn

I think I see what may have happened. You may have interpreted my plea to leave the MCA out of recreational sailing in boats of less than 45ft O.A. - which I would have thought was uncontroversial - it is after all the formal position of the RYA, and has been for donkey's years - as "an axe to grind with the MCA". It isn't. The MCA will be the first to tell you that they have neither the budget not the manpower nor the wish to get involved in it. Hence the RYA/MCA relationship which some of us think is an excellent example of British pragmatism at its finest. My point was - "Let's keep it that way!"

That sounds very reasonable but it also appears to be quite different to what you have been saying.

Up to now I have taken your position to be no more regulation.
The MCA are wrong it was not a commercial voyage.

I personally don't agree with the MCA using prosecutors to resolve issues.
I don't think prosecuting this chap has done anything to improve safety of small vessels.
Perhaps I am wrong
The problems were identified by the MAIB
The MCA has the ability to respond by clarifying or changing regulations
They can still delegate to the RYA

Unfortunately the MAIB made recommendations and the underlying problem
Or practice of using CAT 2 boats for trans Atlantic voyages which look like walk like and quack like commercial voyages continue.
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I did not say "The MCA are wrong it was not a commercial voyage".

What I said was that the same voyage could have been undertaken with the boat re-delivered to her owner and the owner contracting for a commercial delivery crew (and no coding issues would have arisen)
 
Uricanejack said:
The ship is in Bongo Bongo and there is no repair facility
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Why did you feel the need to use this particular 'place name'.

It adds nothing to the argument, and there is enough history of it being used in a context of casual racism to make it offensive to many people (me included).
 
Uricanejack said:
I do not know what the point of the prosecution of D Innes and Storm Force was. p
Probably several different reasons.
People died. Those people have friends and families who are probably quite angry after reading the MAIB report
There friends and family put thier trust in Storm Force as a reputable sailing school and charter company.
In 2 cases to be trained and work as Yacht Masters on commercial Yachts
And in 2 cases to get expierince

Storm Force was and is a commercial business taking paying punters out to sea on small commercial vessels.

I don't see why the responsibility would change because the boat was less than 45ft

I agree keels should not fall off big boats or small boats

The question of commercial or not was answered by judge and jury
It was commercial.

A couple of questions for you as a professional manager in the shipping business

Would you ever send one of your ships on a voyage it was not certified to undertake. Of course not.
Would you take advantage of a regulatory loop hole. Depends on the loop hole and risk.

Now the actual question
If one of your Captains called you and repotted they had done some damage to the ship and had a problem with some required gear. The ship is in Bongo Bongo and there is no repair facility

You would call or suggest Capt call. Lloyds, insurance, P&I
And ask if it's ok to move ship to a port where parts and repairs are available

What would you do if MCA or Lloyds or Insuarnce orP&I said no it's not ok.

Curse and swear. Probably
Call his boss. And ask him to be reasonable
Air freight a new anchor and repair crew toBongo Bongo

Or just say the MCA are wrong and sail anyway
Click to expand...

This is a false analogy. You are setting up a straw man.

A merchant ship is a very different beast.

Anyway, let's take something that happened the other day. One of "my" ships- quite a big one - was about to enter Canadian waters where she was to call at two ports - a small port then a big one. She reported that one of the steering gear hydraulic pump electric motors had burned out. Plan A was to fly the motor from the small port to the big one and get it re-wound for the ship's arrival and she would make the passage from small port to big port on just the one pump. I phoned Lloyds - they were happy - and then phoned the MCA - they were happy since Lloyds were happy. Transports Canada were not happy, and wanted the ship escorted by a tug...

... I could have stamped my foot and made a fuss saying that if the other motor failed we would just anchor, but "always show respect to the honorable men in power" - we want to keep our reputation with Port State Control intact so...

Plan B - fly the repair squad with tools and materials to Port A and do the rewind on the spot - we lost 18 hours and the cost of flying people and kit fromA to B to A and putting them up in hotels rather than just flying an electric motor from B to A. Annoying but no need to start swearing. Job done, bills paid, Transports Canada happy, LR happy, MCA happy.

We "could" have told the ship to just shut up and do the passage to Big Port on one pump and then pretend that the motor had burned out on arrival at the big port, where the ship would be alongside for long enough for the job to be done in charterer's time. But that would have been dishonest and if we start doing that sort of thing Lloyds and the MCA will stop trusting us and in the end we will pay for it.

Now how does this relate to Cheeki Raffiki?

It doesn't. We have a ship insured for millions and able to do millions worth of damage, carrying a crew of 22 and a cargo worth tens of millions. If we make an illigitimate voyage by knowingly sending the ship to sea whilst we are privy to her unseaworthy condition we void our hull and machinery insurances and our P&I entry and we lose the protection of the Hague Rules so if the cargo is damaged or even late we can be sued for that without limitation and with no insurances. So we don't do it. Simples.

But nobody knew that there was anything wrong with CF when she sailed. The fact that her crew had checked the keel as well as they were able before starting and did not suspect the keel when she started to leak speaks volumes.
 
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Minn said:
I did not say "The MCA are wrong it was not a commercial voyage".

What I said was that the same voyage could have been undertaken with the boat re-delivered to her owner and the owner contracting for a commercial delivery crew (and no coding issues would have arisen)
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My understanding for that to have worked would be that the owner would have to sever his contract with Stormforce then he becomes the sole interested party and can employ a delivery crew. If he didn't then I think it would still be viewed as a relocation for the purpose of financial gain a commercial voyage but we are straying into hypothetical territory but I am sure some will be looking at it.
 
petehb said:
My understanding for that to have worked would be that the owner would have to sever his contract with Stormforce then he becomes the sole interested party and can employ a delivery crew. If he didn't then I think it would still be viewed as a relocation for the purpose of financial gain a commercial voyage but we are straying into hypothetical territory but I am sure some will be looking at it.
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Yes. We agree. Same voyage, same boat, could even be same crew, no coding issues. If Stormforce were to charter the boat again once she arrived in Britain and was re-surveyed that might be a bit cheeky but nothing could have been done about it. There are people who would do that.
 
Tranona said:
It is worth noting that keel loss is EXTREMELY rare, and there is little systemic common cause, except grounding and racing, or more commonly both. Also perhaps related to poor maintenance and repairs. It simply is not an issue for private boats, or the gentler end of the charter market.

So, let's not get carried away with the idea that there is an epidemic. It is a very focussed issue for a very narrow section of the market. The standard for keel attachments and supporting structures has recently (2012) been revised and margins of safety increased. Most of the losses have been on boats built to the earlier standards, or standards did not apply.

The reality is that keels on production boats do not fall off when boats are sailed within their design envelope. There are some here that argue that boats should be able to withstand grounding, but there are many examples of boats with different keel designs claimed to be more robust that have been lost through keel damage - the most recent an HR 48 that hit a whale. So, where do you stop? There is no such thing as perfect keel design that will withstand all damage.

We must also remember that keel loss and damage is nothing new as those who were around in the heyday of the 1970s -80s when fin keels first came on the scene in large numbers, will know. Then as now the problems were related to groundings, and most common in inshore racing where the water is thin and advantage can be gained by using the thin water parts of the course.

So, in my view keel damage goes with the territory. If you want to race hard in a production boat, or even in a dedicated race boat built to the limit and bounce it off the hard bits you have to accept that at some point there will be failures. If you then take such a boat into extreme conditions in the open ocean do not be surprised if it breaks.

Not sure how you break this cycle, but I guess it will persist as long as there are owners and crews prepared to accept the risks.
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The point is that if some thing has been damaged, it should be easy to see. Not hidden away and impossible to detect by any reasonable means.
 
westernman said:
The point is that if some thing has been damaged, it should be easy to see. Not hidden away and impossible to detect by any reasonable means.
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But that is true of many products. How many times do you hear (or even have direct experience) of cars being written off despite there being little visible damage?

It is nothing new in boats. It is their nature that you can get hidden defects because much of the structural strength is hidden by subsequent parts of the building process. This is true of all forms of construction and materials. So, it could be rot in timber, failure of fastenings through corrosion, hidden corrosion in steel plating and so on.

What you are asking for is impossible to achieve. You cannot build a boat without having critical structural components hidden. However, the margins of safety are so huge that like failures in any other stressed structure does not often lead to loss of either the structure or lives. Hence my comment that total failure is extremely rare and can invariably be traced to a series of failings in the use of the object.

I think one needs to keep a sense of proportion over these issues. When you have rare events you simple do not have enough data to draw anything other than broad conclusions, which I have done above. Otherwise the lessons are individual to the case. The number of recorded keel losses where there is enough detail to be useful takes you to only one conclusion. Do not bounce keels off hard seabeds (or whales!). The former can be avoided, the latter is random.

What annoys me is that just because a tiny minority of boats are treated in this way there seems to be a belief that it can happen to anyone who owns a similar boat. No it won't and there is no evidence to say that it has.
 
Minn said:
This is a false analogy. You are setting up a straw man.

A merchant ship is a very different beast.

Anyway, let's take something that happened the other day. One of "my" ships- quite a big one - was about to enter Canadian waters where she was to call at two ports - a small port then a big one. She reported that one of the steering gear hydraulic pump electric motors had burned out. Plan A was to fly the motor from the small port to the big one and get it re-wound for the ship's arrival and she would make the passage from small port to big port on just the one pump. I phoned Lloyds - they were happy - and then phoned the MCA - they were happy since Lloyds were happy. Transports Canada were not happy, and wanted the ship escorted by a tug...

... I could have stamped my foot and made a fuss saying that if the other motor failed we would just anchor, but "always show respect to the honorable men in power" - we want to keep our reputation with Port State Control intact so...

Plan B - fly the repair squad with tools and materials to Port A and do the rewind on the spot - we lost 18 hours and the cost of flying people and kit fromA to B to A and putting them up in hotels rather than just flying an electric motor from B to A. Annoying but no need to start swearing. Job done, bills paid, Transports Canada happy, LR happy, MCA happy.

We "could" have told the ship to just shut up and do the passage to Big Port on one pump and then pretend that the motor had burned out on arrival at the big port, where the ship would be alongside for long enough for the job to be done in charterer's time. But that would have been dishonest and if we start doing that sort of thing Lloyds and the MCA will stop trusting us and in the end we will pay for it.

Now how does this relate to Cheeki Raffiki?

It doesn't. We have a ship insured for millions and able to do millions worth of damage, carrying a crew of 22 and a cargo worth tens of millions. If we make an illigitimate voyage by knowingly sending the ship to sea whilst we are privy to her unseaworthy condition we void our hull and machinery insurances and our P&I entry and we lose the protection of the Hague Rules so if the cargo is damaged or even late we can be sued for that without limitation and with no insurances. So we don't do it. Simples.

But nobody knew that there was anything wrong with CF when she sailed. The fact that her crew had checked the keel as well as they were able before starting and did not suspect the keel when she started to leak speaks volumes.
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Thanks for the reply, It was a bit of an unfair question. I was pretty sure which way you would answer.
And the example with Transport Canada an excellent one.
Your response what a honorable shipping co manager would do.
You informed all the key agencies. One was not happy. You revised your plan.

How does it relate to Cheekie Rafiki.
He was faced with a similar simple dilemma. He had a problem with his vessel. In his case the CAT 2 code.
The MCA told him even if coded it was not a voyage he could do.

He chose to ignore this advice.

He did not know the keel was compromised. Even if the boat had been coded prior to leaving the UK. He still probably would not know the keel was compromised.

He did know even if it had a valid Cat 2 code. It was not approved to undertake the voyage.
He chose to send the boat to the Caribean and then make the return voyage.
Despite the advice he was given.

What's my point? It doesn't matter if its millions of dollars and 22 lives or a few thousand and only 4 lives.
A big ship operation or a Small craft operation.

He was the Manager of a commercial operation.
As you explained very well if he knowingly made an illegitimate voyage the consequence are as you say.
Even without the loss of the vessel and the lives.

There is a difference. As a professional Big Ship company manager. You know the potential consequences and risks involved.
As a one man Small craft manager. D Innes possibly did not fully understand the implications of his decision.
He might have thought he did. He might have thought he was right.
I believed he was wrong as soon as I read the MAIB report. I also wondered If he really understood the implications.

His Lawyer tried to defend him by saying he was not wrong and there is no proof the keel broke because it was not inspected.
His Lawyer sucked.
 
Frogmogman said:
Why did you feel the need to use this particular 'place name'.

It adds nothing to the argument, and there is enough history of it being used in a context of casual racism to make it offensive to many people (me included).
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I did not intend it to be a racist comment. I only intended it to be a fictisous small port. I did not intend to offend you or anyone else.
On reflection I can see your point and will not use the reference in future.
 
thecommander said:
Feel really bad for Storm Force. Trained me to where I am now.
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I never had any connection to Storm Force. Even so I feel bad for Storm Force as well.
I also feel bad for the 4 men who put their trust in Storm Force and their families. Regardless of how this played out they will never get over it.
I even feel bad for Doug Inness. I doubt he will get over it.
 
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