Fr J Hackett
Well-Known Member
Yes that is understood but where is the proof that he didn't act in the best interests of the ship and its crew.
Cheeki Rafiki deaths: Yacht firm boss guilty
- Thread starter bdh198
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Yes that is understood but where is the proof that he didn't act in the best interests of the ship and its crew.
robertj
Well-Known Member
wizard
Well-Known Member
alant
Well-Known Member
dom
Well-Known Member
I find some of lw395's comments most unsettling and for many reasons. It would seem they take us into an area so uncomfortable, that our inner instinct is to keep it firmly out of bounds. Pent up emotions can easily be vented on soft-focus ad hominem attacks, while leaving those tricky questions locked in the cupboard for another day.
And perhaps that's not a bad idea; for it was never going to be easy to offer our deepest respects and condolences to those four lost souls, while simultaneously embarking upon a dispassionate examination of the facts with the aim of improving the safety of future seafarers. Equally, it was always a step too far to add a mostly subjective examination of the question of guilt into this already delicate equation. At least it is clear why the MAIB simply will not go there.
Personally speaking, none of the heavy industrial process I have witnessed in the developed world would tolerate some of the doubtful practices within this industry, which increasingly has the appearance of having been left in a 1980s' time warp.
Something has to change and I'm sure it will.
And perhaps that's not a bad idea; for it was never going to be easy to offer our deepest respects and condolences to those four lost souls, while simultaneously embarking upon a dispassionate examination of the facts with the aim of improving the safety of future seafarers. Equally, it was always a step too far to add a mostly subjective examination of the question of guilt into this already delicate equation. At least it is clear why the MAIB simply will not go there.
Personally speaking, none of the heavy industrial process I have witnessed in the developed world would tolerate some of the doubtful practices within this industry, which increasingly has the appearance of having been left in a 1980s' time warp.
Something has to change and I'm sure it will.
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Fr J Hackett
Well-Known Member
So very true and that is where the clash between the two sides of this discussion probably lies.
lpdsn
Well-Known Member
Maybe not. My biggest concern about this incident was that there was no well-documented procedure for indentifying and repairing damage to boats with potentially de-bonded frames. I just feel the blame for that has to lie with the manufacturers, surveying bodies, regulators and the industry in general and not be solely heaped on one bloke that was unfortunate enough to be responsible for managing one.
Mark-1
Well-Known Member
Elessar, I have massive sympathy for the crew of CR and plenty of sympathy for DI too. I actually applauded in my chair when you made your post supporting Andy from a position of actually having known him on the water. Best post of this thread IMHO. Seems clear to me all the CR crew made sane decisions on the information they had and did a thorough check of the keel before they left - more thorough than a surveyor would have done. It seems likely they made all the right decisions and there's no evidence they didn't.
However, is it really that big a leap of logic to assume that, once the trip is defined as a commercial trip, the crew themselves (including skipper) might well be acting illegally in some ways as well as the manager of Stormforce? There's no moral judgement attached to that, but can you really not imagine anything illegal they might have done at all? To pick a non-controversial example (hypothetically) if it's a commercial trip the crew were receiving a benefit in kind and might have to declare that on their tax return. Given they thought it was non-commercial they won't have done that. Or maybe one of them smoked down below breaking UK laws in the workplace.
Maybe these are two poor examples, feel free to substitute your own. However, it seems almost inevitable to me that if the trip is a commercial trip then all of the crew might have had all kinds of legal responsibilities they failed to meet and broke all kinds of rules. (There's no moral judgement attached to that.)
Mark-1
Well-Known Member
Another little thought: If 'milebuilding' was part of the motivation for doing this trip then it's entirely possible they were sharing the skipper role around to provide skipper miles and skipper night hours to those who needed them. It's possible or likely that all of them had been skipper at some point.
Elessar
Well-Known Member
No not at all. A reasonable question well argued.
What is so unpleasant about some of the posts here, is that is that they have been used as an unfounded, uninformed and deliberately provocative dig at people who can't answer back. In particular they say, "In the dock with Doug Innis" implying that they would be stood there on manslaughter charges, and frankly there is no credible suggestion that would be so.
Yours is a reasonable point that they could have been in breech of some more minor legislation as a consequence of it having been de facto a commercial trip. Doubt that's a risk post mortem but a fair point none the less for those who don't end up drowning to consider when undertaking such trips.
Mark-1
Well-Known Member
Yeah, there's been a fair bit of that.
I think it's fear. People see a fatal situation and try to convince themselves it could never happen to them. They try to reassure themselves that death only happens to stupid people who make obvious and easily avoidable mistakes that they themselves would never make.
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Tranona
Well-Known Member
That is precisely why the MAIB conclusions and recommendations are framed as they are.
The decision to prosecute was on a much wider set of issues than just that. Four men died. Would you be happy if no action had been taken against the person deemed to be in charge?
Not sure these 500 or so posts and a similar (or larger) number on previous threads on this subject have moved "us" any further forward. We have a unique incident of loss of one boat with its own individual characteristics. The report and court case examined these and there are lessons to be learned from each individual issue.
The danger is in then assuming that these issues, both individually and collectively are "typical", when there is little evidence to support this. People tend to focus on bits that interest them, so many focus on the apparent structural deficiencies of the keel support structure. While there is no doubt that something went wrong here on this boat with its unique history, but where is the evidence it is systemic? There are thousands of boats in use constructed in this way, and only one is recorded as failing. There may well have been more, but the investigation failed to find them, only identifying 5 boats where there was a recorded history of damage and repairs.
As some of you may know one of my favourite phrases is "a way of seeing is a way of not seeing", which is the theme of one of my sessions on research methods. I don't claim originality, but so much research and argument gets focused on "proving" something, rather than keeping an open mind. So by concentrating on CR we are ignoring the near 800 other sister ships, that did not fail, that still raced hard and crossed the Atlantic - in fact did everything that CR did.
This does not mean it should be ignored, but if you read any report on a "disaster" you will find that rarely are they completely sudden, but the result of a series of minor (in themselves) events that are probably common occurrences, but their cumulative effect leads to the failure. This is a perfect example, and highly unlikely that there will be a repeat with the same outcome, although there will almost certainly be repeats of the individual issues.
Concentrating again on the structural failure. Losing a keel is not unique to matrix support structures. Most type of structures with separate keels attached to the hull have suffered failures including losses. Note that the report did not have anything to say about the basic design and construction of the boat. A cynic might argue that they were afraid of the power of the manufacturer and designer, but this has not deterred them in the past. The reality is that the boat met or exceeded the standards at the time. The problem is in identifying the extent of damage and the method of repair. hopefully any work on this issue will be put in the public domain, although I fear that there won't be a definitive conclusion simply because each damaged boat is different and any conclusion is likely to be at a general level.
lpdsn
Well-Known Member
A long post which I won't answer in detail as I think the thread has run its course. They didn't prosecute over Hooligan V which was a much more open and shut case (fabricator made a modification to the design on his own initiative which produced a keel that was significantly weaker).
But the main reason I'm replying to your post is to refute the idea that standards are some holy gospel and can never be wrong. The RCD is weak in respect to this case because it does not cover the service life of this boat sufficiently. Like the deHavilland Comet the boat was strong enough when it left the factory but the manufacturer wasn't sufficiently concerned in ensuring it remained strong enough. Relying on a surveyor with a hammer being sufficiently skilled or lucky to spot de-bonding isn't good enough.
Locking up the operator and dismissing this as a one-off will do nothing to tackle the underlying weakness.
lpdsn
Well-Known Member
Did he find it through skill or luck? Did he find all of it? Was he able to ensure that it was all repaired?
dom
Well-Known Member
There is certainly no direct causality. So why conflate a long-overdue tackling industry failings with the prosecution of DI and Stormforce?
lw395
Well-Known Member
There is direct causality in that Stormforce decided to sail their uncoded boat across an ocean it was never coded to sail across commercially.
A deliberate act of lawbreaking for which they have been convicted.
Whether that is manslaughter I really do not know.
We should appreciated that the operation of small boats at sea commercially is not just about yachts, it is about the fishing industry and offshore oil wind farms and fish farms. The safety record of the fishing industry is not enviable, despite being pretty tightly regulated. Maybe the statistics there have coloured the MCA's views on operators/owners who cut corners and sit in the pub while the minions take the risks at sea?
Mark-1
Well-Known Member
...and did it require 'special surveyor skills' to spot the problem or would anyone who looked have spotted it.
Can you expand on why you think sitting in the pub is significant?
Tranona
Well-Known Member
Where is your evidence that the standard is inadequate? A boat is designed to be sailed and to withstand the loads of sailing. When has a production boat lost its keel through sailing loads? There is no suggestion that the design was not adequate. The comparison with the Comet is ridiculous as the failure was when it was performing as designed, so a failure of design, not a failure because the product was not being used for the purpose it was designed.
You really are falling into the trap of generalising from a particular. ONE boat with a unique history out of over 800 sisterships (and thousands of similarly constructed boats) fails in a unique way and you use this as evidence that standards are inadequate. Keep a sense of proportion - you are doing exactly what I warned against - seeing a one off as typical because it suits your argument.
The reality is that if you regularly ground boats in the way that is common in inshore racing you will damage the boat - however it is constructed. So if you don't want to damage the boat, don't run aground - and that is solely the responsibility of the skipper. Don't blame the failings of the user on the designer and builder.
The prosecution was based on wider issues than just the structural failure as you well know. I repeat 4 lives were lost, and a number of offences potentially committed. Quite reasonable for this to be decided in court as they were criminal offences.
BTW I know about Hooligan, but it is a case unrelated to this one, so why make any reference to it?
Elessar
Well-Known Member
he won't be able to. He is the master of thoughtless, insensitive, pointless rants. Ironically I fancied one of my own, I claim provocation in my defence.