Cheeki Rafiki deaths: Yacht firm boss guilty

[JumbleDuck]

Well I read that as the owner can pay who he likes (a delivery skipper) provided the owner is not receiving payment other than a contribution towards the cost of say food and provisions.

No contribution of goods or services either. Like crewing services?

If you borrow a boat you have an obligation to at least try to give it back at an agreed place and time. Now I believe this was a delivery in this case, but your argument that agreeing to hand it over at a certain place proves on its own that it is a commercial voyage has holes.

That's not my argument. My argument is that if two employees of a company perform what would normally be part of their duties for their employer to do something of direct benefit to their employer, it's difficult to claim that they weren't it as part of their employment. Employers regularly try the "s/he wasn't actually working for us at that instant" claim to wriggle out of problems, and it rarely works.

 

[JumbleDuck]

does the MAIB report mention the timing of when this advice was provided to Stormforce? was it before or after he refunded the passengers their money?

What passengers?

 

[capnsensible]

One could argue that because the coding had lapsed, the boat was no longer a commercial vessel. Further to that, one could say that seeing as the crew were not paying customers, the voyage was not commercial.

Therefore one could surmise that a tragic accident happened on a non commercial vessel on a non commercial voyage.

Just sayin, not opinin.

You may be the owner of a taxi in, say London. Fully licensed. You decide to move to Glasgow and re apply for a licence there. You ask a mate to drive it there. Is it still a taxi? He takes a couple of friends who dib in a bit for petrol. Is it still a taxi?

What is my opinion is that there seems no SCV experience or advisory at the Big Ship MCA. Perhaps there is a real lack of understanding in house. The Maritime Labour Convention tends to bear that out to a large extent. Not practical targets for little boats......

 

[lpdsn]

One could argue that because the coding had lapsed, the boat was no longer a commercial vessel. Further to that, one could say that seeing as the crew were not paying customers, the voyage was not commercial.

Therefore one could surmise that a tragic accident happened on a non commercial vessel on a non commercial voyage.

Just sayin, not opinin.

That was, I think, the defence case. They lost. I just felt that rather than losing on the facts they lost on insinuations that Doug Innes was an uncaring money-grabbing b'stard who'd rather go on a pub crawl than worry about the people on his boat.

But then, we go back to the first page or two and start again...

I suspect this court case is not the final word on the interpretation of commercial voyage.

 

[steveej]

What passengers?

Passengers as per the definition specified in MGN 280 page 24

 

[capnsensible]

PS: I've a brother who is a taxi driver in the UK. It's more clear cut as private miles are declared as part of the tax return.

Now there's a thing...........

 

[lpdsn]

And all sorts of other things. A taxi is only licensed in one area, so can't drive out of that area and pick up unless pre-booked.

 

[capnsensible]

And all sorts of other things. A taxi is only licensed in one area, so can't drive out of that area and pick up unless pre-booked.

Thats commercial, mebbe the driver can take his mates on a jolly to Blackpool?

 

[lpdsn]

Thats commercial, mebbe the driver can take his mates on a jolly to Blackpool?

Very much so. But then there's the tax implications and arguments about whether the number of private miles are genuine and perhaps tax bills on the assumption that they aren't. My brother finds it easier (cheaper) to run a second car for private use.

 

[Uricanejack]

Nope Stormforce and others do not offer or were not offering RYA validated courses therefore there was no action that the RYA could take.

What?
Storm force coaching offer all the RYA courses CC DS And all varieties of YM
This trip was not a Course but the young man who was an intern was working towards a YM

 

[syc1]

What?
Storm force coaching offer all the RYA courses CC DS And all varieties of YM
This trip was not a Course but the young man who was an intern was working towards a YM

I think the difference in the RYA's response was that in the previous case the incident happened whilst the vessel was engaged in an RYA activity, in the case of CR she was not, so the RYA had no reason to react until the principal was convicted of an offence. Maybe?

 

[duncan99210]

I think the difference in the RYA's response was that in the previous case the incident happened whilst the vessel was engaged in an RYA activity, in the case of CR she was not, so the RYA had no reason to react until the principal was convicted of an offence. Maybe?

As I said in post #135, if CR wasn't conducting RYA courses at the time of the incident, therefore the RYA wasn't in a position to do anything about the status of Stormforce until the court reached a verdict.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

I think the difference in the RYA's response was that in the previous case the incident happened whilst the vessel was engaged in an RYA activity, in the case of CR she was not, so the RYA had no reason to react until the principal was convicted of an offence. Maybe?

That was what I was rather poorly inferring.

 

[westernman]

Note that it is well nigh impossible to get a boat like CR coded to Cat 0.

I talked to a Spanish charter fleet owner, who in order to make ends meet, charters his yachts in the Med in summer and in the Carribean in winter. They are just ordinary Bavarias with no special equipment beyond what you would see on a Cat 2 coded boat.

The voyage from the Med to the Carribean and the voyage from the Carribean to the Med are just charters (albeit at a cheapish rate) - but with a drop off point different from the start point. I.e. the crew are paying him for the delivery!

The danger that the MCA runs in insisting that the re-positioning of a charter boat at the end of a season is commercial, due to the fact that it is almost impossible to get a Cat 0 coding for most charter boats, is that no charter boats will be UK registered but will all end up on another much less onerous register. This would not be an improvement in safety.

Should MCA Cat 0 requirements be reduced a little in order to make it feasible for a "normal" charter yacht to get coded?

I think that the boat builders should bear at least some of the responsibility. Keels should not ever drop off with no warning. It should be easy to ascertain whether a keel has been compromised without a hugely expensive keel dropping exercise. How many private owners will be dropping the keel after what they think is a minor grounding when no damage is visible?

It is pretty obvious that charter boats will get run aground. And also pretty obvious that the average charter skipper is not going to tell the charterer about it, if there is no obvious damage.

I think that may be there should be some amendment to RCD (at least for category A), to ensure that better more maintainable/inspectable construction techniques are used.

Personally I don't think Stormforce did anything different from a lot (most?) of other charter companies out there.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Note that it is well nigh impossible to get a boat like CR coded to Cat 0.

I talked to a Spanish charter fleet owner, who in order to make ends meet, charters his yachts in the Med in summer and in the Carribean in winter. They are just ordinary Bavarias with no special equipment beyond what you would see on a Cat 2 coded boat.

The voyage from the Med to the Carribean and the voyage from the Carribean to the Med are just charters (albeit at a cheapish rate) - but with a drop off point different from the start point. I.e. the crew are paying him for the delivery!

The danger that the MCA runs in insisting that the re-positioning of a charter boat at the end of a season is commercial, due to the fact that it is almost impossible to get a Cat 0 coding for most charter boats, is that no charter boats will be UK registered but will all end up on another much less onerous register. This would not be an improvement in safety. So laws and regulations are not made for the convenience of those that operate within them.
Should MCA Cat 0 requirements be reduced a little in order to make it feasible for a "normal" charter yacht to get coded?
NO
I think that the boat builders should bear at least some of the responsibility. Keels should not ever drop off with no warning. It should be easy to ascertain whether a keel has been compromised without a hugely expensive keel dropping exercise. How many private owners will be dropping the keel after what they think is a minor grounding when no damage is visible?
It is part of the coding that there has to be at least one independent survey / inspection in the 1st 3 years armed with the knowledge that the boat will have had a hard life surveyors should be inspecting on that basis

It is pretty obvious that charter boats will get run aground. And also pretty obvious that the average charter skipper is not going to tell the charterer about it, if there is no obvious damage.
It can be assumed as you point out and in cases like this the boats are rarely bareboat charters.

I think that may be there should be some amendment to RCD (at least for category A), to ensure that better more maintainable/inspectable construction techniques are used.
Probably it will happen

Personally I don't think Stormforce did anything different from a lot (most?) of other charter companies out there.

No excuse

 

[Kukri]

No excuse

I wonder what it must be like to be as self righteous as you are?

 

[westernman]

The FAA allows babies on a plane to be carried in a lap of the parent if they are less than two years old.

Why?
Obviously this is pretty dangerous compared to having the baby strapped in to a proper child seat.

Because they calculated the probable number of deaths and injuries that would occur in the event of requiring babies to be in a proper child seat. They estimated that if they required child seats, then a substantial number of families in the USA would choose to travel by car instead of by air due to the added cost. This would cause more deaths and injuries than allowing babies to fly loose around the inside of a plane.

Hence my comment about reducing a little some of the requirements for MCA Cat 0 coding. It would be better if more boats were coded to Cat 0 than having the majority of boats crossing the Atlantic only coded to Cat 2 (or worse still not coded at all) because of a grey weasel definition of "commercial".

The MCA know if they tightened up on the definition and or application of commercial for such re-positionings (and hence make Cat 0 a requirement, that they would force many charter yachts off the UK register and onto some other register with considerably more lax requirements for commercial operation (e.g. Spain, France, Belgium, Holland etc).

The objective is to make things safer - not impose an impossible standard which will be ignored.

 

[sarabande]

There are comments above about testing the keel boats, and also perhaps owners not knowing (or being kept in the dark) about groundings.


I am just thinking about a strain gauge or sensor built in to the keel bolts ( or maybe just the leading one). Boat hits the rocks, keel transfers shock to the hull via bolts and interface, shock load is recorded either as a physical witness mark, or electronically to an uncompromisable unit (as in odometers), and can be read or interrogated by a cheap device such as used by vets to read micro-chips.


How difficult can that be ?

 

[alant]

The FAA allows babies on a plane to be carried in a lap of the parent if they are less than two years old.

Why?
Obviously this is pretty dangerous compared to having the baby strapped in to a proper child seat.

Because they calculated the probable number of deaths and injuries that would occur in the event of requiring babies to be in a proper child seat. They estimated that if they required child seats, then a substantial number of families in the USA would choose to travel by car instead of by air due to the added cost. This would cause more deaths and injuries than allowing babies to fly loose around the inside of a plane.

Hence my comment about reducing a little some of the requirements for MCA Cat 0 coding. It would be better if more boats were coded to Cat 0 than having the majority of boats crossing the Atlantic only coded to Cat 2 (or worse still not coded at all) because of a grey weasel definition of "commercial".

The MCA know if they tightened up on the definition and or application of commercial for such re-positionings (and hence make Cat 0 a requirement, that they would force many charter yachts off the UK register and onto some other register with considerably more lax requirements for commercial operation (e.g. Spain, France, Belgium, Holland etc).

The objective is to make things safer - not impose an impossible standard which will be ignored.

Babies on a ferry in UK, are not even counted or classed as "passengers" when boarding, so when the skipper advises VTS of passenger numbers before departing a dock, they are not included.

 

[lw395]

Note that it is well nigh impossible to get a boat like CR coded to Cat 0.

I talked to a Spanish charter fleet owner, who in order to make ends meet, charters his yachts in the Med in summer and in the Carribean in winter. They are just ordinary Bavarias with no special equipment beyond what you would see on a Cat 2 coded boat.

The voyage from the Med to the Carribean and the voyage from the Carribean to the Med are just charters (albeit at a cheapish rate) - but with a drop off point different from the start point. I.e. the crew are paying him for the delivery!

The danger that the MCA runs in insisting that the re-positioning of a charter boat at the end of a season is commercial, due to the fact that it is almost impossible to get a Cat 0 coding for most charter boats, is that no charter boats will be UK registered but will all end up on another much less onerous register. This would not be an improvement in safety.

Should MCA Cat 0 requirements be reduced a little in order to make it feasible for a "normal" charter yacht to get coded?

I think that the boat builders should bear at least some of the responsibility. Keels should not ever drop off with no warning. It should be easy to ascertain whether a keel has been compromised without a hugely expensive keel dropping exercise. How many private owners will be dropping the keel after what they think is a minor grounding when no damage is visible?

It is pretty obvious that charter boats will get run aground. And also pretty obvious that the average charter skipper is not going to tell the charterer about it, if there is no obvious damage.

I think that may be there should be some amendment to RCD (at least for category A), to ensure that better more maintainable/inspectable construction techniques are used.

Personally I don't think Stormforce did anything different from a lot (most?) of other charter companies out there.

Presumably what the MCA is trying to achieve is that people don't die in yachts crossing the Atlantic?
That is the problem, not that the boat was not coded.
The conviction is under the section of law about running a ship in an unsafe manner, not any technical stuff about coding.
It's not the MCA's job to encourage or even allow yachts to be British flagged in mid Atlantic if it's not safe.
We've seen the ocean yachting industry expand a lot in recent years, and deaths are happening.
Clipper.
It all flies in the face of modern safety/blame/nanny-state culture.
Maybe the industry needs winding in a bit?