Cheeki Rafiki deaths: Yacht firm boss guilty

Minn said:
I agree. Not that I know much about it. My only experience on a Cat 0 boat was a day out in the Solent organised by the MCA (!) using two of Sir RK-J's RTW Clippers (it was "big ship folks vs yotties" - the big ship folks won haha!") I remember looking round that boat and thinking two thoughts - "This boat's design and outfit have been taken very seriously indeed" and "There's nothing here that I can criticise, but she must have cost a fortune!"

Surprised that nobody else has raised the death of Frans Maas - a very respected designer, in his own, not so very extreme, boat, and not in a position where the might have just clouted the tail of a bank.
Click to expand...

Have you seen the pictures of the keel that boat had?
 
How easy would it have been to identify the keel had been compromised? Would it have been obvious from visual inspection?
 
Minn said:
You could not be more spectacularly mistaken. You may not have read my other posts on this thread. To save you the trouble, here is one:

You may well operate British flagged ships in what capacity I don't know or really care and it has little relevance . However you interpretations of a commercial voyage in this case are wrong, whatever basis you were making that judgement on is not considering the Law and how it is interpreted. You may have an axe to grind with the MCA but this is not the case to do it on.

There are those here who know me and can confirm that I am not making it up - "references on request"...
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
petehb said:
You may well operate British flagged ships in what capacity I don't know or really care and it has little relevance . However you interpretations of a commercial voyage in this case are wrong, whatever basis you were making that judgement on is not considering the Law and how it is interpreted. You may have an axe to grind with the MCA but this is not the case to do it on.
Click to expand...

This is getting tiresome.

First you say that I obviously don't have H&S responsibility for people. When I point out that I had already said that I do, you announce that I "have an axe to grind with the MCA" (I certainly don't) and tell me that my interpretation of "a commercial voyage" is "not considering the Law and how it is interpreted".

Cite the case law, please.

I suggest that you take a couple of Paracetamol and have a lie down in a quiet place for a while.
 
lpdsn said:
I agree with a lot of that, but not all.

I realise you want all business to be run like large multi-nationals or the civil service with lots more people doing the paperwork than doing the work but that's never going to happen in a small business. Of course you could create an environment where small businesses can't operate, but then who pays for the civil service. So, for example, the fact they only recorded the faults found in their internal surveys rather than spending a couple of days per boat writing up what they checked and found ok doesn't count.

No I want businesses to be run in accordance with the law, regulations and best practice in their area.

Also please take out everything implying he was trying to get rich quick or wanting Carribean holidays. These businesses are very marginal. If he was getting rich quick he'd have expanded (or got a better suit/lawyer for the trial). Until I see any evidence to the contrary I'll continue to assume that it was a marginal business, that he was only doing this type of Carribean trade to keep the business going and that spending way over the odds would've quickly put him out of business. Then a delivery crew would've commenced the voyage quite legally to get the boat back.
​I mentioned the holiday because it may have been a factor in influencing the owner and indeed Innes for putting the boat in the Caribbean. Supplimenting its income certainly was. Yes the business was probably marginal and that goes into the picture of "doing things on a shoestring"
Bermuda is a red herring because fuel was never an issue, which is all they'd have gained by stoppping there. It was disappointing however that the skipper didn't check they had a chart before setting off - the only mistake I can blame him for.
No Bermuda isn't a red herring it is a standard port of call on the Northern route and a prudent skipper would have planned for it and Innes does seem to have been very actively involved in the planning.

You're completely wrong on the mobile phone top-ups. There are money laundering regulations which are implemented by all/most mobile operators to prevent anyone building up too much on a prepaid account. What DI did was absolutely reasonable. used
Not sure about that there are plenty of Sat Phone contracts with far more air time specifically when download of data is to be expected.

You're also going too far in your arguments for negligence/gross negligence. It is not negligent per se to cross the Atlantic in a 40.7 or similar boat. They are explicitly designed to a standard for that purpose (RDC Cat A). Any private citizen can do it. The coding issue was treated as a separate offence (for which he was found guilty). Hard to say it is GROSS negligence when many others, with slightly different commercial/paperwork positions, could've quite legally done it.
The case for negligence as I said is built on the cumulative history of the boat and how it was managed compounded in the final days before setting out from Antigua. Not on how it was operated in comparison with other boats.

Similarly it was normal practice to lift out or inspect the bottom after a grounding, but it was NOT normal practice to drop the keel for the inspection and there is very good reason to believe that there is a much reduced chance of spotting significant damage without dropping the keel. So again, can't demonstrate gross negligence on DI's part there. I do think some blame should be shared around on that one and also that a means of reliably testing for de-bonding has to become normal practice, but that is aside from the g negligence argument.
Read the surveyors comments about detecting problems and the necessity if suspected of dropping the keel and slackening the rigging although you appear to understand that it is difficult to detect problems without dropping the keel. Given the boats history it would have been prudent to inform a surveyor of the boats history and let him decide whether it was needed.

You also have to accept the general understanding what was necessary to run these vessels at that time. There is no evidence that other operators were particularly concerned about de-bonding. Did the guidance for MCA surveys even say, make sure you thoroughly check for de-bonding of the floors? It should now, but I doubt it did then.
There is plenty of evidence of keel and matrix problems in the 40.7 boats read the MAIB report. Given the boats history and recent groundings a prudent manager would have arranged for a survey and disclosed the boats history to the surveyor, given that what do you think a surveyor would have done? Why do you think Innes didn't do just that before the ARC?

I am glad you agree with me about the irrelevance of the pub visits - but I suspect it was an influencial part of the prosecution case.
I doubt it.

Anyway, I'm going to be offline for a few days after this, so enjoy the debate. :)

PS And there is obviously a lot of room for improvement regarding liferafts for ocean voyages on both ISAF (WS) and the MCAs part. Not easy as I suspect even float-free liferafts would've more likely blown away than been caught even if they had floated free after an inversion (they often don't when required and installed on fishing vessels)
Click to expand...

​I agree see flamingos comments, my life raft used to be configured to float free on a long tether.
 
Minn said:
This is getting tiresome.

First you say that I obviously don't have H&S responsibility for people. When I point out that I had already said that I do, you announce that I "have an axe to grind with the MCA" (I certainly don't) and tell me that my interpretation of "a commercial voyage" is "not considering the Law and how it is interpreted".

Cite the case law, please.

I suggest that you take a couple of Paracetamol and have a lie down in a quiet place for a while.
Click to expand...
No I didn't say you don't I said I doubted it! you do seem to have an axe to grind over the MCA. I don't need to cite the law the MCA did and it was ignored. Are you saying that you know better than the MCA how the regulations are formulated and should be interpreted? I think at your age it is unwise to get so carried away, you need every day for a longer life stress is a killer:p
 
jimi said:
How easy would it have been to identify the keel had been compromised? Would it have been obvious from visual inspection?
Click to expand...

Probably not and it was visually inspected in the water, the MAIB report has a section about the keel problems and repairs where surveyors agree that it is difficult to detect the problems particularly with the matrix with the Keel in place and the rigging in tension as it would help to hide detachment and delammination.
 
lw395 said:
Not sure that oxymoron will actually work in 5m waves.
Click to expand...

MCA Cat 0 liferafts requires two liferafts each of adequate capacity for the entire crew which have to be float free and with a weak link in the tether so that the boat cannot go down with them inflated and attached.

The weak link can obviously be a problem in heavy weather as it might break when you don't want it to.

But that is not the problem. Cat 0 also requires water tight bulk heads arranged such that with any one compartment completely flooded the boat floats with a certain amount of free board. This is usually difficult (practically impossible) to build into a typical AWB.

But probably all that would still not have made much different to the outcome when unexpectedly the keel falls off in less than calm conditions.

I think RCD needs to be amended such that keels don't fall off in an unexpected way, and any damage to a keel which may compromise it, must be readily visible to an unskilled person doing an inspection - possibly using an underwater camera.

Also all boats for Cat 2 or better should be required to meet this requirement retrospectively. This will of course enormously devalue many boats, making them unsaleable and put some sailing schools out of business.
 
petehb said:
No I didn't say you don't I said I doubted it! you do seem to have an axe to grind over the MCA. I don't need to cite the law the MCA did and it was ignored. Are you saying that you know better than the MCA how the regulations are formulated and should be interpreted? I think at your age it is unwise to get so carried away, you need every day for a longer life stress is a killer:p
Click to expand...

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!"
 
Minn said:
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!"
Click to expand...

Someone has to set the standards and someone has to police them when commercialism enters the world of sport, diving is a very good example. Many divers in the past and even now I will warrant do work in exchange for money or like that regulations specify should be done by professional divers with all the necessary procedures and standby diver. There has been a recent prosecution of a man that employed a man to do this work in complete disregard of the law he unfortunately died the man was jailed for manslaughter. Think about the number of threads where someone has got a diver to look for his prop or anchor etc! The HSE regulate commercial diving and could easily regulate the marine leisure industry with the aid of expert advice in setting the regulations. That is what I would be in favour of.
 
Re: Cheeki Rafiki discussion.

A gentle reminder please...

This thread is very important, and we are fortunate in having experienced specialists who are contributing in detail.


Please do not allow discussions to degenerate into personal attacks. Keep the discussion as objective as you can, given that we can all imagine ourselves in the position of one or several who were involved in the management or operation of CR's last voyage..

thanks

Moderator
 
Since the subject of float-free liferafts is cropping up frequently, it's worth mentioning that it may not be of much relevance in this case as it's not particularly likely the hydrostatic release would have activated in an inversion such as this, since they do so at a depth of between 1.5 and 4.0 metres.
 
Simondjuk said:
Since the subject of float-free liferafts is cropping up frequently, it's worth mentioning that it may not be of much relevance in this case as it's not particularly likely the hydrostatic release would have activated in an inversion such as this, since they do so at a depth of between 1.5 and 4.0 metres.
Click to expand...

Indeed. All the discussion about paperwork being in order, Cat 0 vs Cat 2, commercial or not. Float free life rafts for Cat 0, more phone minutes for the Sat phone, ....

None of this would have in any way have changed the outcome. Getting a Cat 0 or Cat 2 renewed, does not involve a full structural survey. In most cases no lift out is required. It is more a paper exercise to check that all the safety equipment is present and in date. The keel problem would probably have not been detected. For less than 15M many renewals are just a check box thing filled out by the owner!

The real problem is that the boat is constructed in such a manner such that a serious degradation in structural integrity cannot be readily ascertained.

In my mind this is a RCD issue which needs to be resolved such that it is blindingly obvious to anybody who looks at the keel of a boat from an underwater camera (as typically done after a charter) or the area around the keel boats in the interior of the boat, if the keel is going to fall off or not.

Please bear in mind, the average charterer will deny having ever run aground unless their is some obvious damage and it is clearly unreasonable to require an out of water inspection with a keel drop before every charter.

I think the issue is serious enough (and there have already been too many deaths due to keels falling off) that the RCD code should be updated and the new part of the code with respect to keels should be retroactively applied to all commercially operated boats. (And I would not be wanting to buy a private boat which had not been updated to comply - and this may well not be possible with some boats whose second hand value is going to crash overnight)
 
westernman said:
Indeed. All the discussion about paperwork being in order, Cat 0 vs Cat 2, commercial or not. Float free life rafts for Cat 0, more phone minutes for the Sat phone, ....

None of this would have in any way have changed the outcome. Getting a Cat 0 or Cat 2 renewed, does not involve a full structural survey. In most cases no lift out is required. It is more a paper exercise to check that all the safety equipment is present and in date. The keel problem would probably have not been detected. For less than 15M many renewals are just a check box thing filled out by the owner!

The real problem is that the boat is constructed in such a manner such that a serious degradation in structural integrity cannot be readily ascertained.

In my mind this is a RCD issue which needs to be resolved such that it is blindingly obvious to anybody who looks at the keel of a boat from an underwater camera (as typically done after a charter) or the area around the keel boats in the interior of the boat, if the keel is going to fall off or not.

Please bear in mind, the average charterer will deny having ever run aground unless their is some obvious damage and it is clearly unreasonable to require an out of water inspection with a keel drop before every charter.

I think the issue is serious enough (and there have already been too many deaths due to keels falling off) that the RCD code should be updated and the new part of the code with respect to keels should be retroactively applied to all commercially operated boats. (And I would not be wanting to buy a private boat which had not been updated to comply - and this may well not be possible with some boats whose second hand value is going to crash overnight)
Click to expand...

Some interesting points:
A Cat 2 initial survey will check for structural integrity and has to be done by a qualified surveyor, it is valid for 5 years and the owner / manager can survey for the first two years then an independent survey is required this may or may not be an in water survey. One should bear in mind the history of the boat being surveyed I am sure a surveyor who informed of a history similar to CR would require the boat out of the water.

I take your point about the RCD and indeed there were introductions to the design criteria re keels and attachment post CR design and build. However again I think your point is valid in that designs that include attachment points like the matrix deck on the 40.7 should be outside the RCD as it is both difficult and expensive to detect problems.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top