Cheeki Rafiki yacht operator cleared over sailor deaths

Uricanejack said:
Depends how you define "afloat". Yes the boat remained. Upturned just floating, awash 0ver 90% flooded. No chance of survival in upturned hull.
The MCA may have added some clarification to coding. Even so it appears a similar boat could quite legally enter the same ARC race. As a commercial voyage. With paid crew and paying customers. Sail the Caribbean season as a charter vessel.

The clarification. To "legally" complete the return trip as a commercial voyage. A "race" back from the Caribbean to the UK is required.

In which case surely precisely the same risks of failure exist.
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The point I was making is that watertight bulkheads would probably not made any difference. The yacht capsized because of the loss of its keel, not a collision.

I have some sympathy with the MCA position. There really is not a direct link between the coding issues and the accident and it is perfectly legal to undertake such a passage if it is a recognised race and therefore subject to different rules. This is somewhat odd as one might think the risks are greater when racing than when delivering or cruising.

As ever, single incidents make bad law and in particular when not only were there many factors to consider, but there are also many unknowns, particularly about what really caused the keel to become detached.

Stricter laws and greater restrictions are not always the answer.
 
Tranona said:
The point I was making is that watertight bulkheads would probably not made any difference. The yacht capsized because of the loss of its keel, not a collision.

I have some sympathy with the MCA position. There really is not a direct link between the coding issues and the accident and it is perfectly legal to undertake such a passage if it is a recognised race and therefore subject to different rules. This is somewhat odd as one might think the risks are greater when racing than when delivering or cruising.

As ever, single incidents make bad law and in particular when not only were there many factors to consider, but there are also many unknowns, particularly about what really caused the keel to become detached.

Stricter laws and greater restrictions are not always the answer.
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I do get your point about changing law based on a single incident particularly where there is scanty information about what happened. Yet laws often due change directly as a result of fatal accidents.

I would say I am confused by the MCA position rather than sympathetic or unsympathetic. The coding issue appears to me to have been central to the criminal charges. Without the coding issue. Where was the crime?

Even so. To some extent I think this point is still debatable.

If I put my boat into a charter fleet. It is commercial. Fair enough.

If I use my owners time to sail with a few friends and take the boat beyond its coded vessel limits. I am on a coded vessel sailing beyond its code limits with friends for pleasure. Would I be guilty of the same offence if something happens? According to this case it would appear so.

If my boat was never chartered or coded. I would not be. Its a pleasure vessel.
What's the difference?

In many ways the risks are different and probably greater when racing. Take a group of mates out racing. Most of us would probably sail harder and take greater risks than I might with my wife and kids.
A sponsored or professionally crewed racing an ocean racing boat. Take greater risks. Professionally crewed racing boats are usually specially designed with the risks of racing in mind. Even if only from the point of view of completing the race rather than crew safety.

This type of boat was not designed as a professionally crewed ocean racing boat.
 
Uricanejack said:
I do get your point about changing law based on a single incident particularly where there is scanty information about what happened. Yet laws often due change directly as a result of fatal accidents.
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Almost every single aspect of railway signalling and safety has come about as the result of a fatal accident. For example, continuous automatic braking became mandatory as a direct response to the Armagh Rail Disaster, in which 80 died.

Although hard cases make bad law, in this case legal/regulatory changes would be responding not to the Cheeki Rafiki incident but to the wider underlying issues it revealed.
 
Tranona said:
You cannot insure against being found guilty and fined for an offence.

A Suspended sentence means that it could be activated in the event of another similar offence within the period of the sentence. Whatever happens he still has a criminal record. Saves the state paying to keep a low risk person in prison.

The recommendation was that the MCA clarified the rules on coding.

Just to clarify, whatever caused the accident, the boat did have sufficient buoyancy to still be afloat several days afterwards. Given that the boat capsized and threw the crew in the water it is difficult to see how even a watertight bulkhead as required for higher category boats would have changed the outcome.
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It seems a very strange statement to say that "the boat did have sufficient buoyancy to stay afloat......"

If you take away the weight of the keel, a great many boats would still float, even if holed. What point are you trying to make?
 
Doug Innes and Stormforce were convicted on the charge of failing to operate the vessel in a safe manner: in other words, the vessel had not been maintained in a fit state to be safe at sea. The evidence of a failure to obtain a survey, operating outside the coding limits and the other topics we've debated on here were all produced by the prosecution to support that charge. In other words, Innes' overall approach to the way he ran his business, for example ignoring the need for a survey, supported the prosecution case that he and his company had failed to maintain the boat in a satisfactory manner.
The discussions about coding, dodges round the rules by 'racing' and other topics are important but are not central to the fact that Doug Innes was found guilty of failing to ensure the safety of a boat he was operating and thus the safety of its crew.
 
Life today seems to be more about bits of paper, certification, qualifications etc rather than the real world. I suggest that all the bits of paper in the World would have made no difference to the outcome.
 
JumbleDuck said:
Almost every single aspect of railway signalling and safety has come about as the result of a fatal accident. For example, continuous automatic braking became mandatory as a direct response to the Armagh Rail Disaster, in which 80 died.

Although hard cases make bad law, in this case legal/regulatory changes would be responding not to the Cheeki Rafiki incident but to the wider underlying issues it revealed.
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Yep.:)
 
savageseadog said:
Life today seems to be more about bits of paper, certification, qualifications etc rather than the real world. I suggest that all the bits of paper in the World would have made no difference to the outcome.
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If I recall correctly. There was no shortage of certification. There was an issue with the coding and the commercial aspect of the voyage.
To my mind the boat was just not fit for purpose to complete a voyage across the N Atlantic.
The choice to sail a similar boat on a similar voyage is a personal choice if its your own boat and the purpose is pleasure or adventure.
A commercial venture. Is quite different.
 
savageseadog said:
Life today seems to be more about bits of paper, certification, qualifications etc rather than the real world. I suggest that all the bits of paper in the World would have made no difference to the outcome.
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Inability to get a bit of paper required for the trip, and consequent cancellation of the trip, would have helped.
 
The thing that puzzles me to a degree is why wasn't the charge corporate manslaughter? Innes was found guilty of failing to operate the vessel in a safe manner ie negligent, there seems little doubt that he was the "controlling mind" in the operation and decision to bring the boat back without independent survey and to circumvent regulations in the manner which the crew were "employed"

However he has been tried twice now and his punishment has been decreed it is not fair to continue to accuse or try to retry him on a forum and I say this as a hard critic of his actions.
 
NormanS said:
It seems a very strange statement to say that "the boat did have sufficient buoyancy to stay afloat......"

If you take away the weight of the keel, a great many boats would still float, even if holed. What point are you trying to make?
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I was responding to the earlier about the level of coding where one of the principal differences is the requirement of a watertight bulkhead and commenting that it would not have been relevant to this incident. The hull floated without its keel and it would have been the same even if it had a watertight bulkhead.

It is possible to survive in an upturned hull, but maybe not in this one. It is a moot point, though because the crew were not in the hull, but in the water.
 
Tranona said:
It is possible to survive in an upturned hull, but maybe not in this one. It is a moot point, though because the crew were not in the hull, but in the water.
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What’s your evidence for that? I believe the USCG diver didn’t enter the upturned hull.
 
BelleSerene said:
What’s your evidence for that? I believe the USCG diver didn’t enter the upturned hull.
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You are right - but I have never seen any claim that there were bodies in the hull, and the EPIRB/PLB signals were not in the same location as the hull. Perhaps if there had been evidence that any crew were still there there might have been a more thorough search of the hull.

It is a reasonable assumption that the crew did leave the boat.
 
savageseadog said:
On what basis would that piece of paper been served?
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Its a fairly big IF. With the benefit of 20 20 hindsight.

A Code 0 piece of paper.

If D Innes had listened to the MCA when they told him it was a commercial voyage which would require a CAT 0 coding. He might have made other arrangements and this incident would never have happened.
 
Tranona said:
I was responding to the earlier about the level of coding where one of the principal differences is the requirement of a watertight bulkhead and commenting that it would not have been relevant to this incident. The hull floated without its keel and it would have been the same even if it had a watertight bulkhead.

It is possible to survive in an upturned hull, but maybe not in this one. It is a moot point, though because the crew were not in the hull, but in the water.
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I am not familiar with all the differences in requirements for a Code 2 and a Code 0 boat. I would suspect there is more to it than just the provision of transvers bulkheads.
Much of it being differences in stability and particularly damaged stability. Which would affect survivability.

Would a Cat 0 boat survive a catastrophic keel failure. I wouldn't know.

Not very long ago a boat from the Clyde was lost near the Azores. Without getting into all the details which I don't know. I believe the crew all survived.
 
Uricanejack said:
Its a fairly big IF. With the benefit of 20 20 hindsight.

A Code 0 piece of paper.

If D Innes had listened to the MCA when they told him it was a commercial voyage which would require a CAT 0 coding. He might have made other arrangements and this incident would never have happened.
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Correct... The alternative being to ship the boat back.
 
savageseadog said:
But would correctly coding the boat stopped the keel from dropping off?
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It would have stopped the keel dropping off on a commercial trip more than 60 miles from shore, because the boat could never have met the requirements and therefore wouldn't have been there.
 
Mark-1 said:
It would have stopped the keel dropping off on a commercial trip more than 60 miles from shore, because the boat could never have met the requirements and therefore wouldn't have been there.
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Exactly. Given that they had at least 24 hours between "there's some water" and it falling off, then if the boat was being used in Coastal waters there is very little chance of it falling off before they could make a safe haven and arrange for the boat to be lifted.
 
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