Chichester Marina hazard to navigation warning

[jfm]

This is generally reasonable, however --

1. The judge's obiter dictum in Windsor-Roanoke about not taking course and speed literally, has NOT been accepted as a general rule, and has not been extended to sailboats tacking up a channel (or to ships' adjusting compasses, or to anything else for that matter), so take it with a grain of salt. As a matter of law, this is anything but "case closed" -- it is one argument you can make, but it's not binding precedent if it's not on point, and has not been generally accepted as a rule with broad application.

2. It is NEVER reasonable, as the stand-on vessel, to assume that the give-way vessel is taking adequate measures to prevent a collision. You are specifically obligated to keep a sharp watch and take action when necessary. The idea that you can tack willy-nilly up a channel without regard to developing collision situations is wrong on several different levels. You must see that you have room to tack, before executing the tack -- you must not just tack and let the mobo worry about it, including breaking his stern gear or whatever. This is a general, and important, principle of collision avoidance, which is often neglected, as it is very different from how it's done in land, in traffic.

Dockhead,I'm increasingly disagreeing with you in your last few posts.

What is your basis for saying the quoted part of Lord Alverstone's speech is merely obiter? If the claim from the other ship was that Roanoke disobeyed 17(a)(i) then surely that part of the speech is ratio. The eminent Cockcroft even quotes it in the bit of his book dealing with rule 17: why would he bother quoting obiter? I've ordered the full case and it turns out that it is ratio I'll be back on your case, somewhat firmly(!). In the same vein, you advance no argument why Lord A's rule isn't applicable to sailboats tacking in a channel, despite the fact that at least prima facie it is. One looks look for principles in case law; there's no need for identical facts, so it is "on point". Your reference to the later compass adjusting collision case is fundamentally flawed - you should check which way that particular gun is pointing before repeatedly pulling the trigger; it supports my position and Bedouin's not yours

Ref your para 2, you ought to put the spade down. First, the reference to willy nilly is entirely a strawman that you have invented. Second, there is nothing in Colregs requiring any sailboat to be sure of room to tack when 17(a)(i) applies to it, nor is there anything in Colregs saying the stand on vessel should worry about the give-way's stern gear. You are letting your mind drift onto what you think is right, as distinct from what Colregs actually say. Great that you care about someone else's' stern gear, but someone who doesn't isn't thereby in breach of Colregs. (FWIW, I would proffer the thought that anyone wanting consideration for his own stern gear is more likely to get it if he has clean hands, unlike Mr Dashcam Tooter!)

 

[Dockhead]

Dockhead, I totally get the point that one party's obligation doesn't create a mirror image privilege for the other, and indeed that is why my posts have been laser focussed on the sailboat's obligations under 17(a)(i) and the question of whether tacking at edge of channel is a breach, and I have never got distracted by the multiple failings of the mobo because they are not relevant to that question. But actually this point of yours misses the mark, because the sailboat is required to continue as before, ie tack at the edges of the channel; it isn't a privilege at all

I really struggle to accept your analysis of what Lord Alverstone said. I have searched for the case and can't find it online, so have ordered a paper copy which takes a few days. Meantime, are you absolutely sure that his speech was about the give-way ship's obligation to anticipate, and not about the stand on boat's obligations to hold course and speed? If you're right then of course you are right and I will very happily stand corrected, but it is difficult to believe anything other than that the legal argument in point was whether the stand-on ship was culpable when it stopped for the pilot, which surely must be a rule 17(a)(i) point? Lord Alverstone even uses the exact same words as 17(a)(i), namely "course and speed" - those very words have been in prior incarnations of what is now numbered as 17(a)(i) since the 1860's.

Your "no doctrine in interpretation of the COLREGS, that a stand-on vessel has the right to behave as it likes, deviating from course and speed willy nilly if only that is part of some ordinary maneuver which could be anticipated by the give-way vessel" is pure strawman made up by you, with respect. No-one here is saying that and nor did Lord Alverstone. Furthermore the compass adjustment case supports my position and Bedouin's not yours: the courts distinguished Roanoke precisely because a compass adjustment is not an ordinary or expected manoeuvre and so the other ship wasn't at fault for not expecting it - in complete contrast to Roanoke's stopping to pick up a pilot who was visibly there in his pilot boat, and in complete contrast to the case of yachts tacking up a channel scenario which is entirely ordinary and indeed the Dashcam mobo himself had personally witnessed several tacks before the ones where he almost crashed.

Finally your "I am not aware of Windsor-Roanoke ever having been applied as precedent in a case where a sailing vessel tacked under the bows of another vessel" is neither here nor there: caselaw can answer a question of principle without the exact facts needing to be the same. The Lord Alverstone speech is completely pertinent to this Chichester thread and tacking yachts.

I therefore think you are pretty wide of the mark in your post above, but I'm happy to eat my hat if you're correct when I read the full Roanoke judgement.

(PS, and apropos nothing, I have no idea why Cockcroft misspells in his books the title of the country's most senior judge: there is no "b" in Alverstone. Richard Webster was his real name )

What of a case becomes binding precedent, and what is dictum, and how broadly precedent can be applied, is a major part of common law jurisprudence. There are many principles involved, and the process is pretty complicated. Judges are not infallible, do not have unlimited authority over future generations, and the creation of binding precedent doesn't happen automatically by a long shot.

The judge in Windsor-Roanoke did say, that what that vessel was normally doing, and could have been anticipated by the give-way vessel, is equivalent to holding course and speed -- course and speed should not be taken literally.

This definitely supports the argument, that tacking should be considered to fulfill the obligations of the stand-on vessel, since it is normal practice and can be anticipated. If I were acting as defense attorney to a sailor who'd had a collision with another vessel, under whose bows he had tacked, that's the case I would use.

But the broad implication of this case (the dictum about the meaning of stand-on obligations) has not been widely accepted as precedent, or accepted at all as far as I know. The narrow implication of the case is not controversial (that the give-way vessel is obligated to anticipate). The only two cases I know of which mentioned the case, have both rejected it. One involved compass-adjusting; the other involved tacking (J Boats in the 1920's). So it is doubtful that the judge would be much impressed with this argument. He would ask for a case on point, which followed the broad implication of Windsor, and that I would be unable to produce.

Windsor is not widely accepted, because the broad meaning of what the judge said (the obiter dictum of the case) is simply wrong -- the COLREGS say "course and speed"; they don't say "carry on whatever you were doing". A basic rule of statutory interpretation is that you start with the plain meaning of the statute, if one can be discerned, and "course and speed" is not ambiguous. The judge would say that for sure.

This interpretation is also impractical in its application -- you cannot guess in all situations where a sailboat will tack, where a ship will turn while it's swinging its compass, etc. (and tacking and swinging compasses, are much more like each other, than picking up a pilot), so you cannot, as the give-way vessel, calculate your maneuver -- the literal course and speed holding is fundamental to the practice of collision avoidance. Another rule of statutory interpretation holds that interpretations of statutory language which are impractical in their application, or defeat the basic purpose of the statute, are strongly disfavoured.

And this is reflected in the case law -- the broad rule which you might make out of the judge's comments in Windsor-Roanoke, has not come into existence, despite Cockcroft's favorable mention.

But for sure I would lose the case on Rule 2 and Rule 17(b). Because if my client had tacked under the bows of another vessel, and a collision resulted -- there is just no way that could happen, without several violations on my client's part.

 

[NealB]

All this talk (obiter this, and ratio that, and references to Cockcroft and Lord A ) is all well and good (sincere thanks, by the way), but the only thing that really matters here, surely, is the truly definitive answer.

Come on Daka: whose fault was this, errr, non-incident?

 

[jfm]

Dockhead I firmly disagree that. Your strawmanning is getting pretty tedious. The argument that you cannot generally predict when a sailboat will tack isn't on point because this discussion involves only the question of whether mr Dashcam Tooter ought to have been able to predict that THESE TWO sailboats will tack WHEN THEY REACH THE EDGE (as they had been doing consistently, see video, before Dashcam got up to them. Frankly it would have been the mother of all surprises if they HADN'T tacked). The two cases that didn't apply Lord A's rule didn't overturn it; they merely said it didn't apply in the particular circumstances and in so doing supported the existence of the rule as expressed ( see my gun comment above). Your comments that a HoL precedent isn't very much binding beggars belief. Your analysis of statutory interpretation is heavily flawed on several counts ( the topic is very much my day job ). Your assertion again that Lord A's words were mere obiter is as wholly unsupported as it was the first time. You say that Lord A's rule isn't generally accepted, yet it was established in 1908, reconfirmed in 1938 in the compass adjust case, and cited with approval in arguably the leading colregs textbook (cockcroft) throughout the 1970s/80s/whatever period of decades that book has been reprinted; that beggars belief. And your mention of 17b is another sideshow- wholly irrelevant to the question. And so on.

You started out well in quality of argument but it's all now gone rather downhill to the point where you're saying whatever comes into your head to flog your dead horse and ignoring anything inconvenient. Nothing personal: just saying it as I see it.

 

[MapisM]

J, first of all, I will admit that I'm beginning to lose the plot a bit on the academic side of the debate.
After all, I fully agree that we avoid collisions and get along nicely mostly despite colregs, not because of them, as you nicely put it.
Therefore, my wish to understand each and every ins and outs of the rules is somewhat limited.
I'm still interested in the implications though, and in this respect I can't get my head round the potential practical consequences of what you are saying.

Let me make an example, based on a situation like the one in the video but including some other assumptions - regardless of whether they were true in this specific case, but just because they could apply to a realistic scenario:
1) let's assume that the moboer does what Mr.Dashcam does, up to the moment when he overtakes the sailboat right before it's going to tack.
2) let's assume that the sailboat skipper sees the moboer maneuver, understands that by tacking he will head straight towards a collision risk situation, but decides to tack anyway because he's entitled to (or even obliged, if I understood your colregs interpretation? This is irrelevant for my example, anyway).
3) let's also assume that the conditions would have allowed the skipper to luff up, he was well aware of that, and would have been capable to do such maneuver without any problem, but deliberately decided not to.
4) next step, Mr.Dashcam (as opposed to accelerating, as he does in the video) holds his course and speed, and there is a collision.

Now, if I understood correctly your point, we should expect a court to rule that Mr.Dashcam has 100% responsibility and the skipper none at all, even if he could have (easily, according to my assumption) avoided the collision, and that was understood/acknowledged by the judge?

 

[Bigplumbs]

Some people do like to make things complicated

 

[oldgit]

Chichester Meltdown.

Dear Capt. DAKA Esq.
On reflection would you have done anything differently now or during the original event. ?

 

[piratos]

J, Now, if I understood correctly your point, we should expect a court to rule that Mr.Dashcam has 100% responsibility and the skipper none at all, even if he could have (easily, according to my assumption) avoided the collision, and that was understood/acknowledged by the judge?

Daka's Polls really get the P... boiling - Have I missed them

In a collission there is seldom one part who is 100 responsible, but we are again at the point were the discussion is which of the Colreg rules is the most importent
In the end its all a question about good seamanship. If I was Daka I am sure I would blame that Raggie for tacking in front of me, he could well have timed his tacking better If I was the raggie I might not care about the Mobo.

Now I am none of both, and I would def have been
a) slower than Daka
b) awaiting the Raggie to do something like that

I would like to know why were Daka recording ?? did he expect this to happen

by the way - last week end I was sitting on the aft deck reading and drinking a beer when I heard one of the ferries giving 5 shorts - it was a small sailing dinghy tacking and heading into the fairway in front of the ferry. The dinghy did not change his course, and the ferry turned to the left side of the fairway and having passed the dinghy back to right side of the fairway. Nothing happened, just a proper look out, good seamanship (of the ferry) and and idiot in a sailing dinghy, even violating local rules.

Have a nice day.

 

[Andrew M]

Well, I'm going to say a big thank you to the chaps spending time putting up the mega in depth replies and interpretations, it's actually a really interesting read. and whilst I can't imagine me being able to understand/apply that depth of detail when at the helm it does help relative newbies to coastal like me to grasp some basic understandings of what is practically the best solution for some given situations.

Watching the vid again, if that was me, I would have held back, gone to the right of the channel, closed the gap and timed my pass without having to use much throttle for when the yacht tacked to port and I'd be out of his way by the time he's back over on that side again. move on to the next situation you can see forming up.
Question : would that be considered a reasonable action for a mobo in those circumstances or is there a better course of action I could take ?

Also of interest is the action of the approaching mobo early in the vid, was that a good head on pass or could he have gone to the stern of the yacht ?
Ta.

Andy

 

[KellysEye]

There is also a narrow channel leavington Lymington and nobody is stupid enough to sail it out or in, everyone motors.

 

[MapisM]

In a collission there is seldom one part who is 100 responsible, but we are again at the point were the discussion is which of the Colreg rules is the most importent

Can't agree with that.
My conclusion which you quoted is the only logical one, based on jfm reasoning (or better said, based on my understanding of it - which is the reason why I asked, in the first place).
You might argue that court sentences are not always logical, and that a judge is always tempted to share the responsibilities in collisions, but that's another matter altogether.

 

[Dockhead]

Dockhead I firmly disagree that. Your strawmanning is getting pretty tedious. The argument that you cannot generally predict when a sailboat will tack isn't on point because this discussion involves only the question of whether mr Dashcam Tooter ought to have been able to predict that THESE TWO sailboats will tack WHEN THEY REACH THE EDGE (as they had been doing consistently, see video, before Dashcam got up to them. Frankly it would have been the mother of all surprises if they HADN'T tacked). The two cases that didn't apply Lord A's rule didn't overturn it; they merely said it didn't apply in the particular circumstances and in so doing supported the existence of the rule as expressed ( see my gun comment above). Your comments that a HoL precedent isn't very much binding beggars belief. Your analysis of statutory interpretation is heavily flawed on several counts ( the topic is very much my day job ). Your assertion again that Lord A's words were mere obiter is as wholly unsupported as it was the first time. You say that Lord A's rule isn't generally accepted, yet it was established in 1908, reconfirmed in 1938 in the compass adjust case, and cited with approval in arguably the leading colregs textbook (cockcroft) throughout the 1970s/80s/whatever period of decades that book has been reprinted; that beggars belief. And your mention of 17b is another sideshow- wholly irrelevant to the question. And so on.

You started out well in quality of argument but it's all now gone rather downhill to the point where you're saying whatever comes into your head to flog your dead horse and ignoring anything inconvenient. Nothing personal: just saying it as I see it.

There is no need to heat this up -- this has become an interesting conversation which has turned up all kinds of things which show that the question is more complicated than probably any of us imagined -- certainly than I imagined. That means it's a valuable discussion that absolutely everyone can learn from.

I am not flogging dead horses or "straw-manning" -- I am arguing the case, and honestly. I admitted that the Windsor case supports the idea which I am arguing against. I read that case in law school decades ago but I haven't thought about it in years and didn't realize that some people think it establishes such a rule. But I am arguing against jumping to the conclusion that this one case settles the issue, and this is correct -- that's not how precedent works, and as I said, and this is worth listening to, because it is not "straw-manning" -- whether the case is on point or not, and what kind of precedent the case set, is not obvious, and depends on how later courts interpreted the case and the situation.

The case about compass-swinging is absolutely relevant, because it shows that at least one court has not accepted the idea that Windsor established a broad rule that a stand-on vessel is not indeed required to maintain course and speed in any literal sense, as long as it is doing something ordinary and predictable. Picking up a pilot is not tacking up a channel, and neither of this is swinging a compass. All of these things are broadly similar -- ships doing what they usually and predictably do. In what way is tacking up a channel like picking up a pilot, but different from swinging a compass? If you want to apply Windsor to tacking up a channel, then this is the kind of question you would have to answer in court. It's the kind of question that the judge will be asking himself also, to try to discern what kind of principle was established by Windsor, and comments of the Windsor judge about what kind of principle HE thought he was establishing, do not automatically govern the next judge -- once again, that is not how stare decisis works.

The fact that in this particular case the tack was predictable because of the edge of the channel as obvious, does not tell us anything about how tacking is treated in general. A huge amount of interpretation and assumption is required to get from Windsor, to the proposition that a yacht tacking up a channel is fulfilling its obligation as a a stand-on vessel. A court which wanted to extend the principle to such a case, would have an excellent start with Windsor -- I admit. But there are a lot of reasons why the courts would not want to do that -- and some of these are reflected in the judge's comments in the compass swinging case.

So please -- calm down. This is supposed to be fun. We have gotten to the stage where we can't really advance the discussion any further without doing real legal research. And I think that's the mark of a really good discussion -- that we've formulated a question which requires serious work.

I am sailing in the Eastern Gulf of Finland and so quite far from any law library or research tools, but I will try to do something. I will write to Cockcroft, who likes this sort of question, and I'll write to the RYA legal staff. We'll see what we can come up with. It's turned out to be a really interesting question, so I'm eager to dig deeper into the cases and commentary.

 

[lw395]

..... -- the literal course and speed holding is fundamental to the practice of collision avoidance. .....

Not in a curved channel.

 

[Magaz97]

Why do you both pick up in the horn? That's one but he actually got right...

I am not sure if the sound signal was correct?.... He wasnt turning to PORT but overtaking on the PORT SIDE?... two long and two short blasts is surely the correct sound signal?.... or have i got it wrong?

 

[bedouin]

I agree with you, except that the bit I've marked in bold is a bit of a stretch. Colregs is a terrible document and it is impossible to teach it at RYA-style course level so far as situations like this are concerned. Even with that limitation, in my experience it isn't taught well and really the only thing taught widely is basic rule-of-road stuff like crossing, overtaking, power/sail, and so on. The narrow channels thing (rule 9) has never been taught to me (I've done up to YM practical) and seems not to be taught to plenty of others (I've driven a 24m boat up the Hamble on a few occasions!), yet seems quite an important rule. And so on. Thanks again for the case law - it answered an interesting (in my head anyway...) question.

But the fact remains that in the poll in a place that you would expect to be somewhat biased to the MOBOer the overwhelming majority got it right - on a point that is not immediately obvious - so it is clear that people are learning either through training or experience.

Perhaps it all comes under Rule 2(a)

 

[MapisM]

But the fact remains that in the poll in a place that you would expect to be somewhat biased to the MOBOer the overwhelming majority got it right - on a point that is not immediately obvious - so it is clear that people are learning either through training or experience.

You are mentioning this as if it were a proof of your argument, but it isn't - not one iota.
Dockhead always recognised that Mr.Dashcam was wrong, and so did I, as well as many others.
The point which is being debated is more subtle, and is strictly focused on whether the sailboat - after the mobo maneuver, and regardless of whether such maneuver was colreg-compliant (though most of us agree it wasn't) - should have reacted or not.
It's crystal clear that you think the sailboat shouldn't, and I also understand that in your view couldn't. But that's just your opinion.
What makes the debate between jfm and Dockhead interesting for all of us (well, it is for myself, anyway) is that it ain't just based on opinions.

 

[jfm]

J, first of all, I will admit that I'm beginning to lose the plot a bit on the academic side of the debate.
After all, I fully agree that we avoid collisions and get along nicely mostly despite colregs, not because of them, as you nicely put it.
Therefore, my wish to understand each and every ins and outs of the rules is somewhat limited.
I'm still interested in the implications though, and in this respect I can't get my head round the potential practical consequences of what you are saying.

Let me make an example, based on a situation like the one in the video but including some other assumptions - regardless of whether they were true in this specific case, but just because they could apply to a realistic scenario:
1) let's assume that the moboer does what Mr.Dashcam does, up to the moment when he overtakes the sailboat right before it's going to tack.
2) let's assume that the sailboat skipper sees the moboer maneuver, understands that by tacking he will head straight towards a collision risk situation, but decides to tack anyway because he's entitled to (or even obliged, if I understood your colregs interpretation? This is irrelevant for my example, anyway).
3) let's also assume that the conditions would have allowed the skipper to luff up, he was well aware of that, and would have been capable to do such maneuver without any problem, but deliberately decided not to.
4) next step, Mr.Dashcam (as opposed to accelerating, as he does in the video) holds his course and speed, and there is a collision.

Now, if I understood correctly your point, we should expect a court to rule that Mr.Dashcam has 100% responsibility and the skipper none at all, even if he could have (easily, according to my assumption) avoided the collision, and that was understood/acknowledged by the judge?

P, I have been crystal clear that the only question I'm writing about is whether a sailboat tacking in a narrow channel is in breach of its 17(a)(i) stand on obligation. Nothing else. There are other Colregs points in that video but they aren't interesting. I'll answer your question of course, but in doing that I will be drifting away from the 17(a)(i) point.

Ref your point 2, there is no breach of Colregs merely because Mr Sailboat steers into a collision risk situation. Nothing on Colregs prohibits creating a collision risk.

If there is an actual collision as you describe, then Mr Sailboat might have breached his 17b obligation. As you know, 17b obliges Mr Stand on to do something at the 11th hour, and that may well be to luff up. So I would definitely not expect a court to rule that Mr Dashcam = 100% responsible and Mr stand on =0%, if there were a collision. in your scenario the court would say that luffing up was an available choice for him and therefore by not doing that, and colliding, he breached 17b (but not 17(a)(i))

So I'm agreeing your scenario, basically. But it really is a totally different point from what I was dealing with, which is whether a stand on sailboat tacking at the edge of the channel is in breach of 17(a)(i)

 

[jfm]

You are mentioning this as if it were a proof of your argument, but it isn't - not one iota.
Dockhead always recognised that Mr.Dashcam was wrong, and so did I, as well as many others.
The point which is being debated is more subtle, and is strictly focused on whether the sailboat - after the mobo maneuver, and regardless of whether such maneuver was colreg-compliant (though most of us agree it wasn't) - should have reacted or not.
It's crystal clear that you think the sailboat shouldn't, and I also understand that in your view couldn't. But that's just your opinion.
What makes the debate between jfm and Dockhead interesting for all of us (well, it is for myself, anyway) is that it ain't just based on opinions.

Agreed - there aint any doubt that mobo was wrong!

 

[MapisM]

There is no need to heat this up

Just for the records, I believe this has a lot to see with the nature of forum communication - and even more so when the contributors are posting comments which take some time to be written, as clearly is the case of this thread.
I mean, when the contributor A posts something while the contributor B is writing his reply to a previous post, it can and does happen that B post ignores the latest A post, hence appearing to not have considered it.

Powerful tools as forums are, in this respect this one suffers the lack of a functionality which is available in some others - though I can't remember by heart their software engine, probably not the vBulletin that powers this one, because their interface is very different: when submitting a new post, if any other posts were added in the meantime, since the moment when the "reply" button was clicked, the software warns the poster of such change before actually submitting the post.
This way, the writer has the option of checking what else was posted while he was writing his reply, and can choose to modify his answer to keep that into account or confirm his post as it is (or also not post it at all).

Probably this is something that can't easily be added to this forum, unless it's just a matter of ticking a box somewhere in the vBulletin settings, but imho it would be a nice to have feature.

PS: see? When I began writing this post (and I also answered a phone call in the mantime, btw), jfm posts #157 and #158 were not submitted yet.
In this case, they were not relevant for what I meant to say, and which btw is clearly o/t - apologies for that.
But I believe the sequence of events has something to see with your perception of "heating up" of the debate, if you see what I mean.

 

[jfm]

There is no need to heat this up -- this has become an interesting conversation which has turned up all kinds of things which show that the question is more complicated than probably any of us imagined -- certainly than I imagined. That means it's a valuable discussion that absolutely everyone can learn from.

I am not flogging dead horses or "straw-manning" -- I am arguing the case, and honestly. I admitted that the Windsor case supports the idea which I am arguing against. I read that case in law school decades ago but I haven't thought about it in years and didn't realize that some people think it establishes such a rule. But I am arguing against jumping to the conclusion that this one case settles the issue, and this is correct -- that's not how precedent works, and as I said, and this is worth listening to, because it is not "straw-manning" -- whether the case is on point or not, and what kind of precedent the case set, is not obvious, and depends on how later courts interpreted the case and the situation.

The case about compass-swinging is absolutely relevant, because it shows that at least one court has not accepted the idea that Windsor established a broad rule that a stand-on vessel is not indeed required to maintain course and speed in any literal sense, as long as it is doing something ordinary and predictable. Picking up a pilot is not tacking up a channel, and neither of this is swinging a compass. All of these things are broadly similar -- ships doing what they usually and predictably do. In what way is tacking up a channel like picking up a pilot, but different from swinging a compass? If you want to apply Windsor to tacking up a channel, then this is the kind of question you would have to answer in court. It's the kind of question that the judge will be asking himself also, to try to discern what kind of principle was established by Windsor, and comments of the Windsor judge about what kind of principle HE thought he was establishing, do not automatically govern the next judge -- once again, that is not how stare decisis works.

The fact that in this particular case the tack was predictable because of the edge of the channel as obvious, does not tell us anything about how tacking is treated in general. A huge amount of interpretation and assumption is required to get from Windsor, to the proposition that a yacht tacking up a channel is fulfilling its obligation as a a stand-on vessel. A court which wanted to extend the principle to such a case, would have an excellent start with Windsor -- I admit. But there are a lot of reasons why the courts would not want to do that -- and some of these are reflected in the judge's comments in the compass swinging case.

So please -- calm down. This is supposed to be fun. We have gotten to the stage where we can't really advance the discussion any further without doing real legal research. And I think that's the mark of a really good discussion -- that we've formulated a question which requires serious work.

I am sailing in the Eastern Gulf of Finland and so quite far from any law library or research tools, but I will try to do something. I will write to Cockcroft, who likes this sort of question, and I'll write to the RYA legal staff. We'll see what we can come up with. It's turned out to be a really interesting question, so I'm eager to dig deeper into the cases and commentary.

Dockhead, no heat or un-calmed-down-ness on my side - I apologise if I'm creating that impression or reaction. I just say things as I see them. It is an interesting debate

Bluntly, the record above shows you have strawmanned me, but no matter. Feel free, and there is no heat on my side, but don't expect me not to mention it!

I very firmly disagree your legal analysis. The Roanoke principle wasn't overturned by Merriman in the compass adjust case; rather it was clarified. The courts found, completely contrary to your "broadly similar" assertion above, that compass swinging and picking up a pilot are NOT sufficiently similar. That is the whole point of studying the two cases together. There is a line separating predictable/normal behaviour and unusual behaviour, and the courts (at Lords level) have decided picking up a pilot is one side of the line and adjusting a compass is the other. Until the law is changed by parliament, or until the Supreme Court disapproves of those rulings, that is the law of our country, no matter how much you protest.

Now it is then just my assertion that a sailboat repeatedly tacking at the edges of a channel falls on the same side of the line as Roanoke, and of course disagree that if you want, but you seem to want to rewrite history and say that the courts have not laid down that dividing line in the first place.

Are you not going to answer my question as to your basis for asserting that the speech I quoted from Roanoke, and that Cockcroft's book quotes, is mere obiter dictum?