Colregs, big mobo/small sailboat, on Hamble and similar

[Mark-1]

As mentioned, not keeping a proper lookout is something of a default charge.

In circumstances like Atalanta/Hanne Knutsen, where there’s no loss of life, nothing much to be learned beyond observe the moving prohibition zone in the precautionary area and the case against Roland Wilson was easily proved, it’s always going to be difficult to justify spending public money on an MAIB enqenquir

The thing that was proved was that he failed to keep a proper lookout. Which self evidently isn't what happened at all. Everyone on the boat had seen the ship including the navigator and they took action.

Also we have no idea what the role of that escort vessel was. Since it was totally ineffective at preventing the collision despite having contact with the Atalanta there's a lesson to be learned there too.

So clearly we still have no clue what happened, and besides the trial transcript isn't available and isn't public.

Seems to me there would have been a vast amount to be learned from an Maib report.

 

[Poignard]

The thing that was proved was that he failed to keep a lookout. Which self evidently isn't what happened at all. Everyone on the boat had seen the ship including the navigator and they took action.

[...]

He was found to have failed to keep a proper lookout.

"Keeping a proper lookout in accordance with the requirements of Rule 5 of the Colregs is a major weapon in the seafarer’s arsenal of risk management techniques. The principal task in keeping a proper lookout is to determine if risk of collision exists [...]." [Emphasis added]
Lessons for a good lookout

 

[Mark-1]

He was found to have failed to keep a proper lookout.

"Keeping a proper lookout in accordance with the requirements of Rule 5 of the Colregs is a major weapon in the seafarer’s arsenal of risk management techniques. The principal task in keeping a proper lookout is to determine if risk of collision exists [...]." [Emphasis added]
Lessons for a good lookout

I've changed my post to include the word proper, but it really makes no difference: They were looking, they saw the ship, they made an early change of course to pass port to port. So they kept a proper lookout, unless they had a radar or AIS that was switched off, and failed the "all means" test.

If we assume that there was no proper lookout then that's all the more benefit of an MAIB report which can fill us in on the detail not available from the trial.

I just checked Cockroft. It really goes into excruciating detail about keeping watch.

 

[B27]

I don't think there's that much value in wondering about the court proceedings or what the MAIB might have said, because interpretation of rules is always opinion, just a court's opinion matters more.
Next time, the circumstances will be subtly different and the outcome might be different.

Is it any surprise that Cowes doesn't attract so many yachts these days?
When we ran two-bit dinghy races, we at least made an effort to avoid conflict with commercial traffic and give people a fair race.
Cowes seemed to be in too deep with sponsorship money and didn't seem to care too much for the paying competitors.

 

[Mark-1]

I don't think there's that much value in wondering about the court proceedings or what the MAIB might have said, because interpretation of rules is always opinion, just a court's opinion matters more.

Yeah, I have no idea why I felt the need to dive into a debate over the usefulness or otherwise of a hypothetical MAIB report that never happened.

 

[benjenbav]

I've changed my post to include the word proper, but it really makes no difference: They were looking, they saw the ship, they made an early change of course to pass port to port. So they kept a proper lookout, unless they had a radar or AIS that was switched off, and failed the "all means" test.

If we assume that there was no proper lookout then that's all the more benefit of an MAIB report which can fill us in on the detail not available from the trial.

I just checked Cockroft. It really goes into excruciating detail about keeping watch.

The thing that was proved was that he failed to keep a proper lookout. Which self evidently isn't what happened at all. Everyone on the boat had seen the ship including the navigator and they took action.

Also we have no idea what the role of that escort vessel was. Since it was totally ineffective at preventing the collision despite having contact with the Atalanta there's a lesson to be learned there too.

So clearly we still have no clue what happened, and besides the trial transcript isn't available and isn't public.

Seems to me there would have been a vast amount to be learned from an Maib report.

There’s more to keeping a proper lookout than seeing the other vessel. It includes properly assessing the risk of collision and taking appropriate actions to avoid the collision.

Like careless driving it covers a wide range of situations.

The case was heard in the magistrate’s court. The decision wasn’t appealed to a court of record and so we are left with a situation where all those directly involved in prosecuting the case went for the easy win; the defendant accepted the magistrate’s decision and no-one with their hands on the public purse felt it was worth looking further into it.

We may well feel that there should have been a separate inquiry… I’m only trying to outline why there wasn’t one.

 

[Mark-1]

There’s more to not keeping a proper lookout than seeing the other vessel. It includes properly assessing the risk of collision and taking appropriate actions to avoid the collision.

No. Actions are dealt with separately by all the other rules. Rule 5 specifically relates to keeping a look out for potential collisions. The rule is self explanatory and I've just read everything Cockroft has to say on it and there's nothing about taking appropriate actions. (It was also debated in the original thread.)

The case was heard in the magistrate’s court. The decision wasn’t appealed to a court of record and so we are left with a situation where all those directly involved in prosecuting the case went for the easy win; the defendant accepted the magistrate’s decision and no-one with their hands on the public purse felt it was worth looking further into it.

According to the YBW thread at the time a successful appral against one of the three charges wouldn't have reduced the fine (principle of totality, I think). Even if it did would you really want the hassle of an appeal to save yourself one charge out of three when the whole fine was three grand?

So we can't draw any conclusion from the lack of appeal.

 

[benjenbav]

The Supreme Court had quite a lot to say about the purpose of keeping a proper lookout in Evergreen [2021]

https://search.app/p81T1Zg6JTkprg6D6

in the context of appealing I was thinking more about an appeal against the judgment rather than against quantum. But the fact is that everyone involved in the case was content not to take matters further or in a different direction.