Dinghy sailors and canoeists to be subject to shipping laws

[MVP]

Interesting !

Canoes, surfboards and dinghies are to be given the same legal status as cruise liners and oil tankers in a clampdown on reckless behaviour at sea.

Unpowered craft including sailboards and bodyboards are to be reclassified as ships to bring their users within regulations for merchant shipping.

Users face prison and fines of up to £50,000 if they are held liable for any accidents.
Full article here
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/more_sport/sailing/article6728335.ece

 

[Tidnock]

Interesting !

Canoes, surfboards and dinghies are to be given the same legal status as cruise liners and oil tankers in a clampdown on reckless behaviour at sea.

Unpowered craft including sailboards and bodyboards are to be reclassified as ships to bring their users within regulations for merchant shipping.

Users face prison and fines of up to £50,000 if they are held liable for any accidents.
Full article here
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/more_sport/sailing/article6728335.ece

What about lilos and tractor inner tubes

 

[oceanfroggie]

If my memory is not totally daft, I seem to remember that dinghies and canoes were always legally defined as ships as per a high profile test case about the application of COLREGS to vessel types. I think it was about 3 years ago if I remember correctly and involved a jetski which on appeal was strangely defined as not being a navigeable ship. Perhaps this is legislation to close up that loop hole.

 

[ChrisE]

If my memory is not totally daft, I seem to remember that dinghies and canoes were always legally defined as ships as per a high profile test case about the application of COLREGS to vessel types. I think it was about 3 years ago if I remember correctly and involved a jetski which on appeal was strangely defined as not being a navigeable ship. Perhaps this is legislation to close up that loop hole.

Yep, there's a long article in The Times this morning talking about this. It is primarily to put the devil's spawn under COLREGs jurisdisction. And about time, too!

 

[timbartlett]

DingDinghy sailors and canoeists to be subject to shipping laws

The Law Lords were quite explicit that if the MCA had gone after Goodwin for not obeying the colregs, they would have won. The reason they lost was because they tried to argue that a bloke sitting on his own jetski was a "master employed in a ship".

They were trying to use what they thought was going to be an easy win to set a legal precedent that would make everyone on any boat subject to the full majesty of the laws that apply to professional masters on commercial ships. And they failed.

If this were as straightforward as "closing a loophole", then:
(1) Why not issue a press release to announce the "public" consultation? (There wasn't one... that's why no-one found out about this until nearly three weeks into the official "consultation" period
(2) why not get the Shipping Minister to announce it in Parliament, rather than having the Parliamentary under secretary for road haulage (or some such) do it as a "written answer" buried in the bowels of Hansard?
(3) why launch the consultation at the beginning of July, to close at the end of September, so that the consultation period is mostly filled with summer holidays and parliamentary recess?
(4) why not amend The Merchant Shipping (Distress Signals and Prevention of Collisions) Regulations 1996 (which bring the colregs into UK law), rather than amending Section 58 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 (which doesn't refer to the colregs)
(5) Why include the likes of the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, and the National Federation of Anglers in the list of consultees, but not the Amateur Rowing Association, the British Surf Association, or the British Canoe Union?

This strikes me as a typically underhanded move by unelected and unnaccountable civil service, intended to overturn the considered decision of the highest court in the land. They are trying to win support by pretending that it is to protect us all from personal watercraft, but I reckon it is just another excuse to monitor and control -- and,of course, to collect fines or "penalty charges".

I wouldn't mind betting that more people get prosecuted for using rubber dinghies to get back from the pub than for carving up anchorages on watercraft.