Fools and Twats on the water

[graham]

[ QUOTE ]
That regulation and licensing will achieve nothing.


[/ QUOTE ]

I completely agree
Licensed idiots will still be idiots. some of the most competent yachtsmen/women I know have no paper qualifications at all.

All of the worst car drivers I know have a license.

 

[moondancer]

Regulation would be a costly disaster and I do not for one moment believe it would make the use of water any safer.

It would be worse in this country than any other because of our horror of risk and its consequence and our slavish observance of bureaucracy and rules.

I applaud the RYA's position on regulation and its resistance to nanny state intrusions.

I think the France comparison is quite good actually - and my experience is that things are done with a typically French, and wonderful, approach to bureaucracy. With a fine complexity of categories of boats and how far offshore they can go etc.

I fear that the British implementation would lack the humour value of French bureaucracy and would be a death knell to new entrants to sailing.

 

[landaftaf]

[ QUOTE ]
but I am arguing that irresponsible idiots should be made accountable and possibly traceable for their stupidity

[/ QUOTE ]

what makes you think they are not accountable for their actions, or are untracable ? in fact what makes you feel anything occuring on water exempts others from 'normal' behaviour /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[alant]

"Seen anyone that has done the fast track yachtmaster recently.. None we have seen know anything about the boat/sailing/safety."

Playing 'Devil's Advocate', how do you justify a statement like this? You cannot possibly condemn all "Fast Track YM's"!! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif


"It shows only experience really counts!"

& experience doesn't simply mean miles, many experience things in all areas of life without learning anything! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[Lakesailor]

My uncle. a wise old driving instructor, used to ask.....

"Is it 20 year's of experience, or 1 year repeated 20 times?"

 

[alant]

"Again I agree but my point is make barest education ( Coll regs : port, starboard etc ROW etc ) a requirement."

ROW??
What's this then?
Where is it written in IRPCS?

Because so many think there is such a rule as ROW, is probably why there are so many "Fools and Twats on the water", with & without bits of paper, experienced or fast track!


Don't you think? /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[tobble]

I can't help but agree with people too numerous to mention in this thread. Clearly, the biggest risk to life at sea is something catastrophic happening to the boat. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the people on board to make sure the boat is capable of doing the intended passage, it's YOUR OWN RISK, as we are constantly reminded when parking our cars in any car park for example.

If the idiots come into a marina and do some damage, then the likelihood is that they will be spotted and the repercussions will take their course. The chances of injury or worse are markedly less in a sheltered harbor where there are more likely to be people in close vicinity.

The point raised and reiterated that a licence would ensure a basic minimum standard is rubbish IMHO, I think fear of, and respect for the water dos that job already.

Is anyone aware of any serious incident (I mean where injury or damage occurred) that a licence could have prevented?

 

[flaming]

I have to admit to wavering between the regulate and don't regulate camps.

On the one hand you do see some fearful idiots with no idea of anything bellowing orders that mean no sense. These idiots do need some training.
However, my opinion changed a bit last year when, after helping such an idiot alongside (classic downtide aproach!), I struck up a conversation with him.
He'd done a day skipper course.
And this is really the problem. What is the standard that would be applied? It would probably be around the level of the ICC - I.e easier to get than day skipper.
All this would really ensure is that a lot of people thought that boating was even more like driving, in that once they'd passed "the test" they could go where they liked without a care in the world.
I just don't see a test encouraging people to respect the sea.

 

[Andrew_Fanner]

If the empire builders at MAIB get hold of threads like this they will rub their hands with glee at the prospect of new rules to impose and fees/fines to collect. Don't expect your DS chitty to save you, there would be a new qualification, which for some reason would cost £several hundred and a licence on top of that, which I somehow doubt would be £30 and good until your 70th birthday (yotties are rich and can easily find £100 per year, rising with inflation).

NO NO NO and thrice NO. Mind you, if specifically required of all dinghy sailors and racing were a breach of the conditions of granting the licence

 

[Lakesailor]

errrm..........I don't think I was advocating licensing.

My point is that many people learn nothing from their experience. A qualification wouldn't help that situation, merely make them (and the authorities) think they were OK.

 

[Andrew_Fanner]

[ QUOTE ]
errrm..........I don't think I was advocating licensing.



[/ QUOTE ]

My bad, replied to wrong person.

 

[gandy]

[ QUOTE ]
That regulation and licensing will achieve nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wonder if those who support licensing can provide any evidence in favour. For example are there statistics from elsewhere showing a drop in accident rate after licensing was introduced?

Or comparison between countries. Does Australia have a better safety record under compulsory licensing than we do without?

 

[rob2]

This whole issue and its comparisons to road conditions takes me back through the years. It isn't traffic density that causes the bad behaviour. After all, even the most laddish driver where I work admits he gets to work faster if he gives way to everyone and sticks to the speed limit.
The problem began when the HMGov introduces the Fizzie - all the pre-pubescent twats could only do 20mph. Bring back the good old days when the twats were allowed unlimited size motorcycles and killed themselves before their 17th birthdays (and before they could further contaminate the gene pool). The spill over to the water probably involves the same egocentric idiots - who would be eliminated by allowing extreme sports early on...

 

[tobble]

[ QUOTE ]
NO NO NO and thrice NO.

[/ QUOTE ]

maybe the ability to count should be a prerequisite to being allowed to sail /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Heckler]

Re: Fools and Twits on the water

Hey Jools
where are you?
Stu

 

[Anonymous]

While I have a huge sympathy and agreement with what you are trying to achieve, I don't believe that a licence will do anything to help. I have just had staying with me two people (at the same time) both with Day Skipper (2006) neither of whom could remember the basic powerboat colregs (never mind sailboats and theirs were sail quals), didn't know what 'starboard tack' or 'port tack' meant, didn't know the meaning of 'spring-off' even in context when I mentioned the term, had no clue about variation or deviation or the implications and thought that the compass rose on the chart was for "um, er, well we put the plastic thing on that".

I cannot believe that either of them ever had a basic understanding of the material or some of it would have stuck - it was all commonsense stuff - the Day Skipper qual is a bad joke. I have seen yachtmasters with similar dismal understanding.

I have never had any formal instruction and no RYA quals but I did take and pass an ICC exam (just the test, no course) which my wife (very sensibly) thought was a good idea - which it is!

But I do sympathise with you - wouldn't it be nice if some of the people out there would get some training?

 

[flaming]

Question for you, did these two less able day skipper people realise the limits of their knowledge, or did they seem confident and willing to take a boat out to sea?

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

I'm a firm believer in punishing stupidity rather than enforcing certification which makes the stupid think that they are smart...

ie.... no compulsory training, but fine people for being stupid.... that way the pressure will be on for training that helps people to avoid being stupid rather than training that gets you through a certification process... the two are fundamentally different.... one is 'wanted' by the participant, and the other is 'needed' by the participant

 

[wooslehunter]

There are 3 types of incidents IMO.

1. Genuine accidents that can happen to the best of us. No amount of training is going to stop thes hapenning.

2. Incidents caused by idiots. Again no amount of training is going to stop those. Most of these people won't get trained anyway. The amount of uninsured non qualified drivers is evidence of this.

3. Incidents caused by a genuine lack of knowledge and or training. How many of these actually exist? I'd take a guess at very few since most responsible people will get some training.

Here are a couple interesting examples: a collegue of mine recently bought a ski boat. The salesman also sold him an RYA 2 powerboat course. He's trained now and can have an ICC and will probably go on to have an almost incident free time. He's a pretty sensible kind of guy.

I took the kids to London a few days ago. We took one of the ferries down from Westminster to Greenwich. At least 15-20 feet from teh pontoon at Greenwich, the commercially trained crew in full view of everyone opened a solid gate in the safety rail, stepped out onto around a 3 inch gunwale and closed the gate behind him. He held on with one hand and had a mooring warp in the other. He wore no lifejacket and we were approaching the pontoon sideways quite quickly. Had he slipped, at best he would have been swept down stream in the strong current. At worst he would have been crushed. he was not in view of the skipper. The other option would have been to be sucked into the props. We must have been doing a good couple of knots water spead to maintain position in the current.

Training does not make you safe on the water. It just contributes to it if you have the right attitude.

Here's something I agree with that's done with the PWC users, waterskiers and windsurfers down here. To use a PWC within the Port of Portsmouth (most of the eastern Solent) you need a licence. It's free but to get one, you do have to sign a form that states that you will abide by the rules of the area. It's an offence to use a PWC without one. This way everyone is aware of the rules and it may make prosecution easier if you don't have one. Also if you lose your licence, you can't use the PWC - not that it would stop the real idiots anyway.

 

[Anonymous]

[ QUOTE ]
Question for you, did these two less able day skipper people realise the limits of their knowledge, or did they seem confident and willing to take a boat out to sea?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think that they realised how important the basic stuff was. They were more interested in helming and trimming sails though between them they couldn't tack my boat in ideal conditions. Having ended up with a fully-backed genoa I asked them what condition the boat was now in? Close hauled? Beam reach? Thankfully neither of them told me that we were reaching but when I told them that they had successfully hove to, they didn't even know what I meant - I might as well have been speaking in Mandarin. Anyway, from the hove-to condition I suggested that they might try gybing out of it which, to her credit, one of them managed (with me controlling the main sheet which would otherwise have been left unattended). No, I really don't think that they had any idea of how much they don't know.

From what they told me, they have been taking boats out to sea - at least, they have been taking sailing craft - 18 footers - around Chichester Harbour which is some of the most challenging sailing when the tide starts to flow. I would be terrified for their safety in that area, and without any understanding of the colregs they could easily cause a serious accident.

I cannot believe that the instructor should have signed them off. They had hired a boat with instructor as a family of four, for the adults to get Day Skipper and the children Competent Crew. All of them passed. The course was for one week and was with an instructor/owner with no external examiner. Frankly they don't meet the grade as Competent Crew. However, they are really nice people and I will enjoy their company again albeit not relying on their crewing ability.