Foredeck escape hatch vs foredeck seating

[penberth3]

Indeed. My point about "at sea" was that you are less likely to have a sudden catastrophic collision in the dark leading to sinking in harbour. The fire risk, as you say, remains the same wherever you are.

Interesting point there. I've gone through life thinking escape hatches were there to be used if the boat was sinking - say stern first, trapping you up front. I've never considered fire. So what's most likely to happen?

 

[jfm]

Ok...

I know you know about this subject, but I’m curious how they get around the relevant paragraph of MGN280:
View attachment 67016

Is every mid-cabin really an "exceptional case"?

Pete

i must have said it 1000 times on here- mgn280 was never passed into uk law. It was a failed project. The law is yellow book. Now, mgn280 is an available alternative way to meet the law by virtue of the bit of the shipping acts that allows Secretary of State to offer an alternative, so no problem legally for anyone who uses it, but as I've said on here many times that you're better coding to yellow book than mgn 280, at least imho.

The equivalent clause in yellow book is 14.1.9 and it is lighter touch than mgn280. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/285648/yellow.pdf The standard ybdsa treatment is to allow a single door provided there is emergency lighting, e.g. A torch clipped by the door.

The sq 78 used to have as standard build an escape hatch in master/mid cabin allowing you to climb up to lower helm. But like virtually all others it was nonsense because it was quicker to use the normal door and stairs, so they stopped fitting it.

 

[prv]

i must have said it 1000 times on here- mgn280 was never passed into uk law.

Thanks - I obviously wasn't paying attention for any of those 1000 times

Interestingly no mention of this fact in the RYA PPR course, which treats MGN280 as gospel. Probably a lot of commercial skippers out there now assuming it's the only option.

The equivalent clause in yellow book is 14.1.9 and it is lighter touch than mgn280.

It doesn't look much lighter to me - it doesn't discuss engine spaces, but otherwise most of the wording is the same. Possibly someone could argue that the wording of the Yellow Book allows "exceptional case" to be defined a little more widely, but I'm not convinced.

Obviously surveyors' actual practice is more important for most purposes.

Pete

 

[jfm]

Pete, if you use and RYA surveyor and thereby RYA as your coding society then they insist on mgn280. That's their choice, and yours as a customer. If you use a YBDSA surveyor then YDSA becomes your society and they will use if you wish Yellow Book. YDSA have a series of agreed interpretations of Yellow Book and one of them is single-access cabins with torches. The law allows secretary of state (thru MCA) to agree alternatives to the letter of Yellow Book and this is one of them, so by merely reading Yellow Book you do not get the full gospel.

More generally, mgn280 and yellow book look similar but there are important differences eg porthole blanks etc. I always use Yellow.