Idiot in a RIB Yesterday

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Good point and I have to agree with you.
When driving on the road you can be pretty sure the other guy knows the rules, when at sea you can only assume he does.
Therefore an early and positive change of course (IMO) is the best option.

ps was only joking when I sugested RIB owners couldn't read /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Always an option!


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Seeing this thread just proves how confusing changes could be. The Col Regs work but I believe intensions should be made clear.

I often find more problems in narrow channels when many boats especially sailing boats don't keep to the right. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
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A "raggie" with an engine is as maneoverable as a displacement mobo, the issue can be the attitude and willingness. Crossing a busy TSS I would keep the engine running and available as indeed in any close quarters situation. It's not that difficult to motor or sail perpendicularly away from the path of an oncoming ship. [/quote

Just as an asside, please remember that a raggie has been designed to work best with the sails up, not motoring. So especially offshore in some breeze raggies are far more manoueverable with the sails up than with the engine on, as most raggie engines are not powerful enough to make much headway against waves, certainly not the sort of headway necessary to scoot out of the way of big ships! I very very much doubt that any competent sailor would consider starting the engine in a TSS, it's just not necessary and really wouldn't really help at all.
 
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You are assuming that people on the water have knowledge of IRPCS in the first place .Lots out there dont have a clue ,so better education is the answer .
Tim

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I'm not assuming that. You write as if you're disagreeing with me but I think we agree. I said above that the problem with current colregs is not the colregs, it's the fact some folks don't know/abide by them. If you change the colregs (which i think is a lousy idea) you have an even greater "education" problem than currently...

I agree with you, better education and enforcement of the current rules is the way to go. Not a rewrite of them.
 
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half way up Southampton Water the craft had to stop violently because an idiot in a RIB decided to cut across in front.

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Even if the RIB was stand-on, that shouldn't have happened, "cut across" implies a last minute change of course which is surely wrong (and very silly).

It actually sounds to me like the RIB was the give-way vessel, and the ferry only realised at the last minute that the RIB wasn't giving way.
 
Sorry JFM
not arguing with you
I hit the wrong button should have replied and quoted someone elses post, I think the rules are fine as they are .For the seas to be safe education is the way to go not to change the rules and complicate matters even more.We are so lucky in the UK that compulsary training is not in force, some insurance companies are starting to insist on qualifications to lessen the risk to them and others are giving discounts for qualifications. Some peeps are happy to learn without qualifications others feel it is required and should be mandatory. A bit of a can of worms that one as some will alway's oppose formal training .
Best leave IRPCS to the IMO members who make them up in my honest opinion.
Cheers Tim
 
That was a hunch that I had. Without the actual details, this situation could equally have been the Redjet attempting to bend the rules ("Might is right") and the Rib was simply behaving as stand-on vessel. Given the manoevrability of a RIB and me driving I would probably hold on until just before a collision is inevitable, which is what you are supposed to do.
 
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I still say you need to think this through much better. So you propose small leisure vessels give way to commercial ships not pleasure ships. And the only way to distinguish an 80m commercial superyacht and an 80m private suoeryacht is to buy an electronic device? So every 25 foot peche promenade is going to have to buy one of these gizmos? At even £100 each, do you think that's fair?

And suppose there are a few of these commercial and private yachts all trotting around at the same time. The electronic gizmo might tell you there are 3x commercial and 3x pleasure. Highly likely in the Med summer/Caribee winter. How is the poor small boater supposed to tell which of the 6 is which? They all look like big wedding cakes. Or at night they all look like radar blobs.

Maybe they should be displayed graphically, overlaid on chart, on a daylight viewable screen? So that's £1,000 per 25 foot boat to install.

No, this idea is nuts. The food chain should stay as is, becuase it allows stand on and give way vessels to be distinguished instantly, using eyeballs. The massive ship can steer around the sailboat in open waters. They have 60mile radar in any case so they have plenty of notice. The sensible small sailboat will make sure not to be in the way, in any case

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Your arguments against, JFM, are really just little quibbles.

Basically in this day and age, it is illogical and dangerous that a small leisure boat should have priority over a massive tanker or containership engaged in commercial business. A coal delivery vessel with its deep draft cannot be quickly manoeuvered, neither can a small boat be spotted on radar at a range of sixty miles! How the Col Regs should be amended is not up to us but they should be changed due to the evolving circumstances of the modern world.
 
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Your arguments against, JFM, are really just little quibbles.

Basically in this day and age, it is illogical and dangerous that a small leisure boat should have priority over a massive tanker or containership engaged in commercial business. A coal delivery vessel with its deep draft cannot be quickly manoeuvered, neither can a small boat be spotted on radar at a range of sixty miles! How the Col Regs should be amended is not up to us but they should be changed due to the evolving circumstances of the modern world.

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They're not quibbles :-) There are two issues here: one point is the undesirability (imho) of determining RoW based on the commercial versus pleasure status of a voyage, because the give way vessel will in many cases simply not know whether the other guy is commercial. So my view is that is an incredibly dangerous road to go down

The second point is philosophical - it's a matter of personal opinion but I (and other posters above) simply dont accept that someone on commercial business has more right to the sea than someone sailing for pleasure. There's no intrinsic basis for that pecking order. No country in the world does it on roads, incidentally, so why the sea? Do you run to the front of the airport check-in queue shouting "I'm on business so I go in front of you mere holiday makers!"?

If a commercial ship is trudging along the high seas and cannot avoid a small stand-on pleasure boat then it similarly cannot avoid a small stand-on commercial boat either. So he shouldn't be doing that. I mean he should slow down, display RAM shapes, or something. But not plough on regardless.
 
When in Turkey a few weeks ago I had the H/H on scan during the evening trying to run the batteries down.

I noticed quite freqeunt traffic on the vhf with boats calling each other up and politely asking their intentions, all new courses appeared to be agreed very quickly and amicably.
Obviously they must have had AIS etc.
 
Yep, on your first point, it's a complicated one to solve if one were to change the rules.

On your second point, I believe personally that on the roads, all commercial vehicles, buses, taxis, lorries, should have priority (or priority lanes) over cars. There! That should raise a few hackles among people.

Logically, commerce should take priority over leisure. How that is implemented is of course open to discussion.
 
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On your second point, I believe personally that on the roads, all commercial vehicles, buses, taxis, lorries, should have priority (or priority lanes) over cars. There! That should raise a few hackles among people.

Logically, commerce should take priority over leisure.

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Blimey KS, that's a massive philosophical position to take! I'm amazed, and curious as to how you get to that view (i mean in principle, ignoring the practical issues). I can accept that you could think it, but I don't see that it's intrinsically "logical". If there is a scarce resource, I just can't see why should someone have improved access to it by virtue of being in the course of making a monetary profit for themselves, while someone using it for pleasure goes to the back of the queue
 
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Logically, commerce should take priority over leisure. How that is implemented is of course open to discussion.

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Hmmm, but therein lies the problem, plenty of "commercial purpose" carried out in cars so, just as in your sea-going proposal, it would be impossible to determine if a car is undergoing a commercial trip or a leisure trip....

Back to the sea, is a commercial cargo ship carrying leisure cargo a commercial trip???

Very silly IMHO, the rules need to be able to be interpreted in poor vis with only the most basic of information, not reliant upon various electronic gizmos AND absolute knowledge of the purpose of everyone´s voyages....such reliance got a Tornado crew killed in Gulf War 2, its IFF unit failed and it was shot down, similar assumptions would be made here with the same consequences.

Can´t see the logic behind the philosophical position either....
 
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Blimey KS, that's a massive philosophical position to take! I'm amazed, and curious as to how you get to that view (i mean in principle, ignoring the practical issues). I can accept that you could think it, but I don't see that it's intrinsically "logical". If there is a scarce resource, I just can't see why should someone have improved access to it by virtue of being in the course of making a monetary profit for themselves, while someone using it for pleasure goes to the back of the queue

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It's not for monetary profit but for the overall improvement of the situation. It's logical for a taxi or a bus to have better access to their point of delivery than a one person vehicle who is cluttering up the road and delaying many other people. It's for the betterment of the majority rather than the few. Oh, dear; this could get into a long complicated discussion. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
I get the feeling when people support changes to Colregs it is based on their personal and therefore rather limited set of experiences of situations and vessels at sea. Colregs have been tried and tested over many years and I'm just thankful they are the way they are, because some of the changes proposed would make collisions highly likely in situations I've experienced.

Needless to say I don't support leisure vessels try to prove a point either, it is common good courtesy to (in plenty of time) avoid possible situations that might inconvenience another. I use the same courtesy when coming across racing fleets.
 
Having spent most of my working life driving ships up to 22000 tons, I must respectfully say that you are wrong. I have never had trouble keeping clear of sailing vessels or small "stand on" mobos in open water. Inshore / entering harbour is another matter, but here you have the narrow channel rules, where all vessels under 20m should avoid impeding the passage of a vessel following the channel - so effectively covers what you say.

If I am doing 20-25knots in a large ship and detect a small vessel on a steady bearing, it is far wiser for me to alter course by 10deg (basically pointing at his stern) at 5miles. I then pass him with a nice large CPA just under a mile, and regain course. It's better on my heart than standing on, hoping that a little boat doing about a fifth of my speed (if he's lucky) will be able to take sufficient action to keep clear.

By looking ahead and altering early, I only lose about 160yards distance, which translates to about 12sec. Hardly an onerous amount. Trust me, it gets pretty boring when you haven't made an alteration of course for 6 days: you're glad to have an excuse to make sure the wheel still works!

Colregs work fine as they are: I don't think you'll find many big ship people who want to change them.
 
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It's not for monetary profit but for the overall improvement of the situation. It's logical for a taxi or a bus to have better access to their point of delivery than a one person vehicle who is cluttering up the road and delaying many other people. It's for the betterment of the majority rather than the few. Oh, dear; this could get into a long complicated discussion. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

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Blimey again KS. You're shifting your ground somewhat?

I fully agree the bus lane idea and they exist in most/many cities, but that's a tiny subset of this debate and your philosophical position.

Explain please how that principle stretches to justifying that a commercial lorry making a profit for one man (the lorry owner) should take priority over a passenger car occupied by an average Joe. How is that for the betterment of the many rather than the few? Perhaps your logic is that the lorry is carrying cargo for many people? Well yes if it is a supermarket delivery truck, but what if it is a furniture removal truck moving one person's house contents? Or delivering someone's boat?
 
Agree totally with JFM and Dombuckley Having been a deck officer in an earlier career, it's much more preferable to be the give way v/l rather the stand on one. It's also important to be able to identify which one you are with minimum risk of confusion. Introducing a classification that is open to inetrpretation is a recipe for disaster

To re-iterate a previous point, it's not the col regs that need changing but peoples understanding of them. I think there is a very strong case for regulation in at least there should be a licence that requires a basic understanding of col regs, even if its just a theory test similar to the theoretical part of the driving licence. As an industry, we should push this in an attempt to self regulate, before whitehall steps in with much more onerous requirements. Perhaps we should be applauding sensible attempts by the insurance side of the marine sector to go down this path.

Sorry for the string detour, but it is a related point.
 
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