Ignoring COVID-19 regulations

canvey said:
I asked in another thread but thought I'd ask again here.

Does anyone know what the RYA has done or is doing about this? I am afraid that as soon as I read their "Be Conservative" poster, I cancelled my membership.
Click to expand...

If you were a member why didn’t you ask them before cancelling your membership.

As I understand it the RYA have been very proactive in pushing to get watersports restarted, and were quite successful in that respect. But don’t expect country wide rules to make 1,001 dispensations for each individual sport and sub-genre of sport.

It is very easy to criticise from the sidelines. And if not a member no right to complain about what RYA does with members fees.
 
Never mind "understand", what do you know for a fact?

I did ask, got a bureaucratic waffle in reply. No evidence on the website of anything.

The membership reference was a joke regarding their ill conceived byline, "Be Conservative", Which is probably the problem.

I'd have preferred, "Be Bolshie, use your brains, and demand your rights".


If the Anglers Trust has been able to do so for night time fishing, why can't they?
 
Anglers Trust were cheering their concession on night fishing after the previous version of the regulations was issued. It was only the latest revision which added the curfew requirement to be at home overnight. They seem to have gone a bit quiet since then.
The way I look at it being outdoors for your physical or mental health or emotional well-being was a reasonable excuse a few weeks ago, so it should still be one now.
In practice - in southern England at least - many people are overnighting on boats or in camper vans. It is obvious to anyone who cares to look.
 
I suppose they could not say what they meant, ie "second homes", after the Cummings affair.

Or, indeed, was it Cummings himself writing the guidelines?

I still can't work out why the infected are more virulent at night, or the non-infected at more of a risk of infection, when there are less people around.

What is the purpose of it?

The legal advice the anglers got was that sports were still "as long as you like" and the guidelines only referred to second homes.
 
The purpose is quite straightforward. By stopping overnighting people have a sense of freedom in being able to go on a day trip, but communities are protected by not having an influx of new residents. It’s much easier for locals to avoid incomes who are transient rather than staying in the area on a longer basis and using shops and other facilities on a long term basis. Simples peeples.
Rather than banging on and on about how our minority port is intrinsically safe and should have its own set of special exemptions get real. Most of our fellow participants seem only to think of moorings in respect of marinas with all facilities laid on and boats rafting up. Which makes those of us who enjoy anchoring in quiet locations a subset of a minority sport.
Rather than coming on here to vent your spleen about over encompassing legislation and how unfair it is perhaps follow the example of our own maritime Dominic Cummings’s. Make your own decisions and get our their quietly and enjoy your own bit of solitude.
Not that I’m encouraging you to break the guidelines you understand ?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bru
DJE said:
Anglers Trust were cheering their concession on night fishing after the previous version of the regulations was issued. It was only the latest revision which added the curfew requirement to be at home overnight. They seem to have gone a bit quiet since then.
The way I look at it being outdoors for your physical or mental health or emotional well-being was a reasonable excuse a few weeks ago, so it should still be one now.
In practice - in southern England at least - many people are overnighting on boats or in camper vans. It is obvious to anyone who cares to look.
Click to expand...

When I checked this morning their current advice (dated 1 June IIRC) still says overnight angling had been confirmed as legal.

No doubt to avoid the obvious imposition of a curfew the regulations do not require you to be at home between specific hours but instead forbid 'staying' elsewhere (save for exceptions) - can you really be 'staying' on a river bank, a boat on passage, etc?
 
Sailing may be; maintenance etc, no. Needs to be done.

Little Grebe said:
No doubt to avoid the obvious imposition of a curfew the regulations do not require you to be at home between specific hours but instead forbid 'staying' elsewhere (save for exceptions) - can you really be 'staying' on a river bank, a boat on passage, etc?
Click to expand...
Seems so. What Gov now says, "Leaving your home - the place you live - to stay at another home is not allowed."

That's getting to the actual point of it.
 
JumbleDuck said:
I'd have preferred "Let's not be selfish gits and try to stop people dying of COVID-19 instead". Everything will be fine next year. We can all get by without sailing until then.
Click to expand...
Can I have a written guarantee that everything will be fine next year. And can you tell me how I can stop people dying from C19?
 
FWIW I read the original legislation in detail, but I havent followed any new emergency legislation. Originally there was considerable comment about what was "law", the reality was that very few of the Government's recommendations were passed into Law, they werent Law, they were recommendations. It may be it is against the law to stay overnight on a boat, but on this point, the legislation is all that matters IF it is correctly to be referred to as "the law".

As to whether "we" should follow all of the Government's recommendations, that is another matter entirely, and I dare not enter that particular debate!

(Having reviewed the legislation I agree in amendment no 3 to the Stat. Inst. the position remains clear and as set out subject to the various exemptions).

In terms of the Law it would indeed be difficult to find a good reason for staying on board, unless it was already your home, or was becoming your home as matters stand.
 
Last edited:
Which is why the anglers sought counsel's opinion.

Seeking counsel's opinion is, essentially, on a par with receiving a judge's decision, ie "if this went to court, what would the likely result be".
 
Why should anyone be prevented from staying at their holiday home/caravan/biat when the police are failing to prosecute people for joining virtue signaling demonstrations in blatent disregard of distancing?
 
Tomahawk said:
Why should anyone be prevented from staying at their holiday home/caravan/biat when the police are failing to prosecute people for joining virtue signaling demonstrations in blatent disregard of distancing?
Click to expand...
The police are also failing to prosecute many people who are staying overnight on their boats.
 
DJE said:
The way I look at it being outdoors for your physical or mental health or emotional well-being was a reasonable excuse a few weeks ago, so it should still be one now.
In practice - in southern England at least - many people are overnighting on boats or in camper vans. It is obvious to anyone who cares to look.
Click to expand...

Your second statement is manifestly true, your first "reasonable excuse" argument debatable. So I asked a lawyer. His sense is that you are most likely right, assuming you were only aboard with members of your own household.

According to the new regulations, "No person may, without reasonable excuse, stay overnight at any place other than the place where they are living". The regulations cite examples of what might constitute reasonable excuse, but these are explicitly non-exhaustive. Which means that only the courts can determine whether a particular excuse passes the reasonableness test and there is currently no case law. Nor do the new regulations explicitly address the question as to whether staying on a boat - which is not acting as a home - may be construed as part of the limitless outdoor exercise in which one is now entitled to engage.

With the additional assumptions that you have complied with all relevant bye-laws, local regulations, and colregs, that you observe the guidance on social distancing, keep your boat in good nick so as to avoid raising the risk for emergency crews, that the vessel in question is privately owned, and taking into consideration the rapidly changing and often subjective regulations, then his sense is that prosecution would be messy and unlikely.

Which in practice means it won't happen; you may receive a fine as the police aren't sure of the rules either, which it would naturally be best to just pay.
 
Last edited:
It is so - my impression is that the Government has intentionally drafted the legisaltion as widely as possible and with the least prescription. For this reason (and probably others) the police see no merit in enforcing the legislation, other than in the most blatant of cases. With family I have no doubt the argument will go, went sailing for excercise, being on board and out of the house important for failing mental health, caught the tide early in the morning, went fishing etc and frankly the Courts have better things to do than try and convict on that. I susepct it is for the judgement of each of us to behave sensibly. On the whole boat owners who might sleep on board are intelligent people and are the least likely to want to ignore the intent of the legislation, and doubtless, there are many other categories of people who arent applying the same degree of common sense and placing them, others and all of our efforts at far greater risk. As to individuals (not businesses) I suspect the Government would have been far better just trusting the people by producing a long list of high risk activities and things you really shouldnt do, and leave it at that. The reality is there will always be those that ignore the regulations, but the vast majority will comply, and it is doubtful whether legislation changes the degree of compliance substantially in cases such as this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top