Liquid Vortex trial starts
- Thread starter jimi
- Start date
Blue5
Well-Known Member
It was main headline on BBC South Today, didn,t realise the skippers daughter was on board.
Not a great advert for sailing
Not a great advert for sailing
sarabande
Well-Known Member
if the skipper is found guilty, it looks as if MCA are then going to be able to insist that every boat has a written down plan and contacts the CG before slipping.
One small step for bureaucracy.....
One small step for bureaucracy.....
Seajet
...
I hope that means 'every COMMERCIAL boat' !
To some extent contacting the CG is good sense anyway; when on my exam it was blowing a solid F10 on the last day, we were only going from Ocean Village to Warsash but the examiner notioned to me above the din as we passed VTS ( for non Solent readers, the 'air traffic control' type of authority with radar & watchtower in charge of commercial shipping in the Solent ).
The examiner, a veteran of The Battle of The River Plate and almost every Fastnet Race since, asked me to call VTS " tell them we're not mad, we're only going to Warsash ! "
Seemed sensible to me for occasions like that, but it would be a right pain to everyone concerned - except the pen pushers making yet more legislation who never deal with the consequences - if ' Skylark of Southamton ' had to request clearance for engine start and file a sail plan before departure !
I thought the UK is meant to be strapped, what with this idea and the MMO trying to police anchoring anywhere, we seem to have a growth industry in civil serpents...
jimi
Well-Known Member
In this case they certainly had a plan .. it involved setting sail into a f9 forecast with paying novices. In this case the plan itself was just plain crazy, IMHO.
PhillM
Well-Known Member
sarabande; One small step for bureaucracy.....[/QUOTE said:
dt4134
Well-Known Member
According to the report, the skipper is not being charged with failing to contact the CG. It's the owner of the company that is up on that charge, so it may well not be what you think it is.
Not even sure it necessarily means plans will have to be written down. He presumably couldn't give a satisfactory verbal answer at the time as to what he had planned to do if the forecasted mid-winter F10 came in. In any event I couldn't second guess a plausible answer.
toad_oftoadhall
Well-Known Member
The YM article [1] seemed to me to present the people on the boat in a far better light. All the below from the YM article:
- At least two of the crew had gale experience.
- At least one of the crew enjoyed himself and enjoyed the challenge.
- The boat exceeded MCA requirements (Whatever that means!)
- Charlie Sturrock had been sailing since 9 & had been a Joint Services Adventure Training Skipper.
- LV did make Ramsgate under her own steam.
- CS's adult daughter was on board, given that hard to imagine him taking needless risks, also with a sailing father you have to assume she might have known what she was doing.
- They didn't set out into a F11. They set out with a forecst 5-7 Possibly 10 later & plenty of sheltered places to duck into before the 'possible' 10 arrived.
- As we know, in addition to CS (a Commercial YM) there were four competent crew on board and "two qualified Day Skippers"[1]
- The RYA have not permanantly removed HL's recognition - it's suspended.
In the negative column, CS admits they pushed the "weather window a little too far" & it turns out they did put out a Mayday which wasn't initially reported AFAIK.
Be interesting to see what the MCA have to say, but for now, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
[1] Direct quote from YM.
Here's the original thread subsiquent to CS's side of the story coming out:
http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=303863
A thread that ends with a fair bit of agreement that CS wasn't the demon so many people would like him to be.
- At least two of the crew had gale experience.
- At least one of the crew enjoyed himself and enjoyed the challenge.
- The boat exceeded MCA requirements (Whatever that means!)
- Charlie Sturrock had been sailing since 9 & had been a Joint Services Adventure Training Skipper.
- LV did make Ramsgate under her own steam.
- CS's adult daughter was on board, given that hard to imagine him taking needless risks, also with a sailing father you have to assume she might have known what she was doing.
- They didn't set out into a F11. They set out with a forecst 5-7 Possibly 10 later & plenty of sheltered places to duck into before the 'possible' 10 arrived.
- As we know, in addition to CS (a Commercial YM) there were four competent crew on board and "two qualified Day Skippers"[1]
- The RYA have not permanantly removed HL's recognition - it's suspended.
In the negative column, CS admits they pushed the "weather window a little too far" & it turns out they did put out a Mayday which wasn't initially reported AFAIK.
Be interesting to see what the MCA have to say, but for now, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
[1] Direct quote from YM.
Here's the original thread subsiquent to CS's side of the story coming out:
http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=303863
A thread that ends with a fair bit of agreement that CS wasn't the demon so many people would like him to be.
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toad_oftoadhall
Well-Known Member
That wasn't the plan, though, was it? According to the plan they should have been into Dover in a F7 according to both the forecast and the actual winds.
If the steering hadn't been broken by a freak wave in much lighter winds than a 9 they'd have made it in safely to Dover and we'd never have heard of them.
Can you really plan for total steering loss in every passage plan?
They had an adequate plan & a weather window and a that was tighter than many of us would have chosen but, in my view, not criminally dangerous.
dt4134
Well-Known Member
The video in the report linked by the OP does show LV accepting a tow from the lifeboat.
That said, the conditions in the video don't look that bad at all. Not a pleasure cruise, but I didn't see the hull disappear behind the next wave at any stage in that clip. The boat is being manouvred quite quickly, so there doesn't seem to be any real reason why they couldn't make Ramsgate on their own.
However, I think there was something at the time about the wheel being bent and they did put out a mayday.
Which raises another question, if they hadn't put out a mayday and had made port anyway, would there have been a prosecution?
Marakei
Well-Known Member
The principal of the sailing school I use, when she heard the forecast, contacted their boat heading for the Boat Show and told the skipper to go into Brighton and stay there. Other sailing schools presumably did similar as there were no other incidents.
So in safety terms the situation self-regulated apart from the maverick boat. What a shame if that led to restrictions being imposed upon the others. It's right Hot Liquid should account for their decision making, though.
So in safety terms the situation self-regulated apart from the maverick boat. What a shame if that led to restrictions being imposed upon the others. It's right Hot Liquid should account for their decision making, though.
Talulah
Well-Known Member
The danger is that an instructor doesn't send out a Mayday until too late for fear of prosecution.
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
+1 agree. Really.
jimi
Well-Known Member
Hmmm .. not sure that was the plan! Dover was a potential bolt hole not the ultimate destination. Lets see what the court case brings. My point was that the presence of a plan does not per se mean everything is OK. The plan might be nuts or the execution of it might be less than perfect.
toad_oftoadhall
Well-Known Member
CS: "I believed we could be in Dover by 0600 or 0700, so decided to carry on. The Storm would not be with us until mid-morning, by which time we would be tucked up in Dover."
If it wasn't for the broken steering which took place in fairly benign conditions they'd have made Dover long before the nasty stuff started.
Yes, they pushed the window a bit but who among us hasn't?
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Seajet
...
Well not many of us here have, I'd suggest !
It was a stupid idea to sail at all with a forecast like that, even with a truly bionic crew which the chap certainly didn't have.
People were paying to go sailing not for near-death experiences, and it's pure blind luck people didn't die.
I'd imagine there were various financially driven pressures to sail, but as a skipper one is ultimately responsible, and has to be able to say ' knickers to that plan ! ' and walk away from a job if need be; as it turns out the chap seems arrogant in the extreme, tweeting to his chums about the dangers he was leading paying people into - he would be much more highly regarded now if he'd told them to stuff it !
dt4134
Well-Known Member
or more likely unemployed and utterly obscure.
toad_oftoadhall
Well-Known Member
You're saying not many YBWers have pushed a weather window?
No there weren't, they had loads of time to get round to the boat show.
Seajet
...
I seem to have a different idea of time to reach destination, re crews and forecasts; let's agree to differ,
good luck !
Tomahawk
Well-Known Member
Would be very interesting to ask the MCA operative for his route plan for traveling from his office to the court...
May seem a bit daft but more people are killed on the roads every day than in a year or so of yachting.... That being the case it is simply irrisponsible for an outfit like the MCA to allow staff to venture onto the roads without a complete route plan with appropriate risk assessment for every eventuality and every junction...
The point of this being that a passage plan may not actually be necessary....
May seem a bit daft but more people are killed on the roads every day than in a year or so of yachting.... That being the case it is simply irrisponsible for an outfit like the MCA to allow staff to venture onto the roads without a complete route plan with appropriate risk assessment for every eventuality and every junction...
The point of this being that a passage plan may not actually be necessary....