Mad idiots on Southhampton water

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Do you think that the obsession with having large powerful machines and always having to push to the front might indicate a certain deficiency in more personal areas?

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That theory was certainly always applied to cars.

(I haven't paid more than £400 for a car or had one over 1400cc in the last 20 years and I've only got 8hp in my boat /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif)

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Well the dolly birds dont agree with you do they /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Most Gin Palaces are draped in gorgeous glamor models /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Only a few Yachts manage to sport any sort of female at all and even then you have to get close to be able to tell the difference /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

It must be the hours you spend out there in the wind that drys them up like old prunes /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

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Last 'dolly bird' I saw on a (very large) mobo was a little wide in the beam. Perhaps the owner felt the need to compensate for other inadequacies not just by means of his car and his boat, but also his SWMBO /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif. Or maybe he'd just spent too much of his free undoubtedly enormous overdraft limit in £1 drips by speeding up and slowing down for yotties /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
I suspect the col regs are there, like a number of laws, rules and regs to ensure that everyone 'respects' each other's (lawful) right of way rather than descending into anarchy. That's probably as far as the legal requirement for respect can be said to go in this context.

So far as the moral requirement for respect is concerned, I don't think I agree with you. In this sense, it isn't a case of anyone saying 'Oi! I'm important/better than you - I demand you respect me!'

Rather, it is about having regard for the consequences of your actions on others. Which of course cuts both ways: I can agree that some raggies 'get in the way of' mobos, for example by tacking up narrow channels, just as equally as some mobos do seem to have a bit of a tendency to seem to want to swamp small raggies with their wash in wide open spaces.

My point - and increasingly I feel like the 44 year-old f*rt that I doubtlessly am as I type this - is that actually we do all have an entitlement to that kind of respect, or at least it used to be the case that we did. Boaters (of all kinds) used to personify it. If you're right in what you say that there is no moral duty of respect, and may the devil take the hindmost, then I am very saddened. It's another layer of civilisation that has fallen away.

BTW, I don't really see the comparison with speeding up to the coned off section on the motorway in the outside lane. For one thing, people who do that - and I am one of them - are playing with the peculiar British psychology that says one should form an endless queue in one lane while leaving the other lane empty for hundreds of yards in advance, then resist all attempts to merge once the cones start. I happen to think my approach is right and that people should merge at the cones, but I can't see the analogy with using the Solent.
 
I wonder if you are right. Perhaps the over-riding Duty of Care that we, as citizens, are duty-bound to observe overcomes all the local by-laws and Col Regs that you wish to find. At least within our territorial waters.
 
I'm afraid I'm the 'wrong kind of lawyer' to offer a definitive answer.

'Duty of care' usually refers to a duty owed to someone else not to do them (actionable) harm, to express the concept in very general terms. It's usually a civil law concept, e.g. in proving negligence one needs to show that the negligent doctor/lawyer/surveyor owed a duty of care to the client who suffered loss as a result of the professional's (in)action.

In the absence of someone else's boat causing damage to yours or injuring your crew, I'm not sure what actionable claim would you have. But that doesn't make being sloshed by mobo wash 'alright', and I'm not any less annoyed by it when it happens. To me it's about courtesy and respect for others, not about legal rights. Of course, on the water the ColRegs take priority, and if you are tacking up a narrow channel then your duties as stand-on vessel supercede annoying the mobo that has to give way to you, no matter what names he calls you as a result. But I've been on both sides of that situation, and I can fully see why mobo's hate us raggies for doing it. As a result I personally prefer not to do it, and have more than once cringed with embarassment when forced to do it on the Itchen on a school yacht in the face of an astounded and ultimately very abusive gravel bargee. I don't think he was especially 'constrained' but I could see why he was p*ssed off...

That's where local laws could help. IIRC, there are such rules restricting entering the Hamble under sail (? haven't been up there for a while?) , and I personally think that's a commonsense idea. But once you get out onto open water, it seems to me that it is up to all of us to make each other's lives easier and that's where things start to go wrong.

It is far from just in the overcrowded Solent that such examples of inconsideracy abound. I have often seen serious gin palaces passing other leisure craft - mobos and raggies alike - with minimal clearance in uncrowded open waters in the Med, e.g. between Bordighera and San Remo, when they had miles of space to play with.
 
Thank you for the analysis.

Personally I have never objected to wash in open waters my view being that if you don't like waves don't go to sea.

What does bother me is the attitude to colregs, which I believe ARE law, typified by:

"To all the raggies that expect MOBO's to get out of there way because the are under sail B**ocks,"

I fail to understand how anyone can support such a position of contempt for the rules that exist to ensure everyone's safety.
 
Like a lot of legal principles. I wonder if anyone has tested a charge of endagering life, or reckless navigation or whatever is available as a charge, in court.
Is it a civil area or would it have to be a criminal prosecution, and presumably it would have to relate to a serious incident which resulted in an emergency or injury?

A load of unpleasantness which could so easily be avoided.
Now that we have a speed limit on Windermere it still doesn't prevent large cruisers ploughing up the lake creating huge was as they are not over the hump. They do that because they are allowed to travel at 10 knots. This despite the fact that 7 or 8 knots would reduce the wash to virtually nothing and they aren't going anywhere fast, or distant anyway. Now there are many more small dinghies, canoes and kayaks on the lake and they really struggle with heavy wash, especially as many are hire boats with inexperienced occupants.

Windermere Navigation Byelaws Number 9 state
"Navigating Without Due Care and Attention.
No master of any vessel shall naviagte it without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for other vessels or for the public using the lake"

Is there no general principal such as this for British waters?
 
Re: Mad idiots on Southampton water

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....Is there no general principal such as this for British waters?

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Each area has their own, in the Solent:

QHM Portsmouth (which actually covers most of the eastern Solent) state:
Vessels to be navigated with care and caution
9. The Master of a vessel navigating the Dockyard Port shall navigate the vessel with care and caution and in such a manner as shall not cause annoyance to the occupants of any other vessel or cause damage or danger to any other vessel or to any moorings or other property.

Southampton VTS (which covers Southampton Water, across to Cowes and adjoins Portsmouth Dockyard) state:
Speed of vessels
7.(1) No person shall navigate a vessel or operate a personal watercraft –
without due care and caution or at a speed or in a manner which, having regard to all the circumstances at the time, including weather conditions and the type condition and use of other vessels underway, berthed or moored, or which might reasonably be expected to be underway, berthed or moored, endangers the safety of, or causes injury to any person, any other vessel, buoy, moorings, banks of the port or any other property;

(there is also a 6 knot limit in a big proportion of Southampton water)

Cowes Harbour Commissioners state:
Power Boats
Power boats and motor cruisers should, at all times, when possible, endeavour to give a wide berth to all yachts engaged in racing and reduce speed when in close proximity.

I am sure there are others which will join up most of the Solent, so any thoughts that it is "open water" are misguided. They all over ride Col Regs as well.
 
50 metres away? Thats close on 150 odd feet away
Sorry don't think that's to close.
Also 6 ft wakes from a 35 - 45 ft planing mobo?

This has to be a troll

Either that your after a booker prize
 
50 m is closer to 4 boat lengths of a 45 footer.
If you find the wash at that distance on your 35 ft boat to much to handle , would suggest you leave it tied up in the marina, or possible better left on the hard so as to ensure the boat doesn't rock
 
I was thinking about mobo wash in our little jolly out this weekend - and all this call about "6' wash - if your boat can't handle it it shouldn't be out" is crap ... because .... and this may not be so apparent to many of our mobo friends ...

When there are naturally occuring waves the peaks & troughs are roughly perpendicular to the wind - a saily boat, under sail is well suited to coping with these waves and the waves are fairly regular (ie you don't have 1-2' waves followed by a 6' one ...)

When a larger vessel goes past it can upset the natural rhythm of the wave pattern giving a temporary confused sea - which is uncomfortable for most vessels...

so - in conclusion - can you only create wash the same size (and frequency) of the prevailing waves and make sure they fall inline too ! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
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B**ocks,

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This is exactly the response of the obviously careless, irresponsible boat owners that I expected.

Thank you very much for proving my point.

Kind regards.


Alan. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
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