MAIB Roasted

Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

the obvious answer is to challenge the cost of £15000, and lobby your MP to get clarification about the status of the report.

thats what he is there for after all - represent his constituents /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

Tim

It would help if you fully identified yourself here for the purposes of this discussion. It was an RIN link to your FOI action which started this thread

Very good summary, cheers and with you all the way

Tom
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

There's not much point: the MAIB explained how they arrived at the £15,000, and I'm quite prepared to believe them. Essentially, they're saying that they can't provide the evidence to support their own figures because they haven't got any evidence, and it would cost far too much to go and get it.
The thing that surprises me is that they were prepared to admit that they haven't got any evidence!

All the best
Tim
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

so no evidence makes it a hypothesis ......... I hardly think legislation will come out of that scenario /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

Hmmm, Having had more than one beery chat about cruising both in mobos and yots with MAIB Inspectors, I'm not sure that they are as incompetent as some suggest...
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

So thats where they got the idea that all yachties are pissheads then? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Rick
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

Well done Rick, with an intellect like that you should be working for NASA..!
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

You are so wide of the mark. Who is suggesting on here that MAIB inspectors are incompetent?

Get a grip. If you don't understand what's being discussed, read the thread again
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

[ QUOTE ]
Who is suggesting on here that MAIB inspectors are incompetent?

[/ QUOTE ]

See:-
[ QUOTE ]
I'm pretty certain that although the MAIB inspectors may be well-qualified to deal with commercial shipping, their expertise in small craft is generally limited or non-existent. This leads them to make simplistic assessments based on dodgy data.

...

I could understand these things being caused by inspectors operating in an environment that is so completely alien to them that they fail to ask the right questions or to see the significance of the information available to them.

[/ QUOTE ]
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

Fair comment, but it's thread drift. The original point concerned discredited statements in MAIB annual report, not performance or experience of individual inspectors

MAIB is held in high esteem worldwide for it's impartial investigations and Meyers has devalued this by publishing a statement without any factual base. It's he who should be held to account
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

tome, your last remark is absolutely right, and I hope you have now read my earlier remark and understand my position clearly...

Having told me to 'read the thread again', your own position is untenable... Just like someone else's who's being discussed here...

Rick, I was laughing with you, not at you!

As to whether it's thread drift, I have been keen to point out the difference between the inspectorate and their high paid help...
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

[ QUOTE ]
Rick, I was laughing with you, not at you!

[/ QUOTE ]

Oops! /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif I missed the tone completely - apologies!

Rick
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

[ QUOTE ]
Essentially, they're saying that they can't provide the evidence to support their own figures because they haven't got any evidence, and it would cost far too much to go and get it.
The thing that surprises me is that they were prepared to admit that they haven't got any evidence!

[/ QUOTE ]

It seems to me - and I have something of a track record in this - that the way to scotch these types is to get numerous Members of Parliament to ask 'Written Questions' about this 'dodgy dossier' report, that the responsible Minister of State has to answer.

And far more effective is this - get a Privy Councillor to ask the Question in writing. The convention in Whitehall seems to be that, if an ordinary MP asks a question, the reply can come from a middle-ranking civil servant - and that is ultimately deniable as being 'beyond that individual's remit and experience'.

However, a Reply to a Privy Councillor 'may end up in The Palace' and that is not deniable. As the Reply is attributable to the responsible Minister of State, it is crafted by a very senior CS bod, whose promotion - his job, even - is on the line if he lands the Minister in it, whether by omission or commission.

So getting a PC to write is valuable. Who among us has an MP who is also a Privy Councillor?

/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

If only it were true that "legislation is unlikely to come out of a hypothesis! I'm afraid the track record of British governments (of all political complexions) suggests otherwise. The overwhelming weight of legislation in this country is so-called "secondary" legislation -- drawn up by civil servants and signed off by government ministers, without parliamentary scrutiny. The opportunity already exists for secondary legislation to extend commercial reporting regulations, (or commercial alcohol regulations) to recreational craft. It only requires a senior civil-servant to convince a relatively inexperienced minister that such rules are necessary, and the thing is as good as law.
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

what a frightening prospect ........ behind the counter laws made by the faceless unelected

I would imagine such a law as that imposed on our boating fraternity would elicit such a backlash that anyone associated to it would have to answer an angry

who the 'f' draughted that stupid law - and be dealt with appropriately ....... wouldn't you

in which case even a faceless mandrin would not be in too much of a hurry to kick the sleeping dog /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

Please note that I said "their expertise in small craft is generally limited or non-existent", not that they are all incompetent. I am not questioning the inspectors' professional expertise in ships: I am questioning whether that expertise is necessarily applicable to small craft and sailing vessels.

I referred to two particular examples. In the Roaring Meg case, for instance, the report shows the yacht tacking up Southampton water ... yet it refers to the wind being Southwesterly, rather than northwesterly. The wind direction is important, because it concerns what appears to be a succession of accidental gybes ... yet the inspector appears to have ignored the evidence of the wind direction that is offered by the yacht's actual track, in favour of data from the Brambles Post.

The Roaring Meg report also says "His leg was then forced down by the mainsheets against the traveller as the yacht did an accidental gybe. The boom moved rapidly from the starboard to the port side, and then quickly returned to the starboard side." This could well sound like two accidental gybes in quick succession.

But if you gybe a yacht in a Force 7, I suggest that the combination of forces concerned are such that the boat is likely to continue to luff up on her new tack, rather than suddenly gybeing back again of her own accord.

I believe that inconsistencies like these (and the Roaring Meg report is littered with them) are adequate grounds to question the inspector's experience of sailing and small craft. The corollary to this is to question whether he landed the job of nvestigating this particular incident in spite of his lack of experience or because of it.

After all, someone who knew what they were talking about might have come up with a different interpretation... one that didn't suit the MAIB agenda quite so neatly!
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

Considering the concerns expressed in the MAIB's report on 'Roaring Meg' - and in particuler the increasing incidence of boom-related head injuries - I found myself speaking to the RYA's Senior Chappie Simon Jenkins about the wearing of head protection by those professionally-engaged ( i.e. paid instructors ) and the attitude of both the Health and Safety Executive and the RYA to these accidents.

I was told that the RYA opposed the idea of head protection, and that 'people should be taught to sail the boat properly instead'. He considered that the RYA would consult with sea-school principals and senior instructors, and something of a consensus would emerge.

I note that in the most recently published issue of YM that James Stevens, another Senior Chappie of the RYA, has an article touching on this matter, in which he avers that sea-school principals and the like have already been consulted..... Oh, really?

As for 'learning to sail the boat properly instead', I've been doing just that for over 35 years - both properly and improperly, like many others on here - and, while I manage deliberate gybing as a drill, I readily acknowledge that an accidental gybe may happen at almost any moment in a rough sea and a strongly-gusting following wind. My skull is certainly not immune to a clunk on the nut, or worse, and I can drown unconscious as quick as the next unfortunate.

Cyclists, cavers and climbers have come to accept the wisdom of head protection in my lifetime, and voluntarily wear head protection. It's my view that the RYA ought to be taking a lead in encouraging similar *voluntary* behaviour among yotties, rather than a bleating follow-up.

What say you? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Re: MAIB Roasted over \'dodgy dossier\'

[ QUOTE ]
After all, someone who knew what they were talking about might have come up with a different interpretation... one that didn't suit the MAIB agenda quite so neatly!

[/ QUOTE ]

It is my understanding that the MAIB Inspectorate is formed from highly-skilled and deeply-experienced professionals who command the respect of their Extra-Master Mariner peers - a group not noted for suffering fools at all!

I would expect any one of these to seek guidance from similarly deeply-experienced professonals in any area where they did not happen to have specific expertise - such as a Yachtmaster Ocean Examiner, for example..... That process would be a common part of the professionalism of the team and/or Branch, and we would soon hear from the Nautical Institute if the MAIB's Inspectors were any less punctilious than that. It is, I understand, similar to the work and standards of other Statutory Accident Investigation organisations.

Such bodies, and their authorised individual Inspectors, have very considerable powers which they exercise through Acts of Parliament and Orders In Council. ......Except over recreational yotties - power and sail - unless there has been a serious accident or injury...... We may shortly be about to see a change in that.

This 'dodgy dossier' could well be one of the devices created to 'pave the way' for such in the next Parliamentary Session, but via an Order In Council rather than something properly debated in The House. A simple change to the exemptions for recreational craft in The Merchant Shipping Act would be all that was needed strip away our rights and our responsibilities, vesting them in a new category of Small Craft Inspector - to be trained, examined and certified by You Know Who.......

Done and dusted. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif
 
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