Motor boaters - no longer an unsubstantiated rant

[Twister_Ken]

I see it's official

I know us stick-n'-stringers whinge about badly driven smokies as part of our religous credo but it seems we may be right.

YM reports that marine insurers say that premiums will have to go up to cover increased claims caused by powerful motorboats being used by inexperienced 'drivers'.

My latest was two big ribs coming up the Lymington river at speed (there's a 4 kt limit) when the river was full of XOD's creeping back to their moorings under kites on a dying breeze, plus a half dozen folkboats with their egg-whisks whirring away over the back, plus all the normal traffic. What then amazed me was that the buggers then tied up on the RLYC pontoon, confirming our suspicions about blue-flaggers as well.

 

[BarryD]

And you don't think the recent sinking of a MC by a sail-boat in the Solent will have any impact on premiums at all? I would say your 'rant' would be better directed at an overall requirement for training / respect for other users than trying to single out a specific style of craft! Surely sail driven craft are just as likely to run into other boats as motor driven craft are?

Barry D.

 

[robp]

Big engined or powerful motor cars are expensive/impossible for young or inexperienced drivers to insure because of speed. Admittedly the wind is a powerful force but inexperienced sailors generally find that out quickly and at walking pace.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Re: Motor boaters - no longer an unsubstantiated r

Barry,

Just looked up your sinking on the MB forum. Seems a Sunsail boat broached and hit the MB. In which case the MB must have been v close, because a broached boat tends to squirt off sideways at high speed for a boatlength or two, but then stop and lay down in the water until it weathercocks into the wind. So was the MB driver displaying due care and attention? I guess we'll have to wait for the MAIB to report.

But the whole point of my post is that it's not me (or some other rope puller) saying some MB's are badly driven. It's the marine insurers.

PS - I've been hit by a Sunsail boat as well, when I was on a mooring! So it can't just have been a raggie vs smokie incident!

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by kimhollamby on Wed Jan 30 21:28:05 2002 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[BarryD]

OK. NM

.

Barry D.

 

[andrewhopkins]

The minority

I was out over the weekend and met a very nice couple who were polite, non-agressive and did not annoy me. Yet, they had a blue ensign (defaced too!)

I also saw two MBs heading up the itchen going slower than me in my yacht.

Insurance companies will not let MBs increase premiums of yotties insurance. They know that if they can discriminate between the two they can afford to charge more for MBs and be competitive for yotties.

You dont get charge the same for driving a metro as a porsche do you ?

 

[Guest]

Re: Just a rant, then?

First, not sure that we all would take the word of "an insurance company" reported by a "a journalist" as being therefore "a fully substantiated fact" . Isn't it more likely that the insurance companies are exposed to the massive sept11 losses? And have you ever heard an insurance company announce that the premiums will drop due to v careful seamanship, lack of house fires or suchlike? I haven't.

Secondly, however, the unrelated remark about the MB in the solent seems justified - one must imagine that the MB was far too close to the sailboat if it was rammed in a broach. But the ful details weren't published.

Thirdly, even if Mboats did cause lots of damage, fairly easy to quote higher on those higher -risk groups, in the same way as motorcyclists are chrgaed more than motorcars, for example.

Finally, I do hope that you can relax your unenlightened "religious credo". I have found that those who fuel the yotties v motorboaties feud are often also racist and sexist, these attitudes also requiring the blunt and foul-thinking belief that all members of a group will invariably behave in the same way as just one badly-behaved member of that group. When I say that I use sailing boats and use powerboats, they ask "but which one mainly?" in order to maintain their bigoted thinking that I simply must be either a BigEnder, or a LittleEnder.

I hope that the publishers of the magazine will apologise for such slack and unattributed comments, sadly devoured by those wise enough to know better.

 

[duncan]

Re: The minority

well made points.....

and the key from the perspective of the thread/article is that insurers will charge relevant to the risk. However the risk is increasingly nothing to do with the user more the potential 3rd party claim. A ski boat pays most of it's premium for the small but high payout 3rd party bit, a displacment motor cruiser probably the gear on board and sail for the rig etc

any insurer want to comment?

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Oooh! 'Powerful motorboats being used by inexperienced drivers' There's a phrase to stir the prejudices but what does it actually mean? Does it mean that our seas are increasingly full of motorboats bashing into all and sundry? Are the boating mags full of graphic accident stories? Er, well, no apart from last week's story about the racing yacht clouting a motor boat and one or two amusing pictures of boats drying out on clumps of Channel Islands geology.
I boat in the Solent which has got to be one of the most crowded boating areas in the World but I dont see or hear any evidence of this. Its also a fact that more and more boaters are receiving tuition and gaining qualifications thanks to the efforts of the RYA, the magazines and more enlightened dealers
My guess is that insurance companies are desparately looking for ways of raising premiums across a range of areas and powerboats are a soft target. After all wot's an extra £100 a year to a bloke who owns a £100k powerboat, eh?
As for your story about the RLYC tossers in their RIBS, a total disregard for others seems to pre-requisite for all YC tenders

 

[Guest]

The Royal Lymington Yacht Club does not have a blue ensign. It has a defaced red.

 

[Guest]

Insurance is all a con anyway .....

Insurance is one of the great "milch cows" of the business world.

"Cherry picking" (trying to only insure people who will never make a claim), spreading fear that disater is about to strike at any moment and setting like-against-like (to increase fear and thereby premiums) is normal business tactics.

The current advert that shows a "young maniac" swerving around in a car and giving some poor old sod road rage symptoms on the basis that he is paying for the maniac's insurance is a prime example of all three tactics.

Personally I loathe the lot of them - especially whoever invented the advert that scares old people on daytime television to part with their cash on the basis that if they die without insurance no-one will bury them!! How many bodies have you seen lying around the place lately??

Best regards )

Ian D

 

[Bergman]

I rather think you have fallen for the old trick.

Premiums for motor boats will rise - without a doubt.

As will premiums for yachts, cars, houses, pet dogs, life and anything else you care to insure.

The reason is not because motor boats are badly driven or because yachts broach into them.

It is because the insurance world is reeling from the thoughts of how much the World Trade Centre is going to cost them.

To quote one senior figure "We need to refill the pot"

Which really means you and I will have to refill it

I believe Islamic law prohibits insurance !!!!!?????

 

[Bergman]

Re: PS

Rant away Ken
I hope it will at least make you feel better when you reach deeper into your pocket

 

[aztec]

i read with interest your comments, unfortunately due to lack of sailing knowledge on my part, and my limited application of english, I cannot understand what you are saying.

Sorry.

 

[Guest]

Hi,

For my twohapence worth .......

There are two issues at stake here. The first is education. Motor boaters generally don't realise just what they do. Having just returned from germany in a very light dispalcement boat I can site any nember of examples of how I was stalled/cut up/rolled or just generally inconvinienced by a motor boat. Meeting up with the stinkboater later they were all very friendly and didn't realise that they had affected me in any way. We have to tell them that we need room, we don't like their wash and we are entirely dependent on the wind and can't just change course as easily as we would like.

The second is cost. There are those who complain bitterly every time we look at duty on marine fuel. If the cost of the diesel was 75p per litre I am fairly sure that any number of TSDY with 2 great big 250HP engines would stay on their moorings for longer to the benefit of all. Maybe it is time that the yachting fraternity lobbied for higher fuel taxes. I have an outboard powering my boat and if I fill up at a fuel pontoon it costs me about £1 a litre. I don't really mind as at 5knts I use less than 2 litres an hour and I'd rather be sailing anyway.

If insurance is set to rise it might be an idea to persuade the insurers that a sailboat is less of a risk than a power boat and to charge accordingly - though since there is no requirement to be insured this won't make a huge amount of difference. Perhaps we need higher taxes and compulsory insurance. Neither is a bad thing in my opinion.

Regards



Fred

 

[lyc]

Re: Motor boaters

Fred,

Your comments are typical of a minority of rag & stick men who think that any water is for their own sole use and to hell with anyone else.

I own a Petrol twin engine motor cruiser so I must be one of the worst kinds according to yourself; I can assure you that I treat every boat of any description with the utmost care and consideration.

Perhaps you would be an ideal candidate for the swapping of vessels as proposed by the motorboat forum to give you an insight as to how bad behaviour affects everyone.

Lesson 1.
Motorboats cannot stop or turn on a sixpence while some rag & stick sailors demand every last bit of water in confined spaces.
Lesson 2.
A friendly pointing of direction in advance as to where you would prefer the motorboat to overtake, does away with any guesswork as to what your next move will be.
Lesson 3.
Insurance, in a sudden squall I've seen many a rag & stick upturned, stuck on banks etc etc. but not motorboats.
Lesson 4.
Petrol is around £1 a litre, I use my boat every weekend throughout the year (apart from a couple of weeks out for maintenance) and every holiday, in fact any spare time I can find I am on my boat, so price would not keep us all on moorings as you wish.

I could go on but I hope you have now got the message, don't tar us all with the same brush.

 

[Bergman]

I won't get further into the motor v sail debate other than to say I have had very few bad experiences of motor boats behaving badly, probably no worse than sailing boats when racing.

However to imagine that increasing tax is some sort of solution is, if you will forgive the word, lunacy.

Tax exists to finance Government spending. It is not (or should not be) a punishment for bad behaviour or a means of social engineering.

I feel similarly about insurance. It is a means by which one can manage risks to which one is exposed. In a few instances where failure to manage these risks causes unnacceptable losses to innocent parties then insurance has become compulsory. Motor vehicle and employers liability spring to mind. To try to argue a parallel with sailing is neither sensible or accurate. There is no evidence of such losses occuring.

Making such suggestions, even from felings of frustration, does not help anyone and can only work to the detriment of everyone who enjoys the sea.

It is not possible to legislate against stupidity or bad manners, that is the job of education.

 

[jfm]

Re: dont tar with same brush

Fred please do not tar all with one brush. You talk about "motorboaters" as if you mean them all, not the tiny minority who don't behave well.

I sail and motor 50/50 so am I a motorboater?

Re your last para, the insurance companies have all the data they need to distinguish between motor and sail, they dont need to be "persuaded". No insurance underwriter sets its premium based on "persuasion" by an interested party. No, motor boat insurance premiums are set by the free market and reflect the actual (well, perceived) risk

Ooh yes and a rant. The fuel tax wont stop everyone. I dont have time to burn more than about £2000 of diesel at most per season. So making the tax the same as road fuel means an extra say £4000/year. Not an inconsiderable sum, but against the cost of a big gin palace and the income to buy one it's a tiny sum, and if one values one's boating it wont keep one tied to mooring. Also 2x250hp sounds like a pair of woosey motors, praps they were generators or one was on the tender?




JFM