My very first colregs thread - rowers

[prv]

I would think that a yacht tacking downstream along a river might be considered to be overtaking any boat moving downstream that it catches up with, regardless of whether its approaching tack is within the sternlight sector.

you were tacking up a channel, so it was likely that they may have gotten in your way if they moved to port or starboard - the most sensible course of action is to remain stationary and allow you to pass either side as you see fit. It seems to me by moving in front of the rower, he was trying to give you room to pass (like 2 people walking abreast on a sidewalk going single-file to pass an oncoming pedestrian). Course I wasn't there - just my read of it.

I think both of these views are (not unreasonably, given my description) making too much of it being a linear situation up or down the river. At the point in question it's quite a broad pool. There's a small sailing school there which had folks out in dinghies going in all directions.

Pete

 

[lw395]

I think both of these views are (not unreasonably, given my description) making too much of it being a linear situation up or down the river. At the point in question it's quite a broad pool. There's a small sailing school there which had folks out in dinghies going in all directions.

Pete

That's about typical, even if people know the rules, opinions differ as to what the situation is.
As an engineer, I like well defined answers to well defined questions. That can't always happen in colregs.
But as in RRS, if you'd sunk the rowing boat, you would both have been in the wrong!

 

[LittleSister]

Absent a specific statement in the ColRegs, maybe the following reasoning would apply:

1) Two vessel types are defined in the ColRegs with reference to their means of propulsion, Sailing Vessels and Power-driven Vessels. There are no other definitions based on means of propulsion.

2) A vessel (replica galley, 14-man whaleboat, eight or kayak) propelled by oars is not a Sailing Vessel.

3) It is propelled by machineiry (see OED for definition). So must be a Power-Driven Vessel.

Or I could be totally wrong -- any legal beaver out there seen any court deliberations on this matter ??? In UK or overseas ??

1) There is specific referece in the IRPCS to 'vessels under oars', in addition to sailing vessels and power driven vessels. There is not a separate definition, but one would have thought it fairly self explanatory what is meant by a vessel under oars.

Two common types of vessels defined by their means of propulsion (sailing and power driven) are given addition rules (i.e. some of the crossing rules; lights, shapes and sounds) in addition to the rules that govern all vessels. It is nowhere suggested in the IRPCS that all vessels are either sailing or power driven vessels.

2) Yes, vessels under oars are not sailing vessels. So what?

3) A vessel under oars is not a vessel driven by machinery. It is no more driven by machinery than a sailing vessel, as I pointed out in my earlier post. The OED definition of machinery is "An apparatus, an appliance; a device for applying mechanical power and having a number of interconnected parts, each with a definite function, especially one that does not utilize human strength" (New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, emphasis added). So, in the ordinary understanding of the word (which is what a court would normally apply in the absence of a specific definition), a vessel driven by machinery would be driven by an engine.

If a vessel under oars were a power driven vessel then why would the IRPCS provide separately and for different lights/shapes for a power driven vessel and a vessel under oars? Rule 23 'Power-driven vessels underway' specifies the lights and shapes to be exhibited by a power driven vessel. A separate one, Rule 25 'Sailing vessels underway and vessels under oars' sets out those for vessels under oars. Rule 25 sub-section d(ii) states "A vessel under oars may exhibit the lights prescribed in this section for sailing vessels, but if she does not, she shall have ready an electric torch or lighted lantern showing a white light which shall be exhibited in sufficient time to prevent collision'. So a vessel under oars may show the same lights as a sailing vessel, but it may not show the same lights as a power driven vessel.

Leagle eagle? See the opinion of the RYA Legal Department in my earlier post, which concluded that vessels under oars were not power driven vessels.

Seems pretty clear to me. As you say, you 'could be totally wrong'!

 

[Mrs FG]

I learnt my coxing on the Cam, definitely nowhere near what I would regard as "navigable" waters. In my experience, rowing boat coxes don't know what one, two or five blasts of the whistle mean. What coxes would recognise is a shout of "Ahead, Sir" (or "Madam", as appropriate), or, in this case, "Astern, Sir" (mutatis mutandis).
Rowing shells are phenomenally expensive (20 years ago, a decent new VIII cost more than our second hand "7-berth" Westerly Konsort did), and any cox (or stroke, in a cox-less boat) will quickly get out of your way if alerted to the problem.

 

[Plomong]

You learn a bit more every day.

Thanks for your clarifications.