Oars or sails right of way?

[alan_d]

Simple, a vessel being rowed is under power and should give way to sail, unless of course they happen to be fishing and showing the right shapes/lights

A vessel being rowed may or may not be under power, but in Rule 3 (b) the colregs define a "power-driven vessel" as any vessel propelled by machinery. Machinery is not defined, but it is clear from Rule 3 (c) that a mast and sails are not considered machinery, so I would doubt if oars were either. Now a pedalo ....

 

[LittleSister]

Vessels under oars are not power driven vessels under the Col Regs. Apart from anything else, why would the Regs specify different lights for power driven vessels than for a vessel under oars if they were the same?

(And no, levers don't come into it!).

 

[l'escargot]

If the mob hadn't run Tim Bartlett out of here, you might have had a nice, comprehensive answer

"Comprehensive"? ....

 

[Cookee]

Not sure about the colregs to be honest, but as the gig/ skiff is harder to manouvre - and a great sight to see, there are some around my club too - I'd give way and keep clear as a simple courtesy.

I was the first cox of the Salcombe Gig and if you have ever watched a race you will know they are very manoeuvrable! They often have to do close to 180 degree turns in very close proximity to a lot of other gigs.

 

[macd]

I could have sworn that I had read in the 'International regulations for prevention of collision at sea' at some stage that vessel driven by oar were considered power driven vessels. In light of what has been said so far, and the fact that I cannot lay my hands on a copy, I must have got that wrong, signs of an ageing mind I guess..

I used search for both 'oar' and 'row' on the Colregs and found only the reference quoted in my post #2.

Scillypete's reference to rule 2b in post, #30 seems to me to clear it up as much as it's likely to be.

 

[Jamesuk]

Oars give way to sail. Discussed at great length with Navy Captain and Merchant mariner at drinks party 4 years ago. Both of which Rowed at school/uni. I rowed out of Ryde.

 

[prv]

Oars give way to sail. Discussed at great length with Navy Captain and Merchant mariner at drinks party 4 years ago. Both of which Rowed at school/uni. I rowed out of Ryde.

Unfortunately, what some people think is not the same thing as what the law says. The rowers (or certainly their coaches) at the Coalporters Rowing Club in Southampton think that sail gives way to oars. As best we can determine, in conjunction with the RYA's Legal Department, neither they nor your naval officers are correct, and neither form of propulsion has priority over the other, except under local byelaws in some places.

Pete

 

[AntarcticPilot]

A vessel being rowed may or may not be under power, but in Rule 3 (b) the colregs define a "power-driven vessel" as any vessel propelled by machinery. Machinery is not defined, but it is clear from Rule 3 (c) that a mast and sails are not considered machinery, so I would doubt if oars were either. Now a pedalo ....

A lever is a machine (it is one of the archetypical machines!), and oars are simply levers with a fulcrum at the rowlock. So, I'd argue that a rowing boat is a "vessel propelled by machinery". I'd suspect that a lawyer might well think the same way

More seriously, I doubt there could be a sensible rule that covered ALL rowing vessels. There are so many kinds, with completely different characteristics. A racing shell may be doing 15+ knots, and be pretty much unable to turn in any meaningful distance (they can be spun round the middle when stopped, though). In Cambridge all eights are required to have a small ball on the bow - and that's because a cox was killed by being speared by an eight, back in the 19th century! At the other extreme, there's me in my inflatable - extremely manoeverable (it will spin in it's own length, and stop on sixpence), but very slow.

My limited experience is that in places where there is significant racing in oared vessels, there are usually bye-laws to cover the situation. There are certainly special rules on the River Cam, and other have mentioned local bye-laws in harbours etc. Let's face it - it is unlikely that you will encounter the more extreme racing rowing vessels except in sheltered waters, where local regulations may well trump COLREGS. If I came across a rowing vessel in offshore waters, then I'd a) want to ensure they were safe and take action if they weren't and b) if they were safe and where they meant to be, assume they were essentially a powered vessel, able to make progress against the wind. After all, if they couldn't make progress against the wind, they wouldn't be safe!

 

[LittleSister]

A lever is a machine (it is one of the archetypical machines!), and oars are simply levers with a fulcrum at the rowlock. So, I'd argue that a rowing boat is a "vessel propelled by machinery". I'd suspect that a lawyer might well think the same way

The RYA's lawyers don't think that way, as I reported above.

 

[Jamesuk]

Unfortunately, what some people think is not the same thing as what the law says. The rowers (or certainly their coaches) at the Coalporters Rowing Club in Southampton think that sail gives way to oars. As best we can determine, in conjunction with the RYA's Legal Department, neither they nor your naval officers are correct, and neither form of propulsion has priority over the other, except under local byelaws in some places.

Pete

Your wrong ))) and so are the RYA (in my ignorant opinion), jesus I pay them £40 every year perhaps £100 would be better so they can hire a decent 'common sense' legal team.... as mentioned in another post this week, last year and every year since i became a Member, an engineer will point out that a rowing boat is a vessel driven by power, based on the princible of lever(age)

Rowing boats fall under Power driven vessels. Your right on Byelaws if it says that a rowing club has rights over sailing boats or vice versa then game on.

Rowing boats are machines end of... Not convinced.... look it another way. Who gives way: A vessel restricted in its ability to manoeuvre or a rowing boat? Clearly the rowing boat. So the point im trying to make is that a rowing boat has 360 degrees of manoeuvrability a sailing yacht does not, so they are restricted and a rowing boat is not so must give way.

Thanks for reading, im a sailor and a rower, the only time a sailing boat must give way is when it falls under RULE 13 and is overtaking the rowing boat.


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lever
A lever is a machine consisting of a beam or rigid rod pivoted at a fixed hinge, or fulcrum. It is one of the six simple machines identified by Renaissance scientists ...
Early use - Force and levers - Classes of levers - Law of the lever

 

[macd]

I certainly think there's a case to be made for a vessel under oars being powered by machinery, in fact if not under the Colregs.

Let's exaggerate a little and consider a Roman Trireme with sails furled and 170 oars churning the water (Caesar's going water skiing so the slaves are flat-out). Would this be considered a powered vessel? You betcha it would, particularly if you happened to be becalmed and in its way.

Yet I'm still not convinced that oars are machines within the meaning of the Regs. Maybe it's been ruled on somewhere or other. Most things have. In the meantime I'm as much in the dark as anyone else.

 

[Capt Popeye]

Methinks that there a number of issues here, being jumbled up a wee bit.

Navigation lighting - I assume that long before 'powered' vessels arrived on the watery scene, there were boats propeled by oar and / or sail; so the same nav lighting was required for both, as quite often a boat might change from sail to oar if the wind dropped. In those far off days both oar and sail had to cope with tide, wind and weather in similar fashion.
Then, along came 'fire and brimstone' to 'power' boats along, these new fangled boats could navigate quite well aginst the tide, wind and weather; so were much less dependant upon these factors; so as a 'warning', to boats under oar and sail, of the 'powered vessels' approach etc they, the 'powered vessels' were instructed to carry a 'white light' as well as the Port / Starboard etc; this 'white light' was meant to distinguish the 'powered vessels' from all other boats / vessels.

Manouverability oar vers sail - I would suggest that both type of boats have quite good manouverability in favourable conditions; BUT, a boat under sail alone relys upon enough wind to move through the water, therfore if insufficient wind about, a boat under sail alone, is probably becalmed, and thefore 'not under command', so certainly cannot move out of the way of any propelled boat / vessel. So a boat under oar is able to take the necessary avoiding action, at almost anytime, to prevent collision at any time. A boat under sail alone is not.

 

[BlondeBimbo]

Well this question was more interesting than I thought!

The very first piece of literature about boats I ever had was the “Seaman’s Pocketbook” as issued by the Sea Cadet Corps and Girl’s Nautical Training Corps (SCC and GNTC), and it is very clear in there –
Power gives way to :
Boat under oars, which gives way to :
Sailing vessel …. etc etc

This pecking order being drummed into us as GN’s (or cadets), in fact this pocketbook takes all its info from the Admiralty Manuals ( of Seamanship, signals, navigation etc), and was clearly repeated in the Admiralty Manuals of Seamanship of 1937, 1964… etc.

So there was no doubt whatsoever, and in fact itself was clear in the IRPCS at that time!

Basically a Vessel was defined as anything floating, a power driven vessel was a Vessel driven by machinery, a sailing vessel was a Vessel powered by sail (not using machinery) and so on.

(A lever is not sufficient to class it as machinery)

Then in part C (steering rules) the pecking order was defined via rules 17 to 27

This ensured that a Power Driven Vessel (PDV) gave way to all other vessels, a Sailing Vessel gives way to fishing, CBD and NUC etc.

Thus the pecking order would be

PDV – gwt – (any other vessel) – gwt – Sailing – gwt – Fishing – gwt- NUC/CBD/RM

Sea planes being defined to “normally keep out of the way, but where risk of collision exists shall be regarded as a PDV”

So in answer to the question – pulling/rowing/sculling boats must give way to sail.

HOWEVER
1) The IRPCS only apply to vessels on the high seas and waters connected therewith…. So a lake, canal, river etc does not have to use these rules i.e. local regulations take priority
2) The whole IRPCS were rewritten in 1972

In the 1972 and onwards versions there were some changes notably sea planes (and subsequently Wing in ground) fell to the bottom, and the requirement for PDV to give way to all others was replaced by specific give way to sail etc. (although Vessel, PDV, Sailing Vessel etc definitions are the same)

So the pecking order becomes

Sea-plane/WIG – gwt – PDV – gwt- Sail – gwt- fishing– gwt- NUC/RAM ….. etc

And there is no specific requirement or capture of a vessel other than the defined ones (sea plane/WIG/PDV/Sailing/NUC/RAM) and therefore no requirement of any of these defined ones to keep out of the way of a Vessel
(Noting that a vessel Constrained by it’s Draught [CBD] is still a PDV although has some additional rules about not being impeded)

So it isn’t so clear now!

However –
The general principles of the IRPCS leads to the conclusion that any Vessel must avoid collision with another, and if there isn’t a rule defining you as a stand-on vessel, you must be a give way vessel!
And of course even if you are stand-on, you must take action if the action of the give way vessel is insufficient (rule 17 in the 1972 version)

So I would take it that the practical order is

Vessel (such as under oars) – gwt - Sea-plane/WIG – gwt – PDV – gwt - Sail – gwt - fishing – gwt - NUC/RAM

Which still has pulling/rowing/sculling boats giving way to sail!

There is certainly no requirement for a sail to keep clear of anything other than fishing or CBD in narrow channel, or RAM, or NUC other than any local rules.

BB

 

[st599]

An oar is a lever to give a mechanical power advantage. Therefore a rowing boat is, by definition, mechanically powered.

 

[LittleSister]

An oar is a lever to give a mechanical power advantage. Therefore a rowing boat is, by definition, mechanically powered.

But that's irrelevant to the Col Regs, as I explained above. A boom is a lever, but that doesn't make a sailing vessel a power vessel.

I give up. There's no evidence that evidence affects people's opinions!

 

[Pye_End]

Wiki definition of a simple machine is:

'a device that simply transforms the direction or magnitude of a force,'

Therefore those who stretch the definition of 'propelled by machinary' to include rowing also ought to include sailing as a machine.

Clearly this is not what is meant in COLREGS. Post 39 is my understading as the correct legal answer.

 

[Capt Cautious]

I'd go with post 39, with one change . Para 3 in the post contains a reference to crossing situations with sailing vessels. Such a beast does not exist. You can have neither a head on situation, or a crossing situation with a sailing vessel (or NUC, RAM, Fishing)
If it makes sense and looks right it probably is. If they can show the same lights at night (and they can), then they are to be treated the same. Interestingly it raises the question of how do you know whether to apply the sailing vessel manouevering rules or not ? - of which I care not !

CC