One more knot and we will take you to court - Miserable Grumpy Poole Harbour Master

[chuzzlewit]

The police have jet skis with blue flashing lights.

 

[ari]

So hands up all those who have commented that have never exceeded the speed limit in their boat.

And I say again the HM powers are very limited and more so as he has no legal way of knowing who you are if you are in an unmarked boat

By 50%!? My hand is up.

Maybe get yourself a bit of boat handling training perhaps?

 

[Seastoke]

You could write such a great thread , about all your boats ,how they perform and why you have so many etc.instead of talking shite.

 

[[2574]]

You could write such a great thread , about all your boats ,how they perform and why you have so many etc.instead of talking shite.

Accurate and succinct. Excellent.

 

[Alicatt]

Loch Lomond post up the restrictions

 

[Martxer]

Have you ever ignored them

No

 

[Hot Property]

Come on Dennis, let's hear about your multitude of boats!

I thought the 5 that I have was quite impressive but you have 15 or so?

Give us a list and précis of each boat and why you bought it AND retain it......

 

[Pinnacle]

Loch Lomond post up the restrictions
View attachment 140770

Why on earth is the limit expressed in kph? Knots, yes - mph maybe. Who has the unit of speed on their log/gps in their boats set to kph? Confused of Surrey.

 

[SaltIre]

Why on earth is the limit expressed in kph? Knots, yes - mph maybe. Who has the unit of speed on their log/gps in their boats set to kph? Confused of Surrey.

Unwelcome content deleted
kph is knots per hour.

 

[Greg2]

Unwelcome content deleted
kph is knots per hour.

Is it?
A knot is one nautical mile per hour so ‘knot per hour’ doesn’t really make sense.

 

[Boathook]

Unwelcome content deleted
kph is knots per hour.

Never heard of kph. Like others I thought an abbreviation of km/hr.

 

[Alicatt]

Why on earth is the limit expressed in kph? Knots, yes - mph maybe. Who has the unit of speed on their log/gps in their boats set to kph? Confused of Surrey.

Reading the Byelaws of the Loch all speeds are quoted in kilometres per hour with a maximum speed of 90km/h.

3.6 SPEED LIMITS – ALL VESSELS
3.6 (1) Subject to Byelaw 3.6 (2), and except with the written approval of the
Authority complying with any conditions therein, the maximum speed of any
Vessel using the Loch shall be 90 kilometres per hour or such lower speed as
is consistent with the safety of the Vessel, its passengers and other users of
the Loch considering the conditions prevailing on the Loch from time to time.
3.6 (2) Notwithstanding Byelaw 3.6 (1), and except with the prior written approval of
the Authority, the Master of a Power-driven boat shall not permit his Powerdriven boat to travel at a speed greater than 11 kilometres per hour in any of
the following areas all as shown dark blue on plan 1 annexed:
Plan is as posted above though colours are different.

 

[ashtead]

Apologies to QHM yesterday, I came in a little "hot" towards the harbour entrance. It was either that or get squeezed by another bunch of boats coming in from portside.
Hindsight suggests that backing off a lot earlier or even doing a 180 until everyone sorted themselves out might have been a better move ?
10 knots still has the potential to cause a bit of chaos.

If you ever meet the QHM volunteers socially say when they are parked up at Gunwharf where they lurk when not frequenting Hornet the correct naval greeting is “Get over” I’m told.

 

[dankilb]

Been some good posts recently around scally behaviour and attitudes towards things like climate crisis that really help identify who to ‘ignore’. A great forum feature, I’m only discovering after 14 years’ membership.

 

[petem]

Well there were jet Skis all over the place huge gin palaces making wash that would sink god knows what and some silly sod of a Harbour master picked on me in my 4.5 m rib doing about 15 knots in Poole Harbour in the main channel. His attitude was terrible so I simple looked the other way and ignored the idiot.

Given they have so few real powers he certainly thought he was Special.

What was wrong with his attitude?

 

[ari]

What was wrong with his attitude?

Appears to be no answer to this one, so we must assume that only one party had a poor attitude, and that it wasn't the HM.

 

[ylop]

Are you so special that you have never broken a speed limit in your boat.
Perhaps you would explain how he could prosecute me. He has no powers of arrest cannot compell me to give my name and the boat has no name or registration so how would that work. He would need a Police Officer and there were none.
had he just told me to slow down all would have been fine he simply Had a bad attitude

Are you sure: The Poole Harbour Revision Order 2012
Has the power to require you to give the owner and agents details and any other details he may require (s.6(1)e and g)
Failing to comply level 4 fine.
Failing to comply with their direction (s15) - another level 4 fine and can be physically enforced (s16) - with their costs recovered!
Has the power to prevent any vessel from entering or detain any vessel from leaving where it owes them money (s34).
Obstructing the harbour officers is another offence (s56) and includes the specific example of failing to provide your name and address - another level 4 fine.

further it would seem that you need to be doing 20 knots to be prosecuted and then a £1000 fine. Now I know many in here would not worry about that

Their decision when to prosecute will be based on many things - including the attitude of the person speeding, the availability of evidence etc. The fine however is probably not the thing to worry about - the magistrates seem to treat it much more seriously than similar offences on the roads BUT the harbour commissioners will apply for prosecution costs and because they don't have the efficiency savings of the CPS where costs are shared between many cases - you can expect the costs to run to four, or maybe five figures!

Oh and to answer your supplementary question - no I've never intentionally/knowingly exceeded the speed limit in a boat. If you have timed it wrong so that you "need" to speed to make some tidal window etc; its just poor seamanship, no different to saying I was doing 60 through the centre of town so I could get to the motorway before the rush hour traffic or passed the high school before the kids come out.

Why on earth is the limit expressed in kph? Knots, yes - mph maybe. Who has the unit of speed on their log/gps in their boats set to kph? Confused of Surrey.

The Lomond and Trossachs NP legislation was written in Kilometers per hour. I'm not sure why, perhaps as a way of making it sound faster to those who might (likely did) object during the consultation. It does strike me as odd not to be in NM/hr (knots) or even MPH, and I'm sure it will have added confusion to the typical type of user who might exceed the limit. If you were a loch regular it is easy to set your GPS to the units of your choosing, or simply remember that 11 kph = 6 mph = 5 knots.

If you were to mix up and drive at 11 knots I'm pretty sure you'd get a firm but polite word the first time but the excuse wouldn't wash the second time. In my experience a bigger issue is knowing exactly where all the limits end. Some are marked but others require a chart - which isn't available electronically.

 

[oldgit]

"Given they have so few real powers. "



A boat come out of Chatham MDL last week,transited our 6 knot speed limit at an estimated 20+ knots
He went past a small tug with narrow boat alongside, the speeding boat caused the narrow boat to break all the securing lines and smashed many of the windows on the narrow boat even thought the tug was well fendered.
The narrow boat was recovered and the skipper of the tug reported the incident to Medway VTS. He was asked to indentify the type of vessel involved, take photographs of the damage and submit written report to Peel Ports.
The offender was identified by name.
There have been recent "friendly" written warnings issued to skippers exceeding speed limits , including PWCs.
Their have been prosecutions.
There is an exclusion zone around our local LNG terminal, incoming vessels going through it have been pursued to their destinations and written warning issued.
At recent river user meeting the harbour master said "at some point they will not bother with warnings" and will make an example of somebody.
He also gave some unpleasant accounts of port authority staff being threatened verbally and with assault when they have approached boaters breaking the rules.
The speeder above will be getting visit , a bill for all damage caused and depending on his attitude the chance of a day in court.

 

[Aardee]

Arrogant, speeding boater meets grumpy harbourmaster...I know who my money's on

 

[Aardee]

OP: The thing is, with your subsequent poll you've made it about the speeding alone. The issue here is isn't creeping a knot or two over the limit, it's about getting caught and instead of taking your telling off like a grown-up and amending your behaviour you've chosen to ignore the reprimand and somehow make it everybody else's problem rather than yours. Are you the same on the road?