Perthshire Royal Navy officer accused of negligence after Cowes Week yacht crash

Bosun Higgs said:
I wonder how you are supposed to measure the 1000 m - I was always taught that its impossible to accurately judge distance over dead ground or water. Clearly he ended up well within the 200m but what if you are outside the 200m when the big ship takes a turn towards you and you cannot possibly go faster than she does?




I would have thought that bwillingness to take risks would be a good thing in a naval officer. Playing safe should not be good for his career.
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I don't think one has to be accurate to 1', just exhibit common sense and the courtesy not to hinder big ships.

Taking risks only works up to a point, and it one gets away with it;

" This officer displays great skill at getting out of situations he should never have got into "

- sometimes thought to have been coined in a report on Admiral Percy Gick, who later built Emsworth Marina with his own hands.
 
Newspaper accuracy

Spot the error in today's The Times report:

"The tanker, which was being escorted by two pilot boats, was travelling within a channel marked off by buoys that smaller vessels were not allowed to enter.
Southampton Magistrates' Court was told that Mr Wilson, 31, allowed his 33ft Corby sloop to stray into the channel in breach of international navigation rules."
 
The point has already been made, but it appears not to have been understood by some (or they have chosen not to understand it); relatively few Naval Officers actually drive ships, let alone know anything about IRPCS etc. (In fact in a bizarre way I am more qualified to drive vessels up to a few hundred tonnes than many other Naval Officers..)

Secondly, the boat was registered with the RNSA and this DOESN'T make it a services boat.

But don't let the truth get in the way of a good dit...
 
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The skipper was an RNR officer according to the Times report, so he may or may not have belonged to a seagoing branch. I find it worrying that anyone would seek to mitigate the skipper's stupidity in crossing the bows of a large vessel in direct contravention of the local byelaws. No matter what the reasons or how hard it is to estimate 1000 metres accurately, he as near as is possible got run down by the tanker, putting his yacht and the lives of his crew at risk. It'll be interesting to see what his defence council has to say at the trial.

As to the possible double jeopardy business of having military charges brought against him, it is in theory possible under the rules about bringing the service into disrepute; that's unlikely for a reservist. There's more chance of some sort of administrative action being taken against him to express the services dislike of being dragged through the mud; that may happen even if the court acquits him.....
 
john_morris_uk said:
The point has already been made, but it appears not to have been understood; relatively few Naval Officers actually drive ships, let alone know anything about IRPCS etc. (In fact in a bizarre way I am more qualified to drive vessels up to a few hundred tonnes than many other Naval Officers..)

Secondly, the boat was registered with the RNSA and this DOESN'T make it a services boat.

But don't let the truth get in the way of a good dit...
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It's not a matter of bending the truth for a good gossip, it's a matter of enquiry on subjects that some of us have no knowledge of. Is this really so hard to see? I don't think so, but your condescending tone, doesn't become your position - again.
 
Resolution said:
This is a very pertinent case for all those of us who sail into or from Cowes, especially the racers. Even with full knowledge of the moving prohibited zone / precautionary area rules it can be hard to judge the distances required, and very much harder to gauge exactly when the ship is going to make its turn around West Bramble. I am afraid that using phrases like " small craft must...use seaman-like anticipation of its route and the sea-room required when turning" is just an inadequate cop out.
I think that Southampton harbour authorities need to be more pro-actively responsible. At weekends or in Cowes week they know that the central Solent will be full of small craft. On these occasions why don't they send out two pilot cutters to hold station approx 200 metres apart and 1000 metres ahead of the ship? They will know the precise route the ship is taking, and if they don't have instrumentation to measure the 1000 metres then how can we be expected to?
Then it would be a simpler matter for small craft to see where the ship will be going (as opposed to its current heading) and to decide which side to clear off to.
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Are you being ironic?
 
john_morris_uk said:
relatively few Naval Officers .... know anything about IRPCS etc.

But don't let the truth get in the way of a good dit...
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What a bizarre statement! I guess you were not in the Navy John, as the passmark at Dartmouth for IRPCS/Rule of the Road/Colregs which (unless things have changed, which I doubt, every Officer Cadet has to take) is 100%. This compares with 80% for the RYA iirc. Quite how this leaves RN Officers not knowing anything about them is beyond me.
All watchkeeping officers than have to maintain that standard through regular checks, so I can't imagine where your statement came from.

There seems to be an extraordinary prejudice here regarding the abilities of Naval people who unsurprisingly receive (officers certainly) seamanship training to a very high level regardless of specialisation and are taught management and leadership skills that very few civilians can dream of - being left to self-develop those skills - if they have them - in a completely arbitary and untaught manner. Still, I suppose it's like the class bigotry and inverse snobbery that infests so many people's narrow minds these days. Jealousy I suppose.

Despite all that this guy made a biig mistake, it certainly looks as if he thought he would cut ahead of the ship, one can only imagine what the crew were yelling at the time. Training doesn't prevent you from making silly errors or disregarding rules an certainly as a Naval Officer he should have known better, and be sure that the Navy will already have reminded him of that in no uncertain terms. Matthew 7;3

There has also been a lot of inaccurate speculation over the nature of the boat's ownership. It is NOT a Naval or military owned yacht and is not "registered" with the RNSA any more than a yacht is "registered" with a yacht club. It would be surprising if a keen naval yachtsman were not a member of the RNSA and the vessel may well be under it's burgee (and with a Blue Ensign) though I haven't bothered to check the list. That does not make it a Naval vessel in any way.

He was a silly boy and risked the lives of his crew. That's just inexcusable and if he's any sort of Officer he'll take it on the nose as he should without fanciful and indecorous excuses.
 
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This is the most depressing thread I have read here in a long while. We've all seen the video. The authorities have brought a prosecution. The defendant has exercised his right to plead as he sees fit. He will be tried in a court which will test the evidence properly and reach a verdict. How about we all just let justice take its course?
 
benjenbav said:
This is the most depressing thread I have read here in a long while. We've all seen the video. The authorities have brought a prosecution. The defendant has exercised his right to plead as he sees fit. He will be tried in a court which will test the evidence properly and reach a verdict. How about we all just let justice take its course?
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And think himself jolly lucky not to be hauled up in front of "The Lounge" in the Comfy chair
 
Wrong Forum

benjenbav said:
This is the most depressing thread I have read here in a long while. We've all seen the video. The authorities have brought a prosecution. The defendant has exercised his right to plead as he sees fit. He will be tried in a court which will test the evidence properly and reach a verdict. How about we all just let justice take its course?
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You must be in the wrong forum displaying common sense!
 
BlowingOldBoots said:
It's not a matter of bending the truth for a good gossip, it's a matter of enquiry on subjects that some of us have no knowledge of. Is this really so hard to see? I don't think so, but your condescending tone, doesn't become your position - again.
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You will have explain exactly how you think I am being patronising. I was reacting to the various responses of people who use any excuse to trot out their prejudices against the Navy; something I thought you might support. There is a lot of ignorance about how the RN run things and who is responsible for what.
MASH said:
What a bizarre statement! I guess you were not in the Navy John, as the passmark at Dartmouth for IRPCS/Rule of the Road/Colregs which (unless things have changed, which I doubt, every Officer Cadet has to take) is 100%. This compares with 80% for the RYA iirc. Quite how this leaves RN Officers not knowing anything about them is beyond me.
All watchkeeping officers than have to maintain that standard through regular checks, so I can't imagine where your statement came from.

There seems to be an extraordinary prejudice here regarding the abilities of Naval people who unsurprisingly receive (officers certainly) seamanship training to a very high level regardless of specialisation and are taught management and leadership skills that very few civilians can dream of - being left to self-develop those skills - if they have them - in a completely arbitary and untaught manner. Still, I suppose it's like the class bigotry and inverse snobbery that infests so many people's narrow minds these days. Jealousy I suppose.

Despite all that this guy made a biig mistake, it certainly looks as if he thought he would cut ahead of the ship, one can only imagine what the crew were yelling at the time. Training doesn't prevent you from making silly errors or disregarding rules an certainly as a Naval Officer he should have known better, and be sure that the Navy will already have reminded him of that in no uncertain terms. Matthew 7;3

There has also been a lot of inaccurate speculation over the nature of the boat's ownership. It is NOT a Naval or military owned yacht and is not "registered" with the RNSA any more than a yacht is "registered" with a yacht club. It would be surprising if a keen naval yachtsman were not a member of the RNSA and the vessel may well be under it's burgee (and with a Blue Ensign) though I haven't bothered to check the list. That does not make it a Naval vessel in any way.

He was a silly boy and risked the lives of his crew. That's just inexcusable and if he's any sort of Officer he'll take it on the nose as he should without fanciful and indecorous excuses.
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I am slightly bemused by your remarks as most people know that I am very definitely Commissioned RN and still serving. In fact one of my watch leaders last week runs seamanship training at BRNC and we had lengthy conversations on the whole process that young Naval Officers go through. It's true that they all have to learn something about seamanship and they all do 'some' IRPCS in their initial training, but the pass mark of 100% is only for seaman officers who are going to sea or at sea. The pass mark for the engineering officer in training is rather lower and most quickly forget almost everything they've read. Most joke about it, and for good reason: the only time they go near the bridge is to act as engineering advisor at 'specials'. I also disagree with your suggestion that all RN officers receive 'high standards of seamanship training'. The training is high but VERY limited for many reasons. There just isn't time to give the depth of seamanship to all young officers that some people believe they all have. However I think we are in agreement on most things and hopefully you will think so too.

However the most important point is that nothing I was saying was supposed to mitigate the guilt of the RN (RNR?) young officer. It appears to have been an example of very poor seamanship which also appears to have no defence. My comments were supposed to try and balance some if the silly swipes people were making against the services. Some were misdirected and ill informed.
 
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parsifal said:
That's true. I was in it for 12 years and I was never able to work that out! :D

(There is also a lot of ignorance about the correct use of 'there' and 'there'. ;))
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Whoops! That's one of my pet hates. I am afraid I'm posting from my phone whilst watching Charles play cricket and I can only blame the auto-correction. I'll try to edit it out...
 
benjenbav said:
This is the most depressing thread I have read here in a long while. We've all seen the video. The authorities have brought a prosecution. The defendant has exercised his right to plead as he sees fit. He will be tried in a court which will test the evidence properly and reach a verdict. How about we all just let justice take its course?
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Don't think anyone denies any of that, but this is the Scuttlebutt Forum - if we can't shoot the breeze about sailing related news items here, what can we talk about?? Not being ironic or whatever, but I found some of the input quite interesting - certainly learned a few things (if only the difference between "there" and "there".... and I am joking for this bit... :D)
 
Resolution said:
Spot the error in today's The Times report:

"The tanker, which was being escorted by two pilot boats, was travelling within a channel marked off by buoys that smaller vessels were not allowed to enter.
Southampton Magistrates' Court was told that Mr Wilson, 31, allowed his 33ft Corby sloop to stray into the channel in breach of international navigation rules."
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3 errors - escorted by 1 patrol boat, smaller vessels are allowed to enter the channel marked off by buoys and he breached no international navigation rules by entering the channel...
 
At the risk of being verbally abused isn't the real problem here the laying of a race course that crosses the deep-water channel? Anyone who has sailed there knows that big ships frequently appear, seemingly out of nowhere, and that they are constrained by draught. I think all of us must have been surprised at least once by how fast they move and how little time we have to get out of the way (I know I have). So deliberately arranging for a bunch of small yachts to be racing in an area where big ships are constrained seems to be the root cause of the problem to me? It must be frustrating for the racers as well, to have all your hard work lost because you have to give way to a big ship?
 
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