rorc

[Guest]

Has anyone seen the new RORC regs? It is now compulsory to wear lifejackets and harnesses between sunset and sunrise, or with over 25knots of wind, or in less than 1m visibility or when alone on deck or reefed. All very sensible advice no doubt, but to make it a rule? When did they decide that skippers and crews cant be trusted to make their own decision when to wear lifejackets and harnesses. Was there any consultation with members or other competitors? And hey, what about skin cancer? Can we please have a rule forcing us to wear sun hats, shades and factor 25 lotion whenever the sun is out? Come on RORC, we need protecting!!

 

[Guest]

Very Sensible

Experience reveals that most serious racing skippers are maniacs that we all needing protecting from ( particularly the ones that do it for money ). Hence the unbelievable rule that you have to turn back if someone falls off.

I remember a few Whitbread's ago when Lawrie Smith refused to tell a fellow competitor the weakness in his mast which fell down.

p.s. watch out for very big cats that don't give a hoot for shipping lanes in the channel !

 

[roger]

Re: Very Sensible

The idiocy of racing skippers is demonstrated by the market in cheap and nasty liferafts. The cheap end of the market lack all sorts of obvious bits of kit. They are made to a minimum price so that they will be bought by racing skippers who neither know nor care whether they work or not. They KNOW they are never going to need them.
I too think the rules are sensible. We as cruising sailors try always to make sure we are clipped on day or night. It just becomes a habit and means the skipper can relax. Now we are old and frail and no longer believe we are immortal and infallible.

 

[Mirelle]

Re: Very Sensible

Whilst I fear that John Stewart Mill would certainly not have approved of this bit of nannying, and I would not be at all happy if the Government made it a law, I think the RORC are correct, for the reasons given above and also because the RORC regulations and ORC Special Regulations are the "bible of safety" for cruising boats as well.

 

[bedouin]

Re: Very Sensible

Now I'm curious - just what "Obvious" bits of kit might one have on a liferaft that are not required by RORC regulations?

In my experience RORC approved liferafts are the top of the range, not the bottom!

 

[Guest]

Re: Very Sensible

Oh, no their not! Look at what a SOLAS "A" pack has in it, when compared to the ORC standard. Incidentally, the ORC rules on liferafts are changing soon.

On the question of clipping on etc, the rule change is probably the result from actions by needy lawyers, disclaimers not withstanding!

 

[Jeremy_W]

Re: Very Sensible

Only you, Mirelle, could switch seamlessly from the RORC regulations to "On Liberty"! Good point.

 

[Guest]

Race organisers such as RORC etc are only protecting their rear ends from the lawyer business. We live in a litigation age where skippers are quite likely to be sued for either negligence or gross negligence if anybody dies or is injured, and attention is now being switched to the organisers of races and their rules to see if anything can be squeezed from that source as well. It's called Risk Assessment in some circles I believe, and there is money to be made teaching people how to make them.

 

[Guest]

Actually, the more rules you put in place, the more likely you are to be sued if the rules are not strictly enforced!

 

[jamesjermain]

This is a real legal conundrum. The organissers of two long distance, offshore, shorthanded races took legal advice and came up with almost diametrically opposed answers.

The Royal Torbay's Triangle race is a Category 2 event and each entrant is compulsorily scrutineered. The reason for this is a. because the club thinks it is the right thing to do and b. legal advice suggested that if they did not scrutineer a boat and it got into difficulty because it hadn't conformed, the club could be sued.

The Royal Cornwall's AZAB is a Category 1 event but entrants are only scrutineered for compliance on a random selection basis after the race has been completed. The reason for this is that legal advisors told them, if they scrutineered a boat before the event and it got into difficulties because the scrutineer had missed some short-coming, the Club could be held liable - the act of scrutineering imposed a duty of care on the club. By scrutineering randomly after the event, each skipper had sole responsibility for ensuring his boat was properly prepared.

In practice is is almost impossible for a scrutineer, within a reasonable time-frame, to go through a boat and check that it complies in every respect. This would mean measuring cockpit volumes, scantlings, re-measuring stability factors, checking invoices to establish the age of rigging etc. What tends to happen is that essential safety equipment is inspected, hatches, lifelines, guardwires and the security of heavy items given the once over and that's that. If a boat sank because its cockpit drains were too small or the bridgedeck too low, or correcting ballast had been removed, what then?

JJ

 

[sailbadthesinner]

Unfortunately someone will some day try and test either stance in court ( after some such accident)
Such is the more litigious nature of our society everything has to be someone's fault. I have to say the yachting community is one of the last bastions of a balanced view of risk. We are all (mostly all) aware of the dangers of setting to sea. Some of those on these forums have less equipment than others making kit choices based an many factors. all i feel would accept the risks they face and realise that even the best equipment and best endeavours cannot guarantee a safe return as the sea is bigger than all of us.
I would argue that the balance of responsibility that the boat is safe has to lie with the skipper and not the race organisers. The organisers must be responsible for the course route and making sure the race is not started if conditions are dangerous.
As to the legal side 2 lawyers always give 2 answers. IMHO the best way is to issue a required list and ask the skippers to declate compliance FOLOWED by random checks at the finish.

It was like that when i found it

 

[Mirelle]

Is Lord Donaldson reading this?

He being the most eminent legal yachtsman I can think of!

I certainly prefer the Royal Toprbay's approach - it has the great merit of common sense, which is a test that all clients should apply to all the advice they receive from lawyers.

If you feel it is right to do something, then there is a pretty good chance that the Court will agree with you. It was, after all, a judge, who invented the Man on the Clapham Omnibus as the test of "What is reasonable?''

 

[bedouin]

Re: Very Sensible

IIRC the only things included in SOLAS 'A' not included in RORC are fishing line and water. Also if you check the rules you will see that RORC requires SOLAS 'A' equipment for Category 1 & 2 races.

 

[charles_reed]

Re: ORC and \"Best Practice\"

I always reckon that ORC rules are "best possible practice".

April 2000 I sat for 6 days in les Minimes waiting for a change from SW7-8 to a more benign N airflow to make a single-handed dash down to N Spain.

With a promise of 48 hours of N airstream I left - needless to say 21M off Donostia the wind was back in the SW and getting up to a mean of 35 knots, so I got out and put in the 3rd reef, only to find myself paralysed as I tried to fight my way back to the cockpit.

The by-our-lady lifejacket had inflated and pinned me between mast and inners, whilst the indescribable line was wound firmly once around my port thigh.
It took me about 10 minutes to free myself and stagger back to into the cockpit, cold, saturated and thoroughly p***ed off with "best practice".

 

[Guest]

Sudden RORC rulings

It is all a vast subject. However here are one query and one observation.
Why has RORC suddenly brought in these rules (about lifejackets on all nights at sea etc) in the middle of the season? This most unusual. Is there a panic about something?
In the last twenty years there is no recorded occasion when a RORC crew has been obliged to take to the life-raft and then been duly rescued (contradictions welcome).

 

[Guest]

But you are still about........

and Eric Taberly 'aint.


Keep the bondage bit going Charles !

 

[Guest]

Re: Is Lord Donaldson reading this?

I am sorry to say that common sense does not come into it if it ever goes to court. A few years ago I was an "expert witness" in a case at the Admiralty Court. I was forced to sit through 4 days of other peoples' evidence before being called to give mine and to be cross examined, the whole process lasting less than an hour. I would have preferred to be in Cornwall! The details of the case do not matter here except to say that the plaintiff won the day in a claim against his skipper for injury which most of us reckoned was his fault and not the skipper's. It was a case of who had the better lawyers. The moral of this story is that you rely on the best legal advice you can afford, I guess.