Sail or Power

[AndrewB]

Sail? There\'s no such thing! Change the rules.

Just an extra little twist to this interesting thread. My experience is that in an encounter between a sailing yacht and a ship, ships invariably* respond as if the yacht is power driven, regardless of whether it is actually sailing. This is most obvious when crossing a busy TSS. As seen from the yacht, ships give way in the first lane crossed, when the yacht sees them approach on its port side. In the second lane, ships approaching from the starboard side stand on.

The different rules for sailing and motor vessels is a constant cause of confusion, compounded by the difficulty of telling whether a sailing yacht is under power or not. The Coll Regs were drawn up when a large proportion of ships were sail powered alone, and with an eye to their lack of manoevrability. Modern sailing yachts are highly manoevreable by comparison, and the remaining few sailing ships now all have auxilliary power which will always be turned on in busy waters. There is a good case for changing the Coll Regs to scrap the old sailing rules (except for racing) and applying the existing power driven rules to everyone.

(*where not constrained in some way, or not watching properly.)

 

[Guest]

No problem. Until they hit each other for whatever reason. Then there's a problem. The insurers want to know. Who was the give way vessel?

 

[halcyon]

Re: Sail? There\'s no such thing! Change the rules.

But a yacht crossing a seperation zone does not have right of way, and must give way to a powered vessel travelling along the zone.

See Col regs, 10 (j)

Brian

 

[Guest]

Re: Twaddle or what ?????

But Nigel, I believe that you interpretation is not only the cautious one and therefore the common sense one, but also IS strictly speaking the correct position under the colregs. I won't repeat here why I believe so 'cos I set it all out at nauseating length in "Near Collision" and the earlier thread.

The mentailty of 'power gives way to anything with a sail up' ia, or should be, long gone.

The suggestion that this approach penalises the chap who has started his engine to have extra manoeuvrability "just in case" is upside down. The chap HAS started his engine IN ORDER to get the extra manoeuvrability of a power driven vessel, and therefore should be treated as a power vessel.

 

[vyv_cox]

Re: Sail? There\'s no such thing! Change the rules.

That's my experience, too, but not necessarily in TSS. Crossing the Maas entrance we have had close encounters with inbound vessels on two occasions when travelling south, when we assumed that we had right of way and there was plenty of room for them to go astern of us. On each occasion ships passed within yards ahead of us, our conclusion being that they expected us to give way to them as they approached us from starboard. In each case we were sailing. We now expect this to happen, and in any case would not be pushing our rights with ships in such restricted waterways. If it does not happen and ships pass astern of us, so much the better.

Sometimes it happens that Maas Control will ask us to go astern of a vessel over whom we have rights, but that is a completely different matter with which we are always happy to comply.

 

[AndrewB]

Rule 10(j).

We discussed this on SB earlier this year, as a result of which I sought clarification from MCA. "Shall not impede the safe passage" is not intended to affect the normal rules regarding stand-on and give-way vessels. This is stated explicitly in rule 8(f)iii. Incidentally there is no concept of 'right-of-way' in the Coll regs.

 

[ghostwriter]

Re: Sail? There\'s no such thing! Change the rules.

that's funny Vyv , remember exactly similar thing , but on the other side.....coming into Rotterdam , just off Europoort , on a 150+meters gascarrier filled with methane (ye regular floating bomb) , yacht crossing our bow at less than 100 yards.

can remember the pilot going berserk yelling in his VHF the dirtiest words one can imagine , can remember the captain staying dead calm saying coolly that if need be we would have ran him down without blinking our eyes.

happened some years ago , have rules & regs changed that much that yachts encountering big vessels in restricted waters have priority ?

hope you see the sense in it , just think about this big oil tanker in Yemen that had an explosion a couple of days ago, if that would have happened to this gascarrier , Europoort would have looked like Hiroshima , so if the choice is there , ANY responsible captain , mate , pilot wold know what to do. (advice for terrorists : choose the correct boat)

 

[tony_brighton]

Approved view comes from the yachtmaster course on coll regs as instructed by v.experienced RYA yachtmaster instructor examiner when asked this specific point.

 

[tony_brighton]

I think the cautious interpretation would make for better semanship.

 

[vyv_cox]

Re: Sail? There\'s no such thing! Change the rules.

I think that's the point Andrew is making above. According to Col Regs I had priority. If I had been a motor boat I would not. A mile or so off the entrance the waters are not all that restricted so I'm not sure that is an argument. I'm not for one moment suggesting that 150 meter tankers should have to take avoiding action on my account but some clarification over expectations would be helpful. Personally I always avoid ships as far as possible but the differences in speed between them and us make it very difficult to know where they are heading.

 

[Bergman]

Don't see that there is a problem.

If skipper with engine running but not in gear believes he is a sailing vessel, is actually sailing and showing correct lights etc then he is sailing. Anyone else seeing the vessel will also believe he is sailing as otherwise he would show different lights, shapes etc. How could anyone know he is any other than a sailing vessel.

If skipper of boat in question believes he is a power vessel he will again show appropriate shapes, lights etc and will follow rules for power vessel, expecting other vessels to see the shapes, lights etc. and to react to him as a power vessel.

If other vessels follow regulations then collision will not occur. If collision does occur someone has breached some regulation and that will be the basis of any liability.

The give way vessel will be decided by how each reacts to the other, which in turn will be a function of what type of vessel each believes themselves and the other vessel to be.

I guess what I am driving at is whilst the argument is of academic interest it is really irrelevant, providing correct actions are taken to indicate to other vessels whether you are power or sail.

If people used a cone when they should I would suggest that we would not be having this debate.

Just out of interest how could a collision ocur because one believed a vessel to be a sailing vessel when it is actually a motor vessel. I would have thought that being giving way even if not expected would make colision less likely.

 

[Guest]

So Jimi had a narrow miss (see thread "Near Collision". Let us suppose for a moment that they had hit. It seems doubtful that a motoring cone would have avoided the disaster. It is also not at all clear that even if Jimi had thought that he was power driven that would have helped.

So the collision has happened. Who is responsible?

 

[Bergman]

Jimi on stbd tack

Opposition on port tack

I would say Jimi was in clear.

Possible debate about narrow channels, restricted in ability to manouvre, but who on which tack is deciding point.

The fact that one vessel had engine ticking over in neutral makes no contribution to argument.

If Jimi believed he was a motoring and showed cone then perhaps different result, but Jimi would have known he was a motor vessel and would have acted differently.

 

[Guest]

And if engine was in gear but he still wasn't showing a cone?

 

[Bergman]

Re: Just a minute

I'm sure we have had this debate before.

and equally inconclusive too

Is there no precedent

ColRegs have been around since Adam was a lad and enough boats hit each other.

Some court somewhere must have looked at this.

Suspect you have better sources of this info than me, how about a spot of (unpaid) research?

 

[peterb]

Your last question as to how a collision could occur is easy. I, on port tack beam reach, see what is apparently a sailing vessel (no cone) on a starboard tack beam reach on a collision course. Following my usual habit I bear away to pass on her leeward side. The other vessel, however, knows that she is actually under power and ducks down to pass me on my leeward side. Result: collision.

 

[halcyon]

Re: Just a minute

Still trying to see the discussion point,

3(b) power driven vessel means any vessel propelled by machinary.
A yacht under sail with engine running, but in neutral, is not being propelled by machinary, and thus cannot be a power driven vessel.

3(c) sailing vessel means any vessel under sail provided that propelling machinary, if fitted, is not being used.
If the gear is in neutral, and not driving the gearbox and prop, the propelling machinary is not being used, thus it must be a yacht. As the engine is not turning anything, except it's self, it cannot be propelling machinary.

If a yacht is sailing with the engine turned of, and the water flow is turning the prop, it's propelling machinary is turning, does this make it a power driven vessel??

Brian

 

[jimi]

Just to be totally clear, I had bunged on the engine as I had the feeling that this guy was a loonie when I spotted him well in time, I only put the engine in gear when he began his kamikaze run by scraping under the bow of the power boat so I could gain vital feet to avoid a collision. Had he done the sensible thing and either tacked before the PB or crossed behind it and then tacked there would have been no risk to anyone. I believe that the motoring / sail is irrelevant here as the engine was only switched on when I sensed there might be a close quarters situation. Think his erratic manouvring between the moorings was a bit of a giveaway!

Jim

 

[Guest]

Yes, apologies, I should have made it clearer that I was only meaning to refer to the purely hypothetical position if (a) you had been running the engine all along, and (b) if there had been a collision.

 

[Guest]

Re: Just a minute

Unpaid?! Moi? Oh la la!