Sailing schools and smoking

[prv]

Platforms are classified as enclosed or partly enclosed and hence fall under the 'No Smoking' ban.

Plenty of them are not at all enclosed. I doubt that the Health Act 2006 (the legislation that creates the legal ban) applies. It seems far more likely to me that a smoking ban in stations is the rail company's rule rather than any law - after all, they're entitled to put any reasonable condition like that on your use of their property.

There has been an exception made for Health and Safety Reasons where congregating at the end of the platform (level crossing) was considered too dangerous.

That would tend to support the above - you can modify your own rules, but you don't get to exempt yourself from the law for "elfin safety".

Pete

 

[Bru]

Just to bust a couple of myths ...

It is not illegal to smoke outdoors anywhere in the UK (yet). Landowners may impose their own rules of course (hospitals, train stations etc. for example)

It is illegal to smoke in an enclosed space to which the public have access - an enclosed space is defined (quite simply) as a space which is more than 50% enclosed (which is why smoking shelters only have half length side walls)

It is also illegal to smoke in a place of work or in a commercial vehicle (with the exception of a company car which is only used by the driver ... but it is, arguably, probably illegal to smoke in that vehicle if it is carrying a passenger when on business even if the passenger also smokes! The law in Scotland differs in this respect as it does not apply to cars at all)

It is NOT illegal to smoke in ones own home. Ever. Even if visitors are present. Even if those visitors are officials of some sort. The visitors can, of course, decline to visit or leave. Organisations can have their own rules about their staff entering the homes of smokers but they cannot force somebody to not smoke in their own home.

As far as boats are concerned, here the law also differs between Scotland and England

In Scotland, it is (with some exceptions) illegal to smoke on commercial craft including charter vessels, sail training vessels etc. In the rest of the UK it is not currently illegal - there was a consultation exercise on the matter back in 2007 but so far nothing has come of it (as far as I'm aware)

Common courtesy suggests that any reasonable smoker would go on deck to light up on a boat used by non-smokers (e.g. a charter boat, training vessel etc.). Equally, non-smokers are being unreasonable if they expect smokers to refrain from smoking for long periods (mind you, a definition of unreasonable would be me after a couple of hours without a fag! )

As far as humanly possible I try and avoid my smoke from drifting down onto non-smokers although the wind gods do seem to have a wicked sense of humour in this respect - a smoker is a bit like a bonfire in this regard, wherever you stand you're always downwind!

I'm also trying to change the habits of very nearly a lifetime and be more careful about disposing of my dog-ends. For many years I smoked unfiltered roll ups which were bio-degradable (and fairly rapidly at that) so I got into bad habits. Now I use filter tips I keep reminding myself that I need to be more careful but it's a work in progress is that.

BTW, just to finish off, I was all in favour of the ban on smoking in the workplace (generally speaking) and in restaurants (I hate the smell of smoke when I'm eating too). I do think the law went a bit too far and that pubs and bars should have been allowed to be smoke free or smoking venues

Finally, anti-smokers, please remember that it is not (yet) illegal to smoke and that many of us smokers started the filthy habit when it was socially acceptable. It is not easy to give up (and I salute anybody who has done so) - I have tried on several occasions including twice with all the help available from the NHS etc. and to my regret have not managed it yet - so please leave us smokers a mountain top somewhere where we can have a quiet puff in peace!

 

[alant]

Oh yes it will!

I'm an ex-smoker, but am in a minority of ex-smokers in that I don't care if people smoke.

However, most smokers I know are 'with the programme' insofar as they take care to remove themselves from buildings and vehicles (whatever the law says) before lighting up.

My brother still smokes and he sails with me. He stays on deck until the residue of smoke has largely cleared from his clothing and what's left of his hair before coming below. The same applies to other smokers I know.

There is no smoking below decks on my boat, nor as far as I'm aware on any school boat.

Stale smoke might pong a bit, but it isn't going to kill you!

Kids seeing an adult mentor smoke doesn't necessarily mean they're going to think its cool and take up smoking.

Most kids realise that only the stupid people still smoke. If they don't then you have to educate them.

We need to be less hysterical about this thing.

"Stale smoke might pong a bit, but it isn't going to kill you!"

Oh yes it will!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/h...nd-smoke-as-dangerous-as-cigarette-fumes.html

http://www.helium.com/items/1515405-how-secondary-smoke-causes-lung-cancer

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110112132138.htm

 

[alant]

No, its not.

It is nanny state nonsense that people are dumbed down to accept.

The more ridiculous these edicts so the more docile people become.

I am in favour of smoking on board both in port and afloat.

I keep a box of Havana Cigars in tubes for my shipboard guests and a variety of cigarettes and loose tobacco for pipe smokers.

I am very strict about alcohol at sea however. At sea I run a dry ship.

In port, the gin is offered as soon as the sun is over the yardarm.

Your a smoker then?

 

[Talulah]

Plenty of them are not at all enclosed. I doubt that the Health Act 2006 (the legislation that creates the legal ban) applies. It seems far more likely to me that a smoking ban in stations is the rail company's rule rather than any law - after all, they're entitled to put any reasonable condition like that on your use of their property.



That would tend to support the above - you can modify your own rules, but you don't get to exempt yourself from the law for "elfin safety".

Pete

Pete

I believe you're right. The ban would apply to substantially enclosed areas i.e. ticket office but not to open platforms.
To make implimentation easier train companies have implemented their own rules throughout the station. (Don't know about Byelaws.)

Has anyone ever been issued with a ticket?

 

[Lady Campanula]

Smoking can be instantly life-threatening

Oh, yes it can!

I've tried being 'reasonable', suggesting only on deck in the most downwind corner, and certainly clean up and dispose of any and all debris.....

It doesn't work. There is always cigarette ash in the cockpit, there are always 'butts' ( or 'doubts' ) in odd corners of the side deck, there are always spent matchsticks rolling about where they shouldn't. And the beggars don't clean up their own mess.... Habit of a lifetime!

From leeward quarter, to leeward cockpit seat, to windward c/seat, to sitting on the companionway step - the progression reminds me of a naughty puppy.

So it's now 'Light up on board and you're going ashore, at the nearest place you can be landed.'

As for the title above, that relates to an incidence of gross offence ( my view ) last year, when one of these sickos - sitting in the upwind corner of the cockpit - grinned at me seated helming downwind of him, then lit up a fag quite deliberately and blew his smoke directly at me.

We were 5 miles out from Alderney at the time. The red mist came down, and my one-time friend found himself halfway through the guardrails within a foot of swimming back to shore. Within the hour he was landed....

'Persona non grata'

 

[Mark-1]

 

[Topcat47]

MY BOAT MY RULES! NO SMOKING! It's only 26' on deck and nowhere is far enough away from me or the sails to satisfy me that it's both safe and sociable.

I do, however sail in larger vessels with larger crews. It's fairly common on these to permit smoking on the quarterdeck, by the lee rail. Only the owner ever gets to smoke, standing in the companionway, but 60'ers are bloody expensive to run and as he's settling the bills (mostly) he gets some slack cut. After all if his fag ash burns through the mainsail, it's his £250 repair bill at the end of the season.

 

[Bru]

MY BOAT MY RULES! NO SMOKING!

Cool, fine by me!

But why shout so loud?

My boat, my rules, smoking allowed on deck and in the cockpit

Each to their own :- I wouldn't want to sail on your non-smoking boat any more than you (I suspect) would want to sail on my smoking boat (does your boat smoke? only when it's on fire!). I've absolutely no problem with anybody declaring their boat a no smoking zone (although if you didn't tell me that before departure we would have a MAJOR problem - if you want to see the original Mr. Angry Not a Nice Guy At All deny me cigarettes for a couple of hours ).

 

[Ubergeekian]

It is not illegal to smoke outdoors anywhere in the UK (yet). Landowners may impose their own rules of course (hospitals, train stations etc. for example)

It is illegal - and not just a rule - to smoke anywhere on railway property where a "No Smoking" sign is displayed. From the National Railway Bye-Laws:

3. Smoking
No person shall smoke or carry a lighted pipe, cigar, cigarette, match, lighter
or other lighted item on any part of the railway on or near which there is a
notice indicating that smoking is not allowed.​

It doesn't bother me in the least if people choose to smoke on their own boats, though I would never choose to be on one where smoking was permitted.

 

[Topcat47]

Forgot about "shouting".....unsurprising as I often forget stuff (like where I put my mobile/car keys/why). You do what you like on your boat and I often sail with smokers, however, if you can't go a couple of hours without a fag, then don't come out on mine, OK?

 

[Babylon]

Hysteria hysteria hysteria

"Stale smoke might pong a bit, but it isn't going to kill you!"

Oh yes it will!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/h...nd-smoke-as-dangerous-as-cigarette-fumes.html

http://www.helium.com/items/1515405-how-secondary-smoke-causes-lung-cancer

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110112132138.htm

I think you'll find that constantly living, walking, cycling or driving (let alone sailing) in the vicinity of an internal combustion engine - especially the ubiquitous diesels - is more deleterious to your health than the occassional whiff of a smoker's jersey. I live upwind of a coal-powered generating station, and I have to suffer farmers using chemical sprays in the fields behind me.

Lung cancer finally got my gran in her mid-eighties, having smoked 40 a day for over sixty years. So please, don't tell me that the sight of a cigarette butt has to necessitate a fit of stage coughing, puritanical frowns, the founding of a fascist organisation or the ownership of a NBC suit!

Rolling your eyes isn't good for your health.

 

[Ubergeekian]

Lung cancer finally got my gran in her mid-eighties, having smoked 40 a day for over sixty years.

And a colleague of mine died on lung cancer at 42, leaving a ten-year-old-son, having smoked 40 a day for fifteen years.

 

[Fantasie 19]

And a colleague of mine died on lung cancer at 42, leaving a ten-year-old-son, having smoked 40 a day for fifteen years.

...so we're all intelligent people - why not accept we share a common interest and agree to disagree on smoking rules.... not a single person here has said that he wouldn't abide by the rules of the boat he was on... so 'nuff said and let's drop this and play nicely....

 

[alant]

F'ing idiotic!

I think you'll find that constantly living, walking, cycling or driving (let alone sailing) in the vicinity of an internal combustion engine - especially the ubiquitous diesels - is more deleterious to your health than the occassional whiff of a smoker's jersey. I live upwind of a coal-powered generating station, and I have to suffer farmers using chemical sprays in the fields behind me.

Lung cancer finally got my gran in her mid-eighties, having smoked 40 a day for over sixty years. So please, don't tell me that the sight of a cigarette butt has to necessitate a fit of stage coughing, puritanical frowns, the founding of a fascist organisation or the ownership of a NBC suit!

Rolling your eyes isn't good for your health.

"I live upwind of a coal-powered generating station"

So?

Downwind you might get some sympathy!

"Lung cancer finally got my gran in her mid-eighties, having smoked 40 a day for over sixty years."

This had no effect on you presumably!

What stupid bloody statements from a so called intelligent person.
Just about sums up the pro-smoking idiots!

 

[Searush]

I have a neat hole in the mizzen from a crew member that couldn't leave his fags behind.

I have had smokers aboard, but usually ask them to sit downwind & now ask them firmly to be VERY careful what they do with the burning bits. Fire at sea is not a nice thing to experience.

 

[Babylon]

"I live upwind of a coal-powered generating station"

So?

Downwind you might get some sympathy!

"Lung cancer finally got my gran in her mid-eighties, having smoked 40 a day for over sixty years."

This had no effect on you presumably!

What stupid bloody statements from a so called intelligent person.
Just about sums up the pro-smoking idiots!

I didn't say I was intelligent; I only said smokers are stupid [to smoke].

I know some very intelligent smokers, and some very stupid non-smokers.

I'm not a smoker, nor am I pro-smoking; I'm only against hysterical extremists.

If you actually thought about it, you'd realise that I'm only upwind of the power station in the prevailing westerlies. When the wind is in the east I obviously worry myself sick and won't let my pets out of doors just in case....

The point about my gran dying after 60 years of chain smoking was simply to illustrate that the presence of smelly old cigarette smoke on someone's clothing is as likely to kill you as someone in Hove Actually being hit with a cricket ball bowled in Karachi. I'm sure some scientista has done important research to prove that I'm wrong, but I won't lose a minute's sleep over the fact.

[Doesn't roll eyes like a schoolgirl]

 

[Haven't-a-Clue]

I don't smoke in enclosed spaces of other people's boats, likewise I don't smoke upwind of non smokers. Otherwise I smoke as and when I like.
I won't be expecting any invites onto (seemingly) most of your boats and frankly, I don't care.

 

[VO5]

I worked on a yacht where the butts and matches were placed in a jar with a lid for later disposal. The skipper did not want the risk of the matches going into the bilge and getting stuck in the pump flapper valves and nothing went over the side. Most of our guests smoked like chimneys.

I have two tanker safety ashtrays on board. These are the old bakelite square ashtrays with twenty square hollow columns in each. You drop the lit ciggy in and it goes out in a second.

For my cigar and pipe smoking chums I have an old artillery shell casing they habitually use.

I smoke like a trooper myself.

All of us can get very bad tempered indeed if there is no tobacco to enjoy.

 

[Clyde_Wanderer]

Looking for a school for a couple of the kids to do their YM prep course I was amazed when one of the bigger outfits had no policy on smoking. I asked them to start with as a friend had been with them and the instructor, a heavy smoker, had been happy for people to sit/stand in the companion way with a fag on.

We are completely non-smoking on board, as are most boats I know. Is this not the norm these days?

Wow Wow brilliant you, you must have very little to do when you have to have a go at smokers.
Are you one of those types who would like to see smokers bannished to the leper colony and class us as dirty smelly folk.
We gave up smoking in pubs to save your lungs and although I personnaly dont smoke or allow smoking inside the confines of my boat compartments, I do smoke and allow smoking in the cockpit and will continue to do so, as for training boats if you dont like someone smoking on outer decks etc, just move away from them as opposed to causing a scene about, the rules of the whole world cannot just be changed for you.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going for a fag, (outside my back door.
C smokey W