The end of owner maintenance ...

It is profoundly concerning that a representative of the MCA uses such intemperate language: "Ludicrous!", "crazy".
This is in response to feedback from a member of the public that they have requested.
It tells me the following:
* They are not interested in listening to our valid concerns
* Their standards of professionalism are abysmal
* I doubt they understand the long term implications of what they are putting in their MGN

The words ludicrous and crazy were my words he was quoting back to me.......
 
I would like to stress that the MGN’s are non-mandatory guidance that the owner of a pleasure vessel does not need to follow and they do not prevent an owner from carrying out maintenance on their own vessel.

Tells me that this whole thread has been pointless and the wrigglers dont like it. ;)

Keep calm and carry on sailing.
 
If the MCA have nothing to say to owners and skippers of private pleasure vessels they should delete all references to such boats from their drafts. Since they have not done that, it must follow that they do intend to offer us the benefit of their “guidance on best practice”.

The experience of both the fishing and the merchant shipping sectors has been that “guidance” turns into “regulations”, and since regulations cannot easily fit all cases, the regulations become ever more complicated and sometimes downright silly.

A couple of examples from my own experience of the downright silliness of regulations:

A class of container ships that I built were required to have an A60 fire insulated door between accommodation spaces and working spaces. Good rule. But it was interpreted as meaning that the wheelhouse heads compartment (an ‘accommodation space’ had to have a massively heavy A60 door between it and the wheelhouse (a ‘working space’)

The boat that I recently bought had been coded ‘0’. She had a huge stainless steel liferaft cradle on the foredeck to accommodate a twelve man canister raft with a hydrostatic release, far too heavy to manhandle, although her designer had provided two self draining cockpit lockers in the seat backs for two six man valise rafts.

Fisherman has kindly offered other examples in this thread

Our sport is actually very safe indeed. We are, as a group, almost obsessed with safety. Tomahawk has kindly extracted the statistics in this thread.

The MCA actually don’t have any experience of or knowledge of yachts and power boats in the sizes owned by most people here. They are proposing to recycle advice already given by the RYA, the CA, the RORC, the RNLI and others. So they are adding absolutely nothing.

The MCA told one of the organisations that I have just named that they had actually been ‘engaged in consultations with the industry (their words) since January. They had not seen fit to consult with the members organisations before the 20th of June, though. Who did they consult? They also told one of the organisations that I have just named that they had been consulting one of the others, a statement firmly denied by the organisation named by the MCA.

Since I am someone who prefers to see muddle rather than conspiracy, I choose to think that the MCA are muddled rather than conspiring. But it’s not a good look.
 
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Added nothing, Minn, but regulated nothing either. I am very happy with that.

Got loadsa small commercial vessel coding stories in a similar vein to your big boat stuff..... but not for here.

:)
 
Added nothing, Minn, but regulated nothing either. I am very happy with that.

Got loadsa small commercial vessel coding stories in a similar vein to your big boat stuff..... but not for here.

:)

The difference between us is that I don’t want Brian Johnson parking his tanks on my lawn even if they are only carrying blank rounds for their guns. The MCA claim the right to regulate us under their general duty to promote safety at sea. This is a bold assertion of regulatory competence which I do not think they possess. Johnson is a hyper active CEO straight out of the public housing sector and scarred by Grenfell Tower (he was not implicated but he was affected). He’s a nice enough chap socially but so were all the other MCA CEOs. The MCA are terrified of the MAIB, who are highly competent but who don’t have enough big ship stuff to keep them busy due to the collapse of the UK Register thanks to Brexit, and the MCA are scared stiff of being found to have failed to implement an MAIB recommendation.

This is a recipe for a vortex of regulations feeding on themselves because once you start you can never stop.

Better they don’t start.

I don’t have any concerns about the MCA assertion of regulatory powers over the small commercial vessel sector, defined clearly to include charter yachts and sailing school boats and dude racing boats. The adjacent thread on ‘Girls for Sail’ shows some of the darker side of ‘commercial yachting’, which is so often down to people trying to make a living out of a recreation without quite enough money to make it work. The people in that business can fight their own corners. But ‘private pleasure vessels’ are not a proper subject for the MCA.

I strongly suspect that we British amateurs under our voluntary schemes are actually safer than say the French or the Americans under their elaborate systems of State regulation,
 
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Its clear we are on opposite tacks here, Minn.

Im happy I am on starboard!

Been an interesting discussion and I get a lot from your posts. Ta. :encouragement:
 
I would like to stress that the MGN’s are non-mandatory guidance that the owner of a pleasure vessel does not need to follow and they do not prevent an owner from carrying out maintenance on their own vessel.

Direct from the MCA!!!!!!

What on earth is it that people dont get???????

Which bit of 'they are not prepared to put that simple fact in the "guidance notes" ' are you having trouble comprehending?
 
Tells me that this whole thread has been pointless and the wrigglers dont like it. ;)

Keep calm and carry on sailing.

That being the case, why does it say:-
“Pleasure Vessel” has the meaning given in the Merchant Shipping (Vessels in Commercial use for Sport or Pleasure) Regulations 1998, as amended1.

As written this draft very much applies to the likes of thee and me.
 
An example of the competence of the inspectors employed by the MCA to regulate the fishing industry:
A brand spanking new fishing boat built in Iceland to the latest UK regs is ordered to fit an additional bilge alarm- in a vivier tank!
This tank is designed to be pumped full of water to keep shellfish alive, but the 'surveyor', with zero experience of the fishing industry, decided it was a 'cargo space'.
Do you think an army of 'inspectors' recruited to bring yachties into line will be any better?
 
According to this draft, a boat owner wishing to change the boat's propeller will need to engage the services of some sort of "professional". Who do I get to change or reef my sails? After all they are my boat's propellers. :rolleyes:
 
The MCA are busy emailing people who have responded to the "consultation" saying that it doesn't apply to pleasure boats.

Of course this is meaningless unless the actual text of the proposed guidance is altered.

I suspect this is all a window dressing exercise and the regulations will come into force in August.

I have no experience challenging a government agency but surely, collectively, we need to up the ante.

Would forum members consider taking legal advice or perhaps teaming up with the RYA to challenge the proposals?
 
The MCA are busy emailing people who have responded to the "consultation" saying that it doesn't apply to pleasure boats.

Of course this is meaningless unless the actual text of the proposed guidance is altered.

I suspect this is all a window dressing exercise and the regulations will come into force in August.

I have no experience challenging a government agency but surely, collectively, we need to up the ante.

Would forum members consider taking legal advice or perhaps teaming up with the RYA to challenge the proposals?

The RYA have a page on this, the link is:-
https://www.rya.org.uk/knowledge-ad...nsultationonyachtandpowerboatsafetyatsea.aspx

The RYA is encouraging people to respond to the consultation.

The reply I received from the MCA indicated that they are intending to "tone down" section 2.5 in response to comments they have received; so keep sending in those comments!
 
More ammo

Looking through the MAIB reports to try and find evidence this MGN is actually needed..
So far I have found just one report of an accident that was "caused" by any of the principles outlined in the MGN..
The case concerns a speedboat where the yard fitted a new propellor... Exactly the sort of thing the MGN is supposed to address?
Not so.. turns out they were testing the effect of the new prop on performance and simply overcooked the tests resulting in a capsize.

The contractor, who was wearing a connected engine kill cord, carried out several straight runs and two wide turns. In preparing for the third turn, he reduced speed and trimmed the engine in. He then executed an “aggressive” turn to starboard, during which the boat rolled and capsized to port.

So a professional commercial contractor ... Yet somehow the MCA seems to conflate a contractor with a leisure boat owner.
 
An example of the competence of the inspectors employed by the MCA to regulate the fishing industry:
A brand spanking new fishing boat built in Iceland to the latest UK regs is ordered to fit an additional bilge alarm- in a vivier tank!
This tank is designed to be pumped full of water to keep shellfish alive, but the 'surveyor', with zero experience of the fishing industry, decided it was a 'cargo space'...

So you don't think it's important to know the water level in a vivier tank?
 
So you don't think it's important to know the water level in a vivier tank?

It would only sound if water was present, which it would be all the time and I imagine the endless beep would be disabled. A viv tank usually has a hatch in the deck big enough to enter and haul the catch out, if the bilge water is visible from on deck that's one case where a bilge alarm is not needed, see the MSN. Exactly the sort of thing we are used to. Brand new boat, half the transom cut out for pots to shoot away, must also have scuppers in the remainder of the transom = to x % of bulwark surface area, because the book says they must be there and doesn't account for other structure or lack of. Quote "you have accomodation: either remove the mattresses or install a toilet".

In fairness an alarm might be useful to know if the viv tank level was increasing, but since it is the same as WL outside, and discrete from the rest of the bilge, and safe even if full to the deck, in fact safer due to lack of free surface water.......still rubbish really.
 
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