The end of owner maintenance ...

[mainsail1]

You are too complacent. Let things by on the nod and they come back to bite you. I have also had coded boats so don't tell me you know it all.

 

[capnsensible]

You are too complacent. Let things by on the nod and they come back to bite you. I have also had coded boats so don't tell me you know it all.

Of course not 'all' . Most is close though......

 

[Kukri]

I have never been involved with Small Commercial Craft, only with Convention ships. But I certainly know a lot about the impact of “best practice” on the recoverability of an insurance claim. That’s why the ships I operate comply with Best Practice in the Indian Ocean High Risk Area, etc. I also own and operate a Class XII vessel under 24 metres in length, coded 0 until I bought her, and I really don’t know why I need the fire pump and buckets or why the liferaft which is certified for three years has to be certified annually just because it is in a valise.

But let me ask you - what is to be gained by the Department for Transport - for that is who we are taking about here - the people whose Policy Division caused dear Chris Grayling to waste all that money on ferries - getting involved at all - even just at the level of advice and guidance - in the operation and maintenance of private pleasure vessels that are not presently under their remit?

As the late President Reagan said, amongst the most frightening words that you may hear are, “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help!”

 

[capnsensible]

Thing is, as I'm absolutely sure, the whole thing has been thrown open for public consultation. Everyone can have their input. That's been my main theme for this whole thread. I simply do not believe there is some conspiracy theory to dominate everything from a paddle board to a Nic 55 or more.

Why don't the principle moaners read the notices and spend energy writing to the MC A rather than trying to work themselves into a froth on here?

And I say again, what is wrong with expert advice being freely given, even when most are going to either not know about it or ignore it anyway?

I've sailed two leisure boats this week and been engaged as skipper on two commercial charters. I take my responsibilities seriously and was entirely satisfied that the boats involved were in good order and that I operated them in accordance with the general practices of seamen. But I've seen quite a lot of leisure craft tootling about enjoying themselves all around me. As it should be.

Don't panic Captain Mainwairings. Storm, teacup.

 

[capnsensible]

Mandatory equipment for Class XII Vessels
It is compulsory for Class XII vessels to carry Life-Saving Appliances and Fire Protection equipment.

Class XII vessels are pleasure vessels of 13.7m (approximately 45ft) in [registered*] length and over.

* if a boat is registered this will be the length as shown on the certificate of registry. If a boat is not registered, length is measured from the forepart of the stem to the aft side of the head of the stern post or, if no stern post is fitted the fore side of the rudder stock at the point where the rudder passes out of the hull.

Class XII vessels are required to comply with the following regulations:

Merchant Shipping (Fire Protection: Small Craft) Regulations 1998; and
Merchant Shipping (Life-Saving Appliances For Ships Other Than Ships Of Classes III To VI(A)) Regulations 1999
Complying with the Merchant Shipping legislation can prove impractical and there is a possibility of conflict with the Recreational Craft Directive (RCD). To resolve this there are three Exemptions to the Merchant Shipping Regulations. If owners of Class XII vessels opt to comply with one or more of these Exemptions, they do not need to comply with the underlying regulations to which they relate.

The RYA has outlined details of what is necessary to comply with the Exemptions:

GENERAL EXEMPTION in relation to Fire Protection on Class XII vessels
GENERAL EXEMPTION in relation to Life-Saving Appliances on Class XII vessels
EXEMPTION on the closing down of Class XII Machinery Spaces (Ships of Class XII with a length of less than 24m)
This information should be read in conjunction with Marine Guidance Note (MGN) 599.

 

[Blue Sunray]

Why don't the principle moaners read the notices and spend energy writing to the MC A rather than trying to work themselves into a froth on here?

Because that takes:

1. time to actually read the documentation;
2. effort to compose a reasoned and structured argument.

and they might not have an audience of similarity minded old blokes to play to.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Thing is, as I'm absolutely sure, the whole thing has been thrown open for public consultation. Everyone can have their input. That's been my main theme for this whole thread. I simply do not believe there is some conspiracy theory to dominate everything from a paddle board to a Nic 55 or more.

Why don't the principle moaners read the notices and spend energy writing to the MC A rather than trying to work themselves into a froth on here?

And I say again, what is wrong with expert advice being freely given, even when most are going to either not know about it or ignore it anyway?

I've sailed two leisure boats this week and been engaged as skipper on two commercial charters. I take my responsibilities seriously and was entirely satisfied that the boats involved were in good order and that I operated them in accordance with the general practices of seamen. But I've seen quite a lot of leisure craft tootling about enjoying themselves all around me. As it should be.

Don't panic Captain Mainwairings. Storm, teacup.

Because the state the aim is implementation by August 2019 when the consultation document is published at the end of June 2019 that doesn't sound to much like genuine consultation to me.

Then there is the law of unintended consequence of insurers looking for get out options when considering claims.

NO I take the view that this is the DOT beginning to make inroads into the registration and compliance of small pleasure craft and their owners.

 

[Sandy Bottom]

Register in a different jurisdiction?

 

[Kukri]

As a ‘principal moaner’, I have so far:

- started enquiries to find out exactly who - which named individual - in the MCA is behind this.
- written to the committee of my club drawing their attention to it and asking them to write to the RYA
- written to the CA
- written to the RYA as an individual member
- done my best to stir the issue up here in the hope that others may do so.

“What is wrong with advice being freely given” is that we are already down by the head with it, so there is no shortage of the stuff, meaning that we don’t need more, but the MCA are setting themselves up as the arbiters of “best practice”. This is new, and scary. How many people in the MCA even go afloat for pleasure? If the RYA were asked to rule on best practice, that might be better, though I fancy we would still want input from the offshore racers, the dinghy cruisers and all the other people with special knowledge. But will the MCA even know where to look? I know the MCA well, have sat on MCA committees, and so on and unless they have been hiding a small army of recreational boaters they are out of their depth already.. Now, “best practice” carries with it legal implications, one of which is that we ignore it at our peril.

 

[Kukri]

Because the state the aim is implementation by August 2019 when the consultation document is published at the end of June 2019 that doesn't sound to much like genuine consultation to me.

Then there is the law of unintended consequence of insurers looking for get out options when considering claims.

NO I take the view that this is the DOT beginning to make inroads into the registration and compliance of small pleasure craft and their owners.

And so do I.

Let us note that the MCA are not asking for advice on whether they should be doing this. They are asking for advice on how they should word what they write in each section. They are not even asking if they have the sections right.

 

[mainsail1]

As a ‘principal moaner’, I have so far:

- started enquiries to find out exactly who - which named individual - in the MCA is behind this.
- written to the committee of my club drawing their attention to it and asking them to write to the RYA
- written to the CA
- written to the RYA as an individual member
- done my best to stir the issue up here in the hope that others may do so.

“What is wrong with advice being freely given” is that we are already down by the head with it, so there is no shortage of the stuff, meaning that we don’t need more, but the MCA are setting themselves up as the arbiters of “best practice”. This is new, and scary. How many people in the MCA even go afloat for pleasure? If the RYA were asked to rule on best practice, that might be better, though I fancy we would still want input from the offshore racers, the dinghy cruisers and all the other people with special knowledge. But will the MCA even know where to look? I know the MCA well, have sat on MCA committees, and so on and unless they have been hiding a small army of recreational boaters they are out of their depth already.. Now, “best practice” carries with it legal implications, one of which is that we ignore it at our peril.

Well done Sir. ...........I will be contacting the RYA on Monday for advice.

 

[Wansworth]

Putting my boat under Spanish flag where commercial practice was applied to pleasure yachts..........12 meter boat required four metal buckets of which one should have a lanyard of 27.5 meters engine and electrical installations when no engine or electrical installation aboard due to refurbishment,still charged for inspection,incompetent big ship surveyors with obviously no idea about yachts.......that’s what I fear!

 

[capnsensible]

As a ‘principal moaner’, I have so far:

- started enquiries to find out exactly who - which named individual - in the MCA is behind this.
- written to the committee of my club drawing their attention to it and asking them to write to the RYA
- written to the CA
- written to the RYA as an individual member
- done my best to stir the issue up here in the hope that others may do so.

“What is wrong with advice being freely given” is that we are already down by the head with it, so there is no shortage of the stuff, meaning that we don’t need more, but the MCA are setting themselves up as the arbiters of “best practice”. This is new, and scary. How many people in the MCA even go afloat for pleasure? If the RYA were asked to rule on best practice, that might be better, though I fancy we would still want input from the offshore racers, the dinghy cruisers and all the other people with special knowledge. But will the MCA even know where to look? I know the MCA well, have sat on MCA committees, and so on and unless they have been hiding a small army of recreational boaters they are out of their depth already.. Now, “best practice” carries with it legal implications, one of which is that we ignore it at our peril.

I look forward to revelation day when it is duly discovered that big brother is not out to get people who got a boat.....

 

[RobF]

Two penny worth:

The MCA have been, and are being, clobbered by Brexit, with most real ships leaving the UK flag for sane regimes, so they have to find work for idle hands to do lest they be made redundant.

Hence the sudden interest in yottin....

This is pure conjecture. You'll note from the YM article the reason why MCA have recently requested this consultation.

As a ‘principal moaner’, I have so far:

- started enquiries to find out exactly who - which named individual - in the MCA is behind this....

As per above, it was a jury recommendation to the MCA from the Winchester Crown Court

... Let us note that the MCA are not asking for advice on whether they should be doing this.

Agreed, a high court judge instructed them to do this as per a recommendation from the jury in a high profile case which made national headlines.

I doubt that it will directly apply to owner maintenance of pleasure craft but no doubt insurance companies will be quick to look at wriggling out of any claim where it can be shown owner maintenance was involved and they will quote the MCA to back them up.

Having done my fair share of Chartered Institute of Insurance exams, I would strongly disagree with this. Moreover, my marine insurance experience to date (one fault claim, two non fault claims) has found the insurance companies to be exemplary. They will pay out if they believe there to be a reasonable claim.


To sum up,

• The MCA's MGNs are guidance. They are good guidance and I suspect most of us are already following them
• It is directed at Commercial / Coded vessels, but non coded vessles can also benefit. I also benefit from reading the ISAF rules - even though I am not a racer
• The notion that having an owner changing a propeller, or impeller could leave someone liable to a prison sentence, or hefty fine, is laughable in my opinion. A reasonable defence is that some items are specifically constructed for non-expert installation (such as nav lights, chart plotters & fuel filters etc). However, other items would clearly benefit from installation by properly trained personnel (copper pipes for LPG gas, swaged standing rigging). I have faith that a jury would easily be able to distinguish between an item designed to be fitted by an intelligent adult and an item which requires specialist training for installation.
• This is not the end of owner maintenance, unless your maintenance schedule includes surveying keels for damage after grounding, doubling the power output of the engine or using dyes to assess the T terminals at the shrouds for hairline cracks.

 

[Kukri]

This is pure conjecture. You'll note from the YM article the reason why MCA have recently requested this consultation.

The collapse of the UK flagged deep sea fleet due to Brexit is perfectly real. Read the shipping trade press.

As per above, it was a jury recommendation to the MCA from the Winchester Crown Court

Agreed, a high court judge instructed them to do this as per a recommendation from the jury in a high profile case which made national headlines.

The Judge did not order the MCA to extend their remit to private pleasure vessels. This is the MCA trying to grab jurisdiction where it has had none before

Having done my fair share of Chartered Institute of Insurance exams, I would strongly disagree with this. Moreover, my marine insurance experience to date (one fault claim, two non fault claims) has found the insurance companies to be exemplary. They will pay out if they believe there to be a reasonable claim.


To sum up,

• The MCA's MGNs are guidance. They are good guidance and I suspect most of us are already following them
• It is directed at Commercial / Coded vessels, but non coded vessles can also benefit. I also benefit from reading the ISAF rules - even though I am not a racer
• The notion that having an owner changing a propeller, or impeller could leave someone liable to a prison sentence, or hefty fine, is laughable in my opinion. A reasonable defence is that some items are specifically constructed for non-expert installation (such as nav lights, chart plotters & fuel filters etc). However, other items would clearly benefit from installation by properly trained personnel (copper pipes for LPG gas, swaged standing rigging). I have faith that a jury would easily be able to distinguish between an item designed to be fitted by an intelligent adult and an item which requires specialist training for installation.
• This is not the end of owner maintenance, unless your maintenance schedule includes surveying keels for damage after grounding, doubling the power output of the engine or using dyes to assess the T terminals at the shrouds for hairline cracks.

I quote the article:

The six draft MGNs cover guidance on keel groundings, rigging inspections, preparedness, stowage of lifesaving gear, vessel resilience and emergency procedures, and maintenance, modifications, damage and repairs. They are aimed at both small commercial vessels as well as pleasure boats.

If someone wants to run a business with boats, dealing with the general public, then they should be regulated by a competent organisation. No argument. That organisation is the MCA as only they can prosecute in the criminal courts.

My whole point is that these six MGNs are “offering advice on best practice” to people who go sailing on a non-commercial basis. The contributions to this thread made by people in the coded commercial yacht business, who are already regulated by the MCA, keep skipping over this point, rather in the way that a group of married men tell the last bachelor amongst them to marry.

I don’t care about the commercial yacht business, be it ‘ training’, chartering, dude racing or whatever. You want to make your money that way, you put up with the regulatory system. 12 pax, annual dockings, 100 pax, a doctor, etc.

I do care, very much indeed, about the historical right of any British citizen to put to sea in a small (less than 13.7 metres tonnage length) boat when where and how she or he chooses. These MGNs do not draw that distinction and they clearly state (see above) that the MCA is now proposing to offer formal “advice and guidance (and an MGN is a pretty serious document) to private pleasure vessels

This is entirely novel, the RYA was re-formed out of the YRA to fight it many years ago and it should be fought now.

The YM article misses that point entirely.

This isn’t about the Cheeki Rafiki case. That is being used, knowingly, by the MCA to assert a new power to regulate private pleasure vessels. The draft document states that very plainly and I have quoted it above.

 

[NorthUp]

Minn is correct.
You have to understand the mindset of the MCA and HM Coastguard- we are all classed as 'civilians' and have to be saved from ourselves even if we don't know it. It has long been the wet dream of the MCA to build an empire controlling the leisure side.

 

[Kukri]

Minn is correct.
You have to understand the mindset of the MCA and HM Coastguard- we are all classed as 'civilians' and have to be saved from ourselves even if we don't know it. It has long been the wet dream of the MCA to build an empire controlling the leisure side.

Thank you. Exactly. This is the thin end of a very long, very wide, wedge, being driven into our sport.

 

[TwoHooter]

[*]This is not the end of owner maintenance, unless your maintenance schedule includes surveying keels for damage after grounding, doubling the power output of the engine or using dyes to assess the T terminals at the shrouds for hairline cracks.

That statement and the condescending remarks by the self-styled "capnsensible" have encouraged me to go back to the original documentation and study it again, to see whether perhaps RobF is right about this.

I don't think he is.

I refer to this link which is one of the 6 documents which are open for consultation. Below the title is the following: Notice to all owners, managing agents, skippers, designers, builders, surveyors, crew and Certifying Authorities of yachts and powerboats including Pleasure Vessels and Small Commercial Vessels. Clearly this documentation is intended to be relevant to owners of pleasure boats and I explained in my post #131 that it is structured to give it a status which cannot be ignored by us. For the most part none of us would want to ignore the guidance because much of it is common sense. But I do think that it foreshadows the end of owner maintenance for one very specific reason, viz. para.2.5 which states: Unless trained and/or qualified to do so, safety critical maintenance should not be carried out by the owner/managing agent or skipper.

I have searched all 6 of the Guidance documents and the Consultation document and no definition of 'safety critical' is given. One example of a safety critical system is given, gas supply systems, but no definition.

I know a little bit about determining whether systems are safety critical because of professional work I have done in the past including work which was approved by government inspectors. In my opinion the majority of systems on motor boats and yachts which are not purely domestic items such as heads, internal lighting, etc. are safety critical. It isn't difficult to determine whether a system is safety critical or not - you just have to ask what will happen if it fails, either in isolation or as part of a "domino" effect. So here are some of the systems on our motorboat which I consider are safety critical and which I currently am able to work on myself up to my level of competence (like most boat owners I have to know when I need specialist help):-

• Hull including skin fittings, seacocks, etc.
• Engines together with associated fuel and electrical systems
• Drives and propellers
• Steering gear
• Generator (if all our bilge pumps run simultaneously they will drain the batteries within two hours)
• Bilge pumps
• Electrical supply system including shore power supply, batteries, isolation switches, inverter and associated controls.
• Ground tackle and winches
• Navigation equipment
• Smoke and CO detection systems, fire extinguishers
• Derrick

Even the lines and fenders are safety critical if you think about it.

That is why I do not agree with RobF.

I have responded to the consultation. I expect to receive in due course a "brush off" boilerplate response. I cannot think of a single example of a meaningful response or change in the government's proposals following consultation. I think "consultation" is a sham, designed solely to tick the box for "consultation".

So dudes you are reading far too much into this. Relax, no one in a brown coat and bowler hat is gonna turn up tomorrow to check you got a spare fan belt.

Yes, that's correct. I don't think the MCA are going to flood the Hamble and the Essex backwaters with an army of enforcers. What I do think will eventually happen is that the MCA will put pressure on marinas and yards to tell boat owners that they can't do their own maintenance. That is what I think will happen. And if it does happen I don't think we will be able to do anything about it.

 

[Graham376]

Minn is correct.
You have to understand the mindset of the MCA and HM Coastguard- we are all classed as 'civilians' and have to be saved from ourselves even if we don't know it. It has long been the wet dream of the MCA to build an empire controlling the leisure side.

For the last 12 years, we have been based abroad where, in common with other EU countries, there are stringent regulations for leisure boats and qualifications for using them. It's the UK which is out of step and I see it as inevitable that sooner or later there will be regulation, like it or not.

Those who frequent these forums tend to be owners seeking information about how to do a job properly but there are lots out there who haven't a clue how to fix the simplest of things and I worry about them, such as the guy on his way to joining the ARC who asked if I could show him where his engine dip-stick was as he didn't know how to check his oil level. Part way across Biscay, a friend asked if we would stay in company as a pin had fallen out of the mainsheet attachment to the car, he had no spare nuts and bolts on board to fix it, so motored the rest of the way. Some people shouldn't be allowed loose.

 

[halcyon]

I have searched all 6 of the Guidance documents and the Consultation document and no definition of 'safety critical' is given. One example of a safety critical system is given, gas supply systems, but no definition.

Now this ties up with my business insurance, on renewal a few months back they added a bit to Product and Public liability section, it now excludes safety critical items. Now after much toing and froing it turns I am not covered for items related to navigation, explained as propulsion. That is from the insurers anything related to the engines, and I assume the rudder, sails, keel and rigging.

Which now means if you want a engine battery isolator switch on a distribution panel the answer is no supply now.

Now if this is common across the marine industry you may need a qualified engineer/person to do a job that he/she may not be insured to do the job, catch 22.

Brian