The PBO drink/boating poll.

BarryH

BarryH

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I've just clicked on the link. What I read within had me aghast. Reading about the vessels that will be targeted it seems that motorboaters are at the top of the list while raggies get of scott free.....well sort of!

Is it that the stereotypical image preceeds yet again? Personally I find this rather offensive. Why should I be lumped into a group just because I have and internal combustion engine. If rules and regs to cover alcohol limits should be introduced then surely it should cover all water users to the same extent. Not just those that have a craft capable of more than a certain speed limit. The levels set are proposed to be the same as those set for road users. All road users are included in the drink laws. So why not those who use the waters around our coasts/rivers etc.
Whats your view?
 
Yep, everyone on the water should face same limits. Most danger to other boats is when you are in marina or harbour, and so speed is irrelevant.
 
Its not very enforceable is it ... on any larger craft ...

Who is the skipper? The one at the helm? What if your on Autopilot?
Not allowed to do Random checks - then what will they look for?
At what point are you allowed to drink? When your tied up in a marina or on a mooring bouy? If your on a mooring then you might be taking the tender - does this count?

As pointed out - the number of problem causing drink sailors are small and many harbour authorities already have bylaws in place for this.

What was that about marinas having the power to hold a vessel? They'll want to charge for that then ...

I'm sure the desired result - less alcohol related problems on the water - can be achieved through other channels (sink the bu**ers!!)

Is there such thing as
Sailing without due care and attention?
Dangerous Sailing?

and how are the government going to issue parking fines for when we stop in a ferry lane?
 
[ QUOTE ]
All road users are included in the drink laws.

[/ QUOTE ]

Erm . . . not exactly. If I cycle to the pub I can be pulled coming back pi$$ed, I can be fined and possibly even incarcerated if I am a persistent and unrepentant offender or if I injure someone other than myself - but they don't take your license away (or your bicycle as far as I am aware).

My boat weights two and a half tons, but I can go five times faster on my bicycle. I don't think an exemption for sailing vessels is necessarily out of order, and I think it is rather unsporting of you to begrudge us raggies if we turn out to be exempt.

(Or are you now going to write to your local MP demanding that drunken cycling carries the same penalties as driving your car when over the limit?)

- Nick
 
To many MOBOs kill sail boats crew every year in the med.they go off on autopilot.

A german in a huge MOBO left a yard as i was lifted for antifouling, next morning the boat was back smached props bent shaft and family problems, he had set the auto pilot opend the scotch and headed for cassis forgeting that between St Raphael are rock out crops or not knowing.
Then a MOBO cut the bow off a 10 meter sail boat just off Saint Maxim then another MOBO----the list goes on even i was nearly run down by a MOBO drunk after lunch.
Why do people buy MOBOS other than becouse there easy to drive need little skill(pity better if they did) and to sit on/in it and drink!

Sail boat users generally can sail plan and take care.

Sailboat users also have PCs to plan and as nav back up, MOBOs tend to buy expensive small screen plotters and NO paper charts becouse if they have a laptop its a mac and for that there is no softwear,
 
Quote;
Is there such thing as
Sailing without due care and attention?
Dangerous Sailing?

Yes. I have a very good raggy friend who was reported to the local harbour-master in Carrick Roads Falmouth for giving ANOTHER RAGGIE (on a swinging mooring) too much wash from his wake at 5 KNOTS!!!!!!!!! He even had to write a letter to the harbour-master outling his position in the situation
 
OK so you can't get your licence taken away for riding a bicycle pi$$ed, but I'll look into that one, tho the relevant laws apply ie road user.
On what grounds do you think that yachtsman should be exempt. So your yacht tips the scales at 2.5 tons, I'm not even going to guess what you on your bike tips the scales at!, but I'm damn sure that your 2.5 ton yacht will do a hell of a lot more damage in the event of an impact. Its all down to ballistics....sort of!
 
[ QUOTE ]
Why do people buy MOBOS other than becouse there easy to drive need little skill(pity better if they did) and to sit on/in it and drink!

Sail boat users generally can sail plan and take care.

Sailboat users also have PCs to plan and as nav back up, MOBOs tend to buy expensive small screen plotters and NO paper charts becouse if they have a laptop its a mac and for that there is no softwear,

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know wether to laugh at you or not! This is the stereotypical image I mentioned. How do you come to your conclusions?
 
All your personal opinion. I've seen a yacht t-bone and sink a large motorboat, so it goes both ways. As a mobo, I always carry paper charts and use them, as do many mobo's

Most mobo's are safety concious, and skilled sea farers, and many sail as well, so let's keep the bigotry off the forum and not start another them vs us debate please.
 
You have two options here as I see it.

Fight your corner and look for support from the raggies.

Squeal and say it is not fair and drag the yachties in to the regulation with you.

If you choose the second option, you must understand the lack of support that then may come from the light side when it comes to the red diesel fight.

Yes it is unfair, but, please chose a different battle plan if you decide to try to fight it, otherwise no one will be able to row a dinghy back from the club after a couple of pints.

FWIW, I may have a couple of glasses of wine etc. but would never drive a boat drunk, any type, excepting of course the dinghy, yes dangerous but only to me and those stupid enough to get in the tender with me.
 
Perfectly summed up Brendan. By the way I don't think sailing and alcohol should mix at all - it's quite demanding enough sober! I can't, however, think of a solution to the problem where you are at anchor and have to move. Maybe the 'big hammer to crack a nut' driving type laws need a bit of adjustment here. After all, there's no reason one solution should fit all problems.
 
The new laws beed some tweaking as far as I'm concerned. Though would like to see some real life examples of them being enforced before I was up in arms
 
just look at the statistics,motor boat drivers are only interested in being seen,not learning to use there expensive enviromentaly unfrindly hardwear.Thats why there are so many accidents and insurnce claims..

And im not against MOBOS at all,im asked every year by couple of MOBO owners to moor there boats in a very very crowded habour, as MOBOs have a special property of being able open up a space a sail boat couldent,Then the wife takes me back to my anchorage.

I just wish there were far less of them and they were limited to maximum power of 72HP,its getting worse to with more and more cheep semi blow up boats with 2X225 outboards,whats the point? why do people need so much power to go sailing?

In Italy for many years a small boat yard has produced a sailboat for MOBO people (they cant really sail) it is a sail boat 11 meters long had a lifting keel and 2X 320 HP turbo fiat engins, and attracts a lot of attention from MOBOs it has passed,
 
Your reading the post wrong. It wasn't said that I was up in arms about it. I merely said that I find to target one arm of the boating commnity unfair. Yeah ok, so I said I was offended, which in a way I am, just because I wan't to use fossil fuels as motive power.
Its a legislation that not worth fighting as the government have deemed it necessary to impose it. About as much use fighting this as it is the red diesel thing.

I asked why motorboaters should be targeted and not all boat users. I asked for peoples views as to why, but as usual its turned into a "them and us" type argument......yet again!

As it happens I enjoy sailing always have done. I jump at the chance to go on a raggy. I started off learning to sail a dinghy at an early age. So lets drop all this rubbish about raggies v stinkies thing. We're all out on the water at the end of the day. So why should one set of water users have rules imposed on them when others shouldn't, motive power aside.
 
And there's me thinking we all shared a common passion for the sea!
Still you do get this stupidity in other pastimes as well, for instance in aviation its the ragwings v the spamcans, and a sub section, nose wheel v tailwheel. So its not just here!
Hey, I just enjoy being on the sea in whatever I'm in, and I'd hate to bob around with a chip like that on my shoulder, must take a lot of the fun away.
 
Ilike PBOs suggestion, that the law should apply to all boats capable of speeds over 16knots, or whatever. Seems to serve the purpose, and catches the likes of undermanned, lookout-less, 25knot trimarans with pissed skippers. (I saw that half bottle of perry, Ellen, you're nicked)

Alistair
 
Your "tongue in cheek" summing up is right Steve. I have seen just as many pisshead sailors as MOBO drivers. I also feel that a skipper has the responsibility to keep his crew safe even when in harbour and this extends to stopping them from disrupting the enjoyment of others by rowdy hooligan behaviour. Unfortunately, while the safety of navigation needs more attention the faster one goes, the danger of collision is only one aspect of safety and the majority of drownings still take place in harbours and shallow waters with alcohol often playing a part.
Before the "raggies" point the finger at "MOBOs" they should remember....Let he who is without sin cast the first stone..... It's not MOBOs who should be blamed. It's drunks. Whatever they "drive".
Yes I agree, There is no reason why the law should not be universally applied.....
 
actually its down to energy which is 1/2 m v ^2, i.e energy is proportional to mass, but also proportional to velocity squared. all other things being equal (i.e the mass) a boat going at 25 knots has 125 times as much energy, at 30 knots 180 times as much and at 35 knots 250 times as much energy as a boat going a 5 knots, i.e 250 times more potential for causing damage.
I don't think they are targeting motoboaters per se, they are targeting boats which can go at these sort of speeds and have the potentail for alot more damage. These happen to be mostly motorboats. I don't think the intention is to label motorboaters and yachties as more or less likely to be drinking.

My personal view is that it is totally irresponsible to do anything like driving, sailing, flying, operating machinery etc whilst under the influence. Even if you don't cause damage to other boaters, what if you go overboard - which is more likely to start with if you're pissed. The effects of immersion in cold water plus likely dehydration issues will kill you pretty fast if you are drunk. There is plenty of data to suppor the fact that impairment occurs after just a tiny amount of alcohol - way under the drink driving limit, and I suggest anyone who thinks that alchohol does not cause accidents just looks at the NHS A&E stats.
 
A view from where these laws already exist...

Here in sunny Finland (sun, perfectly clear blue sky, just -6C) these laws already exist. The driving limit is 50 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood, or a minimum of 0.22 mg per litre of exhaled air. This means that one 0.33l bottle of beer could put you over this limit, depending on the person (size, weight, metabolic rate etc). The boating limit is 2x this, so 100mg alcohol/100ml blood.

This can be (and is) randomly enforced, although there's nothing random about the traffic police stopping a whole lane of city traffic while they go down the line checking...

Same on the water, random checks apply. But these tend to be during or the morning after the several "national party" days during the summer. They do seem to "target" anything producing a sizeable wake accompanied by lots of noise although anything with a motor is game. If you don't have a motor, then no enforcement.
Fines for the guilty are based on an ability to pay scale and can be horrendous, often plus prison. Alcohol and driving is not tollerated here!

In practice it tends to work because the police see it only as a job to do. No petty power syndromes there, although they do seem to have missed the point that the fun sailing regattas where poeple are racing are possibly the worst examples of drink/sailing, but it's probably accepted as not good form to stop sailing boats in the middle of a race... /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
But people seriously racing don't drink!

On a sad note, one member of our club drowned last summer while sailing alone. His boat was found on the rocks with the autopilot set. Inside were a couple of emply bottles... His last contact was a phone call to his friend, asking where the bottle-operer was... Don't know what exactly happened because they didn't find his body yet. Maybe it pops up in the spring when the ice has thawed...
 
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