Who should be blamed in this collision???

[Twister_Ken]

Any one who lets him near the helm of anything needs their head examined

I wonder if that applies also to his day job, which may be steering large grey ships.

 

[Cookee]

Probably.

But consider this - the yacht's course was from the western Solent, round South bramble, West Ryde, and then to the RYS line.

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You do know we're talking of "an error" of one kilometre don't you?

 

[flaming]

You do know we're talking of "an error" of one kilometre don't you?

Or 100m, if his original course was to pass down one side of the ship in the opposite direction - which was what the course he was sailing would have meant.

Please, please don't think I'm defending the actions of the yacht - they clearly got it quite massively wrong, and books will, and should, be chucked. It is just the assumption put forward so forcefully by some here that the ONLY reason he could be there was that he knew it would be close, and went for it anyway to try and win a race, risking his crew's life in the process.

To me, that assumption just doesn't stack up. A chap less than 1/4 mile away at the time says his initial assesment was that they simply hadn't seen the ship. That's not an excuse, in fact it's a massive breach of the boat's colregs obligations in keeping a good lookout, but it's far more logical to me than playing chicken for a race result - as the initial approach would have been practically head on - so the alteration of course needed would have been fairly minor anyway!

 

[ricky_s]

As a simple "Stinky", I am finding this thread hilarious!

Please keep it up.

 

[Scotty_Tradewind]

We all make mistakes but the skipper will/should never live this one down. Blatently obvious when sailing in the Solent how too many yachts cross over ahead of ships with very little time/space to spare. To do it in the zoned area south of Southampton and North of Cowes means possible prosecution.
If the penalties applied to some small craft skippers violating laws in the Dover straits and North sea are any guidance, the skipper could lose more than his/her pride!

 

[Leonidas]

The MAIB report should make for interesting reading.[/QUOTE

Indeed. Hopefully it will all come up in the wash. This will include the VTS exchanges with the vessel and yacht (???), the bridge voice recording of exchanges of pilot / master, helm orders/ engine manouvering parameters , copies of the AIS plots. Is it the practice that the yacht skipper in a race should have a vhf switched on to a dedicated channel and be listening to any warnings from VTS that they had entered a prohibited moving zone?? (i.e normal navigational procedures ) Should all yachts be fitted with AIS so that they can be tracked and asssited by VTS ?? Should navigational channels be more comprehensively policed by race stewards?? Should the skippers be more qualified before being allowed to compete in such a race ??
My apologies for this rant , but I was wondering if there are any recommendations how to make this annual race safer.

 

[davidpbo]

Anyone mention possibility of mechanical failure on the yacht?
Stuck rudder, jammed gear? injured/ill crew member?

 

[Heckler]

Probably.

But consider this - the yacht's course was from the western Solent, round South bramble, West Ryde, and then to the RYS line.

So when the tanker is coming from the east the initial "collision course" is pretty much head on.
So what if the yacht heats up on Starboard to go over the tanker (SW wind) and is aiming to pass the 100m clear down the port side of the tanker that he is required to - also expecting that the tanker will, at some point, be turning to Starboard. Then something goes wrong. Maybe the kite collapses and the boat loses steerage, maybe the tanker makes a small turn to port to clear the boats that we see going down it's starboard side, maybe the wind shifts under the island and the kite needs to come down but jams.

The point is that we don't know. But my strong suspicion is that in those conditions this was not a crossing situation that took ages to develop, with constant bearings etc, but one where there wasn't an issue, the boat wasn't in the zone - but then suddenly was, for whatever reason that might be.

In all likelyhood the boat ending up under the bows of the tanker because of a horrendous mistake by the skipper, but I'm not keen on calling anyone names until the facts are actually known.

He was a cock! IMHO
Stu

 

[Oscarpop]

Anyone mention possibility of mechanical failure on the yacht?
Stuck rudder, jammed gear? injured/ill crew member?

Rowlocks! If there was a problem with mechanical failure, the first thing you would do as skipper is get the crew off the rail. If it were a stuck sailthey would be used to drop ( and cut if necessary) jammed sails. You would remove all canvas. You would have crew on deck working like mad to fix the problem if it were the rudder. They are all quite happy on the rail.

The only mechanical failure here is the failure of the cogs inside the skippers head .

 

[fireball]

Or 100m, if his original course was to pass down one side of the ship in the opposite direction - which was what the course he was sailing would have meant.

Please, please don't think I'm defending the actions of the yacht - they clearly got it quite massively wrong, and books will, and should, be chucked. It is just the assumption put forward so forcefully by some here that the ONLY reason he could be there was that he knew it would be close, and went for it anyway to try and win a race, risking his crew's life in the process.

To me, that assumption just doesn't stack up. A chap less than 1/4 mile away at the time says his initial assesment was that they simply hadn't seen the ship. That's not an excuse, in fact it's a massive breach of the boat's colregs obligations in keeping a good lookout, but it's far more logical to me than playing chicken for a race result - as the initial approach would have been practically head on - so the alteration of course needed would have been fairly minor anyway!

From what's been said I'm minded to agree with your view of the incident. The crew on the race boat wasn't keeping abreast of the position of the tanker - or hadn't even seen it was coming (harder to understand). Misunderstood/misheard the instructions given by the escort boat - probably partly due to the sudden realisation that they were in the wrong place, helm panicked and ended up as we saw.
I'll accept that the collision was an accident as I don't believe any skipper would deliberately put themselves in that situation - if he was deliberately trying to shave across the bow of the tanker why would he depower the sails?!
It still leaves the "blame" for the collision - which should still rest solely on the shoulders of the yachts skipper (which I think Flaming agrees with?) for failure to keep a proper lookout and avoid the MPZ.
It will be interesting to hear the official report of the collision.

 

[flaming]

It still leaves the "blame" for the collision - which should still rest solely on the shoulders of the yachts skipper (which I think Flaming agrees with?) for failure to keep a proper lookout and avoid the MPZ.

Of course!

For some reason the mass assumption on the forums that the boat was there because the chap wanted to win a race, and was prepared to risk his boat and his crew to do so, rather than because he made a massive mistake and either didn't see, or didn't understand the course of the ship, has really riled me.

If the MAIB report comes back with "and then the captain said exclusion zone be damned and steered straight across the bows" then I will happily join in with the condemnation of the bloke as a reckless idiot.

But I just don't buy that explanation from the video, or my mate who was on one of the Sunsail boats. The fact that the boat is head to wind with the kite up when we first see it, just screams the skipper panicking and shoving the helm over to me - not trying to squeak across and not quite making it.

 

[gjgm]

We all make mistakes but the skipper will/should never live this one down. Blatently obvious when sailing in the Solent how too many yachts cross over ahead of ships with very little time/space to spare. To do it in the zoned area south of Southampton and North of Cowes means possible prosecution.
QUOTE]
Too true. Sunday there was a large tanker coming off the refinery by Calshot.
Three smaller tugs attached, one large one holding off, and a pilot boat. I still watched this sailing boat sail straight for the whole show until the tug headed for him, and shoo'ed him away. Doubtless a huge inconvenience to have to tack when all the commercial vessels could easily have stopped for lunch or something constructive.
Maybe the result of all this will be alot tougher intervention from the HM and pilot boats.

 

[l'escargot]

The MAIB report should make for interesting reading.

....My apologies for this rant , but I was wondering if there are any recommendations how to make this annual race safer.

It is annual races - there are dozens of them, not just one.

Safer in what way? This was one isolated incident in just one race.

It is already a very safe event. Considering the number of boats involved there are relatively few incidents and I don't recall anything even close to this happening in previous years.

 

[andygc]

Without a doubt something went seriously wrong on that boat on that day ...

The MAIB report should make for interesting reading.

Despite your having a pop at me earlier in this thread, I think we actually agree on that. It seems so far backalong that I suggested that this is a pointless thread since it just restarts the Scuttlebutt one (which equally got nowhere), and wouldn't it be better to wait for the MAIB.

The fact that the boat is head to wind with the kite

Just a little question - which video have you been watching? I don't think people should be laying blame, but let's make sure facts are actually facts.

 

[Sailfree]

The many comments/threads on this incident that are so quick to condemn the helmsman/skipper sadden me.

Yes it ended up a total c*ckup and yes the skipper was at fault but I doubt very much if the skipper started out with the intention of scrapping across the tankers bows. I suspect that when the facts are finally published that the tanker did a wider than expected turn due to the tide and what started out as going down the side ended up with the wrong decision that they would just make it.

Its always possible to make perfect decisions in an armchair!

Happy to change my mind but only after knowing the facts as my Darwin knowledge leads me to think that a total plonker would never have survived racing as long as he has.

I would add that on X channel I lay down my skippers rule that no bow is to be passed less than 2 mls in front. With some container boats doing up to 34kts that can give you less than 4 mins to make a decision. Last year on the scuttlebutt cherbourg cruise I was disappointed to overhear a cockpit conversation between two crew. The helm (who is the most experienced sailor I have ever had on my boat) was trying to avoid a gybe and was intent on crossing in front of the other ship far less than the 2 mls I insist on. I was dozing in the cockpit and intervened but I was dissappointed that I had to intervene and needless to say that person is unlikely to sail on my boat again. Mistakes do happen but for the wrong reasons.

 

[Leonidas]

It is annual races - there are dozens of them, not just one.

Safer in what way? This was one isolated incident in just one race.

It is already a very safe event. Considering the number of boats involved there are relatively few incidents and I don't recall anything even close to this happening in previous years.

True, but thank God and pure luck that there was no loss of life this time . But have you already forgotten the Ouzo incident and are you entirely satisfied that all risks have been mitigated or at least assessed ???
How about the co ordination between port authorities and race officials to regulate commercial shipping traffic during a race involving so many boats sharing the same strech of waters. Can you imagine an Olympic cycling road race sharing the same roads with lorries?

 

[flaming]

Just a little question - which video have you been watching? I don't think people should be laying blame, but let's make sure facts are actually facts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tUoUxzt9sI&feature=related

Pretty clearly the yacht is pretty much HTW flogging the kite just before the incident. He sure as hell didn't get to that point sailing like that, so it must be a last second evasive reaction.

 

[Leonidas]

It still leaves the "blame" for the collision - which should still rest solely on the shoulders of the yachts skipper (which I think Flaming agrees with?) for failure to keep a proper lookout and avoid the MPZ.
It will be interesting to hear the official report of the collision.

Watch this space( and what the lawyers are going to make of it). In maritime collisions, in my experience, it is very rarely indeed to aproportion 100% blame to one party.

 

[fireball]

True, but thank God and pure luck that there was no loss of life this time . But have you already forgotten the Ouzo incident and are you entirely satisfied that all risks have been mitigated or at least assessed ???
How about the co ordination between port authorities and race officials to regulate commercial shipping traffic during a race involving so many boats sharing the same strech of waters. Can you imagine an Olympic cycling road race sharing the same roads with lorries?

The Ouzo was not racing.
The Ouzo was OUTSIDE the Solent.

Can I imagine a cyclist sharing the same road with Lorries? Yes - I do quite often - pretty much all of them give me a wide berth - it's the cars that tend to cut it a bit fine.

Oh - and for the Olympic SAILING events - they've cordoned off the area - banning the public from entering the race course - I wouldn't expect it to be any different as it is a major event.
Otherwise for other sailing races you just get on with it - commercial traffic or leisure sailors in the way become just another obstacle.
Could you imagine them shutting the English Channel and across to Ireland for the Fastnet ?!

 

[fireball]

Watch this space( and what the lawyers are going to make of it). In maritime collisions, in my experience, it is very rarely indeed to aproportion 100% blame to one party.

Indeed - but it's a bit tricky to see (from the short clip) what else the pilot of the tanker could've done ... short of having a grey liner escort them and shooting any strays in their path ...