Who thinks a vessel under sail always has right of way?

Ages ago now but we were motoring in the narrow approach channel to enter our YC marina when an overtaking cadet dinghy crew approached from astern telling (yelling) us to give way. Without the expletives I pointed out that overtaking boat keeps clear regardless of power or sail to which spotty yoof yelled 'but we're racing! Some idiot had organised a 'fun' race where both the start and finish was on the launching ramp our draught was 7 feet and we had all of 3 inches under the keel in the channel, LW springs so I suggested said yoof took his spots over the adjacent mud bank as I sure as heck was not going to do so! The race organiser did have the grace to come round to our berth later and apologise. I was flying the club blue ensign at the time too so allowances should have been made for there being an idiot on the wheel. :nonchalance:
 
JumbleDuck said:
Were you the give way vessel? There is nothing in IRPCS which forbids course alterations resulting in a risk of collision, only instructions on what to do after that risk has arisen.[/QUOTE

This cannot be correct. It is prudent for all ships not to take an action that will endanger another vessel.
Rule 2 of Collision Regs
2. Responsibility
(a) Nothing in these Rules shall exonerate any vessel, or the owner, master or crew thereof, from the consequences of any neglect to comply with these Rules or of the neglect of any precaution which may be required by the ordinary practice of seamen, or by the special circumstances of the case
(b) In construing and complying with these rules due regard shall be had to all dangers of navigation and collision and to any special circumstances, including the limitations of the vessels involved, which may make a departure from these rules necessary to avoid immediate danger
[Rule 2 is sometimes referred to as the "General Prudential" rule and provides for non-conformance with stated rules to prevent a collision, because what is paramount is to avoid or minimise the damaging effects of a collision, as opposed to blindly following the rules to the letter. The overall intent is to minimise actual collision taking place rather than rule compliance in and of itself, per se.]
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Sinbad1951 said:
JumbleDuck said:
Were you the give way vessel? There is nothing in IRPCS which forbids course alterations resulting in a risk of collision, only instructions on what to do after that risk has arisen.
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This cannot be correct. It is prudent for all ships not to take an action that will endanger another vessel.
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If nobody was ever allowed to make a move which led to a risk of collision, no risk of collision would ever occur. It may be friendly or polite not to do so, but if you gotta tack, you gotta tack.
 
nortada said:
Really, well that rather stuffs the IRPCSs.

No more Ball, Diamond, Ball or fishing baskets/canes in the rigging. Always thought it was a load of balls;)

Believe it is the responsibility of all skippers to avoid collisions.
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I think most racing boats know their colregs as they apply to racing regs too. Many people motor sailing these days do not raise a cone or realise they are no longer classed as sailing once they start their engine and many commercial vessels just ignore colregs especially fishing boats and "official" boats. A classic example can be seen at Halfpenny pier quite often where a survey boats moors. It has ball star ball permanently showing even when there is nobody aboard. The puzzle is when one is the stand on vessel and the approaching vessel is not showing any sign of complying with colregs. That is when you may have to just get out of the way. I am inclined to take an early avoiding action on the Orwell rather than get forced onto the mud.
 
Humm, when considering the adage, 'power gives way to sail', eh, well there are other rules and regs than those in Colregs, are not there!
Most Harbours have their own rules and regs regarding 'rights of way', even if that specific wording is not actually used, and the English Channel also has 'traffic lanes' which give specific details on who has to be aware of other craft, usually much larger Ships.
Our own Teignmouth Harbour has this rule in its book, 'after audible (long blast on horn, fog horn whistle) warning no ship or craft shall be placed or be permitted to remain within the Harbour in such a position as to obstruct or interfere with access to or egress from the Harbour'.
So I would venture to suggest that any craft sailing in the Estuary area at such a time best make themselves scarce when confronted by one of the Commercial Ships using the Harbour entrance after the said Audible warning has been given. There is not much 'sea room' available to these Ships for them to manoeuvre in when navigating the marked 'dog leg' Channel so other rules appertain to vessels with restricted draft and or limited manoeuvrability within Colregs should make a Sailing Boat Skipper aware of who gives way to whom?
 
JSYmartini said:
That was me and that was the swim I refer to!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-33846873

Just piloted the first man from Guernsey to Jersey last week as well :)
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An impressive achievement. :encouragement:

We sailed that trip a couple of days later and St Malo - Portsmouth Brittany ferry had a good go at running us over just West of the Minquies. Having seen it head straight towards us from astern for some ten to fifteen minutes we decided to tack when it was obvious that it wasn't going to alter course. Perhaps wrongly I had expected better from them.
 
johnalison said:
I think we may be a bit optimistic in expecting dinghy sailors to know let alone obey the collision regulations.
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I fear that's true these days. Was it ever thus? My impression is that when "we" were growing up (roughly in the middle of last century) and developing a love of boats and the sea, then being interested and keen enough to get hold of a boat and sail it went hand-in-hand with wanting to know ALL about it. I'm sure I bored my parents stiff by reciting every word of Reed's, from the notes on emergency childbirth to the minutiae of the colregs, and I kind of assumed everyone was the same.......
 
To try and answer the original poster's intent - we used to set this as a quiz for cadets - so I'm testing my memory here...

a sailing vessel will be the give way vessel under IRPCS if a vessel under power
...is fishing
...is towing
...is not under command
...is constrained by its draft
...is limited in its ability to manoeuvre
or if the vessel under sail is overtaking the vessel under power

additionally - if in poor visibility a sailing vessel detects another vessel by radar alone - I seem to remember it must act as if it's the give way vessel - even though in good vis it may have turn out to be the other way around.
 
Pye_End said:
I was motoring, returning to port, tidying up the deck and under auto pilot, when a dinghy came up my stern and told me to get out of the way as he was sailing and I was motoring. He's not the only one, out of a small straw poll of local racers, who thought the same.
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Having raced extensively in the past, I usually say I am not part of their race so they should treat me as an obstruction on the course.

Back in 1965 I can remember my first visit to Brightlinsea. My father was motoring in towards the pile moorings when a much larger yacht suddenly decided to turn round from a pile mooring and blocked our approach. My father shouted they should have seen us coming and got the reply "We're bigger than you". Still makes me chuckle now.

Last year I was beating up the Medway singlehanded on my Fulmar with about 12 knots across the deck. On port tack I was approaching 2 Flying Fifteens and a Wayfarer under spinnakers on starboard. In their position I would have luffed to keep clear wind, but no they decided to hold their course. So I passed close to windward of all three as that was my true course, I did not luff. The Wayfarer complained I was a little too close, so I just replied "I was racing as well". If he knew that much about racing he would have noticed no ensign and a class flag on the backstay. May be I should have used the comment in the paragraph above!
 
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