Who's to Blame?

[Stemar]

Who\'s to Blame?

Imagine a harbour somewhere, with loads of swinging moorings, the batch in question being rented from a local chandlery. You pays your money and you picks up your buoy. The only paperwork is a receipt. A 24 ft bilge keeler is on one mooring and nearby is an 8m motorsailer cat with the twin steel rudders pulled up and sticking out behind. We have a spring(ish) tide, approaching low, a knot or more of current and a nice breeze against the tide.

The owner of the bilge keeler's sitting on his boat watching the cat charging around its buoy when it suddenly swings across and puts a nice big scratch across the side of his hull with its rudder. It's not the first damage that's appeared while the boat's on the mooring.

The bilge keeler was just sitting there minding its own business, so who's to blame?

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[Evadne]

Re: Who\'s to Blame?

Lots of boats will swing around their mooring in those conditions. Even my long-keeler with the wind in her dodgers will pirouette when the wind is F4-5 over the tide, IMHO you shouldn't lay moorings so close together that one boat can hit another.

If the question is "who pays for the damage?" then I suggest you ask your insurers. The answer will probably be you either directly or indirectly; sorry to be pessimistic but that's usually the way it is.

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[halcyon]

Re: Who\'s to Blame?

In the old days, well 80's things were professional, and the wife used to work at the local marina. Then they always allocated mooring to boats depending on type, keel type, windage, size, and boats always turned in sync. Now it is run by people with no boat knowledge, just allocating mooring on approx size only, result boats swing independantly, and you get damage.

Now you know why you have insurence.

Brian

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[AndCur]

Re: Who\'s to Blame?

This is the sort of problem that happened were i used to moor my boat. As the moorings were only 40ft apart at the sea bed which ment if there was no wind and
a tide running the boats could hit each other as they would not lye head to wind.
There was really nothing you could do about damage as how could you prove who's fault it was. All you can do is ask the owners of any boats moored around you to put buckets on the props of there outboards or keep there rudders in the water. I have since moved my boat to a marina and i sleep alot better at night knowing the boat is safe

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[Mik_Mohr]

Re: Who\'s to Blame?

Obviously there may be questions to be answered here by the owners of such possibly badly placed moorings. I also think that a little more information would be needed to make any determination of "blame".

However, my reading of the posting is that the bilge keeler moored after the Cat'? If this is so, then surely one of the duties of the skipper of the bilge keeler is to ensure that his vessel is safely moored. One of the variables in making that assessment of the safety of his mooring is the proximity to, and relative danger from, other vessels in the area (taking account of wind and tide throughout the period). If the Cat' looked like it could have posed a collision risk, the bilge keeler driver should not have moored nearby. If it changed into being a risk, he should have moved. I know that it is easier said that done in many places, but them's the rules!

Obviously if the Cat' arrived second, things change. But again, even if the Cat' arrives after the bilge keeler, and the Cat' owner leaves his vessel, the monohull now has responsiblity. Yes, the Cat' driver should have moored more considerately, but this is no excuse for the monohull owner not to prevent a danger of collision if it was at all avoidable. If there was no time for such avoiding action, along the lines "there was no sign of trouble, the wind changed, we watched in horror as in seconds the vessels made contact", then it is back to the "last man in" causing the accident, and so bearing the responsibility for it. But given the statement that the bilge keeler's owner was apparently sat watching the Cat' on its bouy, this does not seem to be the case.

Last point, there may be local warnings about certain moorings in certain conditions that may "turn the tide" of blame, as it were. These could be a "wild card" depending on who did not take heed of the warning.

Regards,



<hr width=100% size=1>You can lead a student to knowledge, but you cannot make them think.

 

[Stemar]

Re: Who\'s to Blame?

I agree that if I pick up a buoy at random, it's up to him to make sure the mooring is suitable having regard to ALL the circumstances, but in this case, both boats are on permanent moorings which have been rented out as suitable for the boats in question.

My feeling is that the main issue is how much responsibility is born by the "landlord" of the moorings, who rents them out as being suitable for a particular type of boat.

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