Yacht Skipper accused obstructing warship

[maxi77]

If you want to swing the lamp, I go back well into the days of three reelers and icecream after the second reel!

Never had internet or phones or e-mail or anything once upon a time.

Three months without mail or news was the longest I've done. (Standfast the football results that came in a signal from Fleet...)

You had Ice Cream!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There were the occasional 4 reelers too. Doint the film programme for a 2 month patrol was always a dangerous task, particularly when the skipper missed his favourite film for operational reasons and you had top reschedule the whole boat.

 

[lenseman]

If you want to swing the lamp, I go back well into the days of three reelers and icecream after the second reel!

Never had internet or phones or e-mail or anything once upon a time.

Three months without mail or news was the longest I've done. (Standfast the football results that came in a signal from Fleet...)

Blah, blah, blah; You bunch of Nossers!

When I was climbing the ratlin's to the Top Gallant, blowing a SIX across Biscay, whilst the rest of the crew were Holy-Stoneing the Poop Deck . . . . !

 

[snooks]

Was it Sir Peter Blake?

Nope, it was Grant Dalton

 

[bedouin]

Nope, it was Grant Dalton

That's it - I couldn't remember for the life of me and I didn't want to slander the innocent

 

[DaveS]

That's a Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency ship...

Pipped.... Here's a link then http://www.sfpa.gov.uk/ships.asp

Interesting link. I was passed by the Minna this weekend. She did not appear to be broadcasting on AIS.

 

[DaveS]

That's all we need!

Admiral of the Fleet, First Sea Lord Alex Salmond ! !

I despair ! !

Would you mind terribly if I emigrated south of the border?

As you can probably gather, I'm no fan of the Scottish Government and voted against devolution!

However, the Fishery Protection website gives a somewhat different history:

In 1882 responsibility for protecting sea fisheries in Scottish waters was given to the Fishery Board for Scotland. The Board’s responsibilities also included land-based inspection. The first vessel the Board took over in 1885 was a former Royal Navy sailing cutter “Vigilant”, which had worked for some years on protection tasks. Development of steam-powered trawlers and controls on various methods of fishing made it necessary to build up the protection and surveillance effort and by 1909 the Board’s fleet included no fewer than five steam vessels. The role of the service was reviewed by Lord MacKenzie in 1923 and by the outbreak of the 1939-45 war, the fleet had been increased to eight vessels, including two small motor boats. In 1939 the functions of the Fishery Board were transferred to the Secretary of State for Scotland.

In April 1991 the Secretary of State for Scotland established the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency as an Executive Agency within The Scottish Office’s Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAFS) as part of the then Government’s Next Steps initiative. Following Devolution, SFPA is an Agency of the Scottish Government.

So it was, in fact, the previous Tory government which "floated off" the service.

 

[Giblets]

I was passed by the Minna this weekend. She did not appear to be broadcasting on AIS.

Hardly surprising - don't want to let the naughty fishermen know they are about!

 

[timbartlett]

Thanks Tim. Possibly not the best example to backup your claim... ...perhaps it is my error for assuming that the term "yachtie" was supposed to refer to an "amatuer" sailor opperating a sail driven craft; as would appear to be the case in the OP of this thread.

In my book, and in most dictionaries, a yacht is a craft used primarily for pleasure or words to that effect. Whether the skippper is a professional or not is irrelevant. So is the motive power.

The fines for merchant vessels seem to vary from £500 to £14000 so I think it is too simple to look at an "average" fine and compare it.

That's the trouble with averages, so lets look at all the colreg infringements prosecuted by the MCGA in 2008 (the year of the example I quoted). See www.mcga.gov.uk/c4mca/mcga07-home/n...ons/mcga_-_newsroom_-_prosecutions_-_2008.htm :-

1. Two fishing boats collide, so seriously that one sinks. Fine £0
2. Fishing vessel rams coaster so hard that the coaster's plating is holed. Fine £2700
3. Coaster rams Lightship causing so much damage that the lightship has to be taken off-station for repairs. "Watchkeeper" was facing aft, doing paperwork. No lookout. Inadequate charts. Fine £3700
4. 35ft motor cruiser strays into separation scheme and passes "relatively close" to three large ships, any of which might have sunk it with barely a scratch on their paint. But as it happens, no-one has to alter course, and no-one suffers any damage Fine £6000.

 

[westernman]

In my book, and in most dictionaries, a yacht is a craft used primarily for pleasure or words to that effect. Whether the skippper is a professional or not is irrelevant. So is the motive power.


That's the trouble with averages, so lets look at all the colreg infringements prosecuted by the MCGA in 2008 (the year of the example I quoted). See www.mcga.gov.uk/c4mca/mcga07-home/n...ons/mcga_-_newsroom_-_prosecutions_-_2008.htm :-

1. Two fishing boats collide, so seriously that one sinks. Fine £0
2. Fishing vessel rams coaster so hard that the coaster's plating is holed. Fine £2700
3. Coaster rams Lightship causing so much damage that the lightship has to be taken off-station for repairs. "Watchkeeper" was facing aft, doing paperwork. No lookout. Inadequate charts. Fine £3700
4. 35ft motor cruiser strays into separation scheme and passes "relatively close" to three large ships, any of which might have sunk it with barely a scratch on their paint. But as it happens, no-one has to alter course, and no-one suffers any damage Fine £6000.

This is one of the reasons why I am not renewing my boat's MCA Certification (apart from the cost of getting a recognised surveyor down here).

With a British flag when operating commercially, I can get fined heavily for a load of what I would consider to be minor stuff (e.g. Hammer self release on liferaft one month out of date when they last for years and years). I hasten to add that I am not operating commercially at the moment, but it is a possibility some time in the future. I am not properly qualified for that at the moment either (no commercial endorsement).

When I do want to operate commercially, I will be reflagging the boat, probably in Belgium to get away from all this over the top regulation.

I will however do most of the safety training stuff for the commercial endorsement, even if none of this is needed for a Belgium skippered charter as I think there is some worthwhile stuff to be learn (even though of course we don't forsee ever having to use it).

 

[Ubergeekian]

When I was climbing the ratlin's to the Top Gallant, blowing a SIX across Biscay, whilst the rest of the crew were Holy-Stoneing the Poop Deck . . . . !

Kids today. You don't know you're born. We used to draw lots to decide who had to re-inflate the ox skins.

 

[bilbobaggins]

If you want 'to swing the lamp'

Interesting turn of phrase..... Origin?

 

[RIB_imposter]

In my book, and in most dictionaries, a yacht is a craft used primarily for pleasure or words to that effect. Whether the skippper is a professional or not is irrelevant. So is the motive power.

I accept that this is the proper definition of a yacht and therefore that a "yachtie" could be one who is sailing such a vessel. In my experience "yachtie" is usually used as a derogatory term for slightly pompous sailors!

That's the trouble with averages, so lets look at all the colreg infringements prosecuted by the MCGA in 2008 (the year of the example I quoted). See www.mcga.gov.uk/c4mca/mcga07-home/n...ons/mcga_-_newsroom_-_prosecutions_-_2008.htm :-

1. Two fishing boats collide, so seriously that one sinks. Fine £0
2. Fishing vessel rams coaster so hard that the coaster's plating is holed. Fine £2700
3. Coaster rams Lightship causing so much damage that the lightship has to be taken off-station for repairs. "Watchkeeper" was facing aft, doing paperwork. No lookout. Inadequate charts. Fine £3700
4. 35ft motor cruiser strays into separation scheme and passes "relatively close" to three large ships, any of which might have sunk it with barely a scratch on their paint. But as it happens, no-one has to alter course, and no-one suffers any damage Fine £6000.

tim - you don't think you could be misreading meaning between the lines that the last guy was "victimised" for being in a pleasure craft? IF that were the case, presumably his legal team would advise appealing the level of the fine?

I interpret that (and the other limited data from previous years) to suggest that the courts take a very dim view of people misusing the TSSs. It would also seem that they don't like it if you ignore/do not monitor your VHF as the fines seem to be worse where skippers ignored requests from CG to correct their errors.

Interestingly no pleasure craft prosecuted for actually being involved in collisions yet we know there have been many...

I guess in a motoring comparison many people are involved in collisions causing significant damage to cars, trucks, busses etc. Often there are no charges brought or the penalties are relatively minor. In contrast if I drive up the wrong side of the motorway we expect to get the book thrown at us.

On my skimming of the case histories this morning it did look as though foreign skippers were being fined less than british (or even European) ones. Not sure if there are sentencing guidelines though which take into account an individuals ability to pay? So that could also be a factor which with such a small data set would need to be accounted for.

 

[timbartlett]

tim - you don't think you could be misreading meaning between the lines that the last guy was "victimised" for being in a pleasure craft? IF that were the case, presumably his legal team would advise appealing the level of the fine?

No, I really don't.
The TSS argument might be worth pursuing, were it not for the fact that most of the incidents I mentioned happened in TSSs.
The more case histories I see, the more convinced I have become that anything resembling a pleasure craft is more likely to be prosecuted and is almost guaranteed to receive a more severe punishment than a commercial vessel.
One reason might be that ship owners and trade unions are able to afford more expensive lawyers.
And one reason for not appealing the level of the fine is that it would probably cost several thousand pounds to do so, without any guarantee of success.

For anyone who still believes that we live in a parliamentary democracy, governed by the rule of law, how about this:
Every year, about 30 Acts of Parliament are added to the statute books
Every year, about 3000 Statutory Instruments are added to the statute books. The overwhelming majority are devised by civil servants and signed off by their tame ministers, with no effective parliamentary scrutiny.
In other words, 99% of new laws do not come from Westminster (or Brussels) but from Whitehall.

 

[RIB_imposter]

No, I really don't.
The TSS argument might be worth pursuing, were it not for the fact that most of the incidents I mentioned happened in TSSs.
The more case histories I see, the more convinced I have become that anything resembling a pleasure craft is more likely to be prosecuted and is almost guaranteed to receive a more severe punishment than a commercial vessel.
One reason might be that ship owners and trade unions are able to afford more expensive lawyers.
And one reason for not appealing the level of the fine is that it would probably cost several thousand pounds to do so, without any guarantee of success.

Well we might have to agree to disagree.

For anyone who still believes that we live in a parliamentary democracy, governed by the rule of law, how about this:
Every year, about 30 Acts of Parliament are added to the statute books
Every year, about 3000 Statutory Instruments are added to the statute books. The overwhelming majority are devised by civil servants and signed off by their tame ministers, with no effective parliamentary scrutiny.
In other words, 99% of new laws do not come from Westminster (or Brussels) but from Whitehall.

I'm not sure this is in anyway relevant but don't let me stop your rant!

 

[timbartlett]

I'm not sure this is in anyway relevant but don't let me stop your rant!

Sorry, perhaps I didn't make myself clear.
The point is that every time someone writes something like:

The authorities have not decided to prosecute for fun.

Those directions may be questionable but the plod have the right to impose them.

The fact it has made it to court clearly means that there is a specific offence involved .

You are as likely to see me defending myself in court against the QHM/Navy/MoD as you are to seeing me arguing with a bloody big grey ship or its escorts armed with machine guns.

it is another small but significant step away from democracy and the rule of law. We already live in a bureacracy, (rather than a democracy) in which the majority of our formal laws are created by unelected and unnaccountable civil servants to suit their own interests.
Those laws are interpreted (or more often misinterpreted) by other civil servants and by the poilce, again in their own interests.
Theft, fraud, and intimidation and criminal damage by the state and its officials are absolutely routine -- they even set up TV adverts to boast about it to develop the climate of fear -- but they have set up systems and procedures in place to make sure that police and civil servants can never held accountable -- even for offences up to and including murder.
We are already paying the salaries and pension schemes of these crooks: how much more do you want to give up?

 

[bedouin]

Those laws are interpreted (or more often misinterpreted) by other civil servants and by the poilce, again in their own interests.

No - the laws are interpreted by the (higher) courts who usually show a remarkable degree of common sense. Although SIs are common they only operate within the context of a piece of enabling primary legislation

 

[sarabande]

"swing the lamp"

1 a story-teller in the mess (a sacred duty !) was allowed to tell his tales as long as the lamp above continued to swing. Given that ships are never still, even at anchor....

2 ashore, when someone started to tell a tale or go over deeds of derring-do, then a suspended lamp would be set a-swinging.

By extension, whenever two or three are gathered together, and start chatting about the good ol' days, the lamp is swinging.

 

[timbartlett]

Are you a lawyer, by any chance? I ask, because although what you say is quite correct, it doesn't quite reflect what goes on in the real world.

No - the laws are interpreted by the (higher) courts who usually show a remarkable degree of common sense

.The trouble with this is that the vast majority of cases never go anywhere near a court. If they did, the court system would probably collapse.

As we have seen in this thread most people are so cowed by the civil service that they do not dare to argue their case: they either accept that resistance is futile, and that it is cheaper and easier just to pay up, or they allow themselves to be duped into believing that they must have broken the law because some parasite in a government office somewhere tells them that they have.

Anyone who is tempted to resist is subjected to an intensified barrage of threats along the lines of "if it goes to court you'll have to pay a much bigger fine and all our expenses. And then we'll get the bailiffs round and you'll have to pay them, too."

The lower courts, sadly, endorse this belief. Look at the case of the 35 ft motor cruiser mentioned earlier in this thread, in which the magistrates said, quite plainly, that the fine would have been higher if the victim had had the audacity to fight his case.

At the next layer up, I wonder how many jurors subscribe to the belief that "the authorities do not decide to prosecute for fun", and from that extrapolate to the belief that "if he's in the dock he must be guilty"

There are an awful lot of very expensive and time-consuming hurdles to cross before the ordinary man can reap the benefit of that "remarkable degree of common sense"

Although SIs are common they only operate within the context of a piece of enabling primary legislation

Of course SIs serve an important function, allowing minor amendments to primary legislation without wasting parliamentary time on non-controversial trivia. But they are increasingly widely used to bring about far greater changes than were ever intended.

That is why the SI procedure is (mis)used so much more frequently now than it ever was in the pre-Thatcher years.

On a related subject, it's also worrying how the civil service has managed to pervert even the passage of primary legislation. How many MPs with a specialist interest in recreational craft or the marine industry do you think might have been involved in the committee stages or house debates about the Railway and Transport Safety Act, for instance?

 

[bedouin]

Are you a lawyer, by any chance? I ask, because although what you say is quite correct, it doesn't quite reflect what goes on in the real world.

.The trouble with this is that the vast majority of cases never go anywhere near a court. If they did, the court system would probably collapse.

No I am not a lawyer - but I do know how things work. On the whole we have a good legal system in this country along with a fair amount of legislation to protect our rights - provided that you know how to access it. People need to realise that neither the police nor the MCA make the law and if their ideas are wrong then they need to be challenged.

As to the particular case in point - I have little sympathy for a professional sailor who was going the wrong way in the TSS - okay he was in a small boat but there really is no excuse for that and he should have known better. The fact was that he was guilty and he acknowledged that - as such his punishment was not unfair.

Some of the other cases do seem represent ridiculously small amounts but given that they were handed out by Magistrates I don't see that that can represent any form of official policy. Magistrates often seem to represent the views of the community in which they live so it may, for example, to be hard to get a Magistrate from a fishing town to impose a significant fine on a fisherman.

I am not aware of an amateur sailor being prosecuted, although I have a vague memory of someone being fined for having out of date flares or something on a 45' Motorboat

 

[RIB_imposter]

Tim - are you defending someone for needlessly driving the wrong way up a TSS whilst not listening/repsonding to VHF? Do you think he should have been given a smaller fine because although he has a commercial skipper he was driving a pleasure boat?

As Bedouin says - penalties are handed out by the courts not the MCA. I may be wrong but I don't think that the MCA can "settle out of court" the way you describe. Reduced fines for pleading guilty is standard across all crimes - it helps stop people trying on a defence when they know they are guilty on the hope they might just get off.

Have you raised your concerns about errosion of democracy with your elected representatives? Because there is really no point ranting about it to me.

In terms of the specific points you quoted:

The authorities have not decided to prosecute for fun. I stand by that. Its a whole load of hassle for a whole load of people. it would be much easier to verbally bollox the skipper and do nothing. I recognise that there are vindictive prosecutions, and that some officious officials will enjoy pursuing this - but in my experience this is in reaction to something said or done by the "offender". You don't last long in the Civil Service by being controvertial - and pursuing pointless cases to court will not improve the career prospects of the QHM, MOD or CPS staff involved - so I must assume, given that we don't have the facts, that there is some degree of credibility to the case. I didn't say he was guilty - my suggestion is that the QHM/MOD believe he has done something wrong.

Those directions may be questionable but the plod have the right to impose them. thats a statement of fact - if you don't like that don't sail in waters that they control.
The fact it has made it to court clearly means that there is a specific offence involved. it was being suggested that there was "no offence". That is clearly not the case since to appear in court charged with something the CPS need to cite a specific offence. I did not say that he was guilty of that offence - but the CPS have decided what it is they think he has done wrong, even if no one here seems to know.
You are as likely to see me defending myself in court against the QHM/Navy/MoD as you are to seeing me arguing with a bloody big grey ship or its escorts armed with machine guns. Think you might have missed the point - not that I wouldn't fight them if I thought I was in the right - but I wouldn't be acting as my own counsel.

Let me be clear - I have absolutely no objection to the guy pleading not guilty, expressing his side of the argument and any mitigating circumstances etc. Indeed I am a strong believer in this and if I were on a hypothetical jury would be there to be convinced of his guilt rather than relying on him to justify his innocence. However I find it very hard to believe that there is absolutely no case to answer (which is what some people here seem to be suggesting) having made it to court and a trial date being set etc. Of course that may turn out to be the case - but the court will decide that not some people with half the facts on the web!

I am not aware of an amateur sailor being prosecuted,

Bedouin I have now found a couple of cases - but these were for serious incidents (one resulting in a fatality, another which could have). The former got community service and the latter 4 months in prison!