On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:01:23 -0400, "Roger Long"
wrote:

Exactly. As has been pointed out here endlessly, being the stand on vessel
doesn't make you blameless if you take no action to avoid the collision.
Rules aside, the CG boat would have gotten to its mission objective a lot
sooner if it had followed the full rules of the road instead of just the one
governing the passing situation.

Whil it's difficult to predict what a judge would do, if this case
ever came to an admiralty court it's likely that the CG vessel would
be assigned the majority of blame regardless of rules of the road,
respondinig to an emergency, etc. That's because the primary rule is
to take evasive action to avoid a collision if at all possible. The
other boat, not seeing the CG vessel could of course to nothing to
avoid the collision. But the CG vessel, having seen the whole thing
develop, could have easily avoided the collision either by changing
course or even just sounding a horn to warn the other vessel. But
they did nothing and so have the vast majority of the blame.

Steve