Rules of the Road Fuzzy - ON TOPIC!
 

"John H." wrote in message
...
On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:40:43 GMT, akheel
wrote:

I'm a boater and a lawyer. So what could be better than an admiralty law
case. For years I've read discussions here about the COLREGS, better
known as the Rules of the Road for boating. Inevitably, someone will
declare that the overtaking vessel must give way and that any resulting
collision is the fault of that vessel's captain, that's it, no question,
case closed. Well guess again. According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit in the recently decided case of Crowley Marine v.
Maritrans, you must look at all of the factors and assign blame on a
comparative fault basis. In this case, the captain of the overtaking
vessel was judged to be 30% and fault when it struck another vessel and
the captain of the struck vessel was 70% at fault, not withstanding that
the overtaking vessel had violated Rule 13(a) by failing to give way. It
didn't help that the captain of the vessel that was struck had "serious
medical and alcohol problems" according to the court. There were also
some other unusal facts pecuilar to the case, but the precedent
established is that every case will be judged on it's own facts with no
hard and fast rules for assigning fault.

Here's a link if you'd like to read a case that discusses maritime law
going all the way back to the 12th century.

http://tiny.cc/NfV1I

Interesting for those who like this sort of thing.

The link appears to be a fake.

Here's one that works. http://tinyurl.com/5gjs6g

John,

Thanks for the updated link, much better.

Interesting case though. I didn't see the more manoeuvrable boat come up
much. Plus the low rating for being in concert with each other. The way I
was taught, in cases like these the small more manoeuvrable boat also has an
obligation. If a super tanker crosses my in my right of way, and I am a 18'
fish an ski, well, I slow down and yield end of story.

Alertness is also a factor. Were not the escorts there to provide escort in
concert? Just there to burn gas? I would think the escorts job is to watch
out for both, drinking issues aside. I am wondering why the escort vessel
did get more if not all of the blame. Unless of course he could show the
larger vessel made an unexpected unannounced and unanticipated course
change.

The closest I came to doing any damage with a boat was not reading the waves
quick enough, but I suspect soon enough. I was booting it down an inland
lake, sort of familiar with it but hadn't been on that part for 10 years.
My dad said give it nothing there, my eyes said the waves were not right so
I cut the throttle down anyway. Good I did, we were not too far into the
submerged uncharted/unmarked sand bar and got out easy as in paddle push. I
thanked my grandfather for the hidden lessons of boating that day, the
lesson was to pay attention and read the waves. But glad it wasn't rock or
a big stump/log.