Rule 5 -- Is Single-Handing Illegal?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by NevisDog

When I was learning to drive a car, I learnt from an experienced (famous actually) racing car driver, on empty roads, to cut the corners: check mirrors (every 3 seconds but especially before any action, like braking or changing lanes) and glance over your shoulder just to be certain, then, with a clear view ahead, drift across the road if nothing is coming and thus save tyre wear and wasted fuel and unnecessary use of brakes - perfectly safe if done with full situational awareness. (No I don't mean 'drift', as in 'drift' - just take the corners as a much more gentle curve than a vehicle on rails would have to.) In recent years we find, in NZ at least, a rule has been adopted that any crossing of the dotted white line marking the centre of the road will be penalised; police with cameras hide in startegic locations, on mostly empty roads, and earn pots of money with fines handed out to safe drivers (who were taught to drive in the safest way possible, with zero risk of accident). "Ah but all collisions are caused by someone crossing the centreline," they say.

So crossing the centreline (when not overtaking) has quite recently become illegal, despite being technically the safest way for alert drivers to drive. Is it to become the same with Rule 5: we must blindly follow an interpretation suited to congested waters, by staring stupidly at an empty horizon until we lose focus and our minds start to wander from the task in hand; we must become automotons, directed what we must do regardless of what is the best way to achieve the best outcome?

I wait to see such an interpretation of Rule 5 on an empty ocean.

This line of thinking IS relevant to the question of legality and DOES require interpretation, legally, but we've discussed it already.


Obviously blinking while on watch is not illegal.


Obviously you cannot stare unblinkingly at the horizon every second, and the Rule does not require that.


Obviously you can't look at every sector of the horizon at the same time, all the time.


So the courts have had to interpret what "at all times" means.


And their interpretation is that it means you have to be on the bridge and alert, and not materially distracted by other tasks, continuously. That's what the courts hold consistently and in different jurisdictions.



Leaving the bridge even for a moment is illegal (even if we all do it). Sleeping is a really heinous violation of Rule 5 because you not only don't see anything, but you can't be making an appraisal of the situation.


There is a lot of daylight between blinking for a second, and leaving the bridge and sleeping for 20 minutes between horizon scans, and no court has ever equated these two things in interpreting Rule 5.




And once again -- perspective is required, not to confuse the legal issue with the practical one. Legally the situation is clear. But practically -- you have to do the best you can. You have to do what is necessary to be sure that a collision doesn't happen, and if you do it well, and a collision doesn't happen, then the question of the legality of your watchkeeping becomes rather academic. The Rules themselves require such an approach (Rule 2).




The case of the Orca/Shoreway collision was posted to underline how easy it is, however, to get it wrong. How easy it is to assume from a horizon scan that there is no risk of collision, and then leave the boat on autopilot while something different, from what you assumed, develops outside. Jessica Watson got it wrong, and the single hander I was berthed next to in the Faroes got it wrong, this guy: https://www.chirpmaritime.org/near-c...ded-yachtsman/ got it wrong, and it happens not that rarely, considering how few people single hand on long passages.


Note the comment in the CHIRP report just linked above:




"The Board makes the following comments:

• It is not possible to comply with Rule 5 of the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea if you are asleep!"

That about sums it up.

[weavis]

For the sake of safety, it is best to always be situationally aware.

As with all things legal, a breach of the law only comes to light when circumstances point it out.

The law is what it is. Be aware at all times your situation. Getting caught up further than the statements of colreg 5 adds a burden. You dont need further rules, 3.5 mins for a whizz allowing for the walk below...

Be aware at all times of your situation............ the intent is to not hit anything and able to avert an accident.

[Dockhead]

More on the perils of ASSUMING that because nothing is visible on the horizon, you can do something else besides looking out, for 20 minutes:




"Sometimes the Atlantic can seem to be a very small place indeed.
We were hove to in a gale 20 years ago and 20 miles outside the shipping lanes off Cape Finisterre and we were nearly run down by a very large Chinese bulk carrier - their bow wave literally pushed us to one side.


"And some years ago a singlehanded pal of mine was crossing from the Cape Verdes to here (Barbados) - it had just got dark, he was down below talking on the ham radio when he crashed broadside into a large bulk carrier. No chance of him tee-boning it though, he came off much worser. he had looked around earlier and not seen anything - he must have missed this one (in the days pre AIS). He called them up on the VHF and they turned around and came back and picked him, as his boat was sinking - excellent seamanship to position a laden bulk carrier next to the yacht in about 25 knots of tradewinds at night.

"I remember one time we were sailing north in the Caribbean, about 20 miles west of the islands - I was on watch and was called below for supper, just before sunset. Had a look around, nothing in sight, the Aries was steering happily, so I went below and scoffed a plate of food, went on deck again about 15 - 20 mins later and saw a cargo ship just crossing our stern....... "







Single handed look out? Collision in transat - Page 2




and




"Two recent cases. One friend was on a transat and came up the hatch to talk to the on watch guy. Right behind them was a large ship. The Watch had not looked behind for a while and had not seen it. He got it on the radio and was convinced that they had not been seen, despite what the ship said, as they should have altered course some time before. This was the first vessel seen in two weeks. AIS? The ship had it turned off and the yacht an RX only.

"Other friend coming back solo from Madeira, looks around and goes below. Around 15mins later is struck a glancing blow by a large reefer, causing extensive damage. He elected to abandon and was picked up by another ship. The one that hit him did not stop, despite radio contact. He had no AIS, as engine less and limited electrics. Again, he had not seen a ship for a couple of days."

Single handed look out? Collision in transat - Page 3

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by boatman61

What we call in the trade..'Juice Bottle Moments'..

Juice bottle? What are scuppers for, then?

[NevisDog]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

...Note the comment in the CHIRP report just linked above:...

"The Board makes the following comments:
[1] It is not possible to comply with Rule 5 of the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea if you are asleep!
[2] If necessary at all, single handed transits must be approached and planned with particular caution considering factors such as length of transit, avoiding known areas of dense traffic and/or crossing them as quickly as possible......"

Statement [1] is true and relevant (at last we're getting somewhere!).

Equally true -
It is not possible to comply with rule 5 if you are updating your position on the chart (as required of solo watch officers, for example, on large ships in open ocean).
It is not possible to comply if filling in the log, checking engine instrumentation, etc, etc, etc...
So, statement 1 gets us nowhere. No further forward.

So how about statement 2?
"Single handed transits [of traffic separation lanes or their busy approaches] must be approached and planned with caution..."
Statement 2 is also true and relevant. It tells us, "keep the hell away from dense traffic if you are singlehanding." Good advice - no argument there. Funny they forgot to mention, "Singlehanding is illegal." Funny that? Wonder why they forgot.

Come to think of it, they didn't even say, "Sleeping while singlehanding is illegal." C'mon DH - must do better. (Anyway, what sort of silly bugger would sleep while approaching a traffic separation lane???)

[Edit: or were they referring to singlehanded ocean transits?]

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Juice bottle? What are scuppers for, then?

The less modest..???

[transmitterdan]

Based on the cited cases, it seems the topic should have been - If you are involved in a accident and you were single handing can you be found guilty of violating rule 5? The obvious answer is yes,

But in a collision you will likely be found guilty of violating rule 5 no matter how many crew you have on board. In fact, is there any case cited here where the board or court would have made a lesser apportionment of liability if there had been a larger crew? I don't think there is a single one. In fact, some cases reviewed seem to give the solo sailor a break that a larger crew would not have got.

That's why some of us find all the legal examples a bit silly. They do not support an affirmative answer to the topic question: is single handing in and of itself a cause for criminal or civil penalties? The obvious answer is no. And that answer doesn't change unless and until the single handed vessel engages in an action that causes or significantly risks collision.

And just for levity sake, you solo boinkers need to get a life.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Based on the cited cases, it seems the topic should have been - If you are involved in a accident and you were single handing can you be found guilty of violating rule 5? The obvious answer is yes,

But in a collision you will likely be found guilty of violating rule 5 no matter how many crew you have on board. In fact, is there any case cited here where the board or court would have made a lesser apportionment of liability if there had been a larger crew? I don't think there is a single one. In fact, some cases reviewed seem to give the solo sailor a break that a larger crew would not have got.

That's why some of us find all the legal examples a bit silly. They do not support an affirmative answer to the topic question: is single handing in and of itself a cause for criminal or civil penalties? The obvious answer is no. And that answer doesn't change unless and until the single handed vessel engages in an action that causes or significantly risks collision.


. . .

Well, there is not much to disagree with here.



I have tried to keep the legal and practical sides of the question separated. If you get into a collision, the legal side of the question is going to be the least of your problems -- I have said that.



However, some sailors do seem to persistent in a kind of magical thinking, which makes sleeping between horizon scans somehow legal. It is not.



And is it likely that you will get into trouble for failing to keep a lookout, in the absence of a collision? Probably not -- but that's true of ALL of the COLREGs. I don't think anyone has argued that the unlikeliness of enforcement (absent of a collision) makes it LEGAL to fail to give way, to fail to display nav lights, or to fail to maintain a safe speed. It's not relevant to the question of whether it's legal or not.


And just because it's unlikely to be enforced, in the absence of a collision, doesn't mean it's impossible.


Here's a single hander who was prosecuted and fined £2000 for failing to keep a lookout -- in the absence of any collision or risk of collision:



Circling Skipper Didn’t Keep Lookout – Maritime Accident Casebook


By the way, this answers NevisDog's earlier post:

Originally Posted by NevisDog

An example of successful prosecution for failing to keep "adequate" watch, where no danger of dragging or risk of collision existed would satisfy me, whether anchored or mid-ocean. Got any precedent?. .

These cases are not officially published, so very hard to find, but they do exist.

[john61ct]

Yes, practical considerations, and whether or not the law is / has ever been / enforced in a certain context

are irrelevant to the question

Is it technically illegal?

I guess some people are just extremely vested in their self-image as law-abiding citizens.

Rather than realizing it is impossible to actually do so 100%, everyone breaks dozens of laws every week.

Better to accept the fact that we are all criminals, own it, and turn to the practical questions that have more relevance to our lives.

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

In fact, is there any case cited here where the board or court would have made a lesser apportionment of liability if there had been a larger crew?

Grantholm vs TFL Express. The court stated that Grantholm's complete absence of a lookout negated any advantage he otherwise would have enjoyed given the Express violated Rules 5, 13 and 18.

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

But in a collision you will likely be found guilty of violating rule 5 no matter how many crew you have on board.

Not necessarily - if you look at the Chetzemoka/Nap Tyme collision, the USCG fined the skipper of Nap Tyme for not keeping a lookout; the ferry's skipper was reprimanded for a number of factors, but lookout was not one of them. Similarly, the other WSF collision discussed here, did not have lookout listed as a factor. Sadly vessels frequently manage to come into contact, even when they see each other, so lookout while extremely important, is not the sole point of failure in collisions.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Yes, practical considerations, and whether or not the law is / has ever been / enforced in a certain context

are irrelevant to the question

Is it technically illegal?

I guess some people are just extremely vested in their self-image as law-abiding citizens.

Rather than realizing it is impossible to actually do so 100%, everyone breaks dozens of laws every week.

Better to accept the fact that we are all criminals, own it, and turn to the practical questions that have more relevance to our lives.

Certainly, we all break dozens of laws every week -- no disagreement from me.



However, a "self image as law-abiding citizens" is not indeed the only reason, or even the main reason, why someone might be interested in what the law requires.


The COLREGs are -- if you will -- the grammar of seafaring, and following them is a fundamental part of seamanship -- as the civil cases always say. So it is part of seamanship, to be interested in correctly understanding what the COLREGS mean and what the law requires of us.


Every one of us may choose to disobey the law here and there -- and I do, too, as I already admitted. But we should not have any illusions about what we are doing.


Besides that -- violating Rule 5 doesn't mean "we're criminals; we own it; now we forget about it." The Rules -- and good seamanship -- don't let us off the hook so easily. It doesn't stop with Rule 5. There is still Rule 2 -- faced with the impossibility of fulfilling Rule 5, we have to do whatever else we can, to prevent a collision.





And lastly: I don't think that a casual attitude towards the requirements of Rule 5 and a casual attitude towards the practical questions of watchkeeping are unrelated at all. Maybe there are some exemplary seamen who don't care much about the letter of Rule 5, but do a meticulous job of preventing collisions in other ways. But in my experience, those who blow off the letter of the Rules usually are blowing off the substance as well, and I think that the general standards of watchkeeping on the average yacht are actually shockingly low, which must be the main cause of the significant numbers of collisions between ships and yachts. This is not a problem of single handers per se, who are only a small part of this problem. And so this discussion maybe is even aimed more at people sailing fully crewed boats, rather than single handers -- lest they get the idea that Rule 5 is flexible enough (or meaningless enough) to let single handers sleep with no one on deck. Why should just single handers then get this slack? So then why not indeed a quick boink in the cockpit, or read a novel with headphones on?



The idea that "at all times" doesn't mean what it says, but means rather what we would like for it to say, in order to allow us to navigate without anyone driving the boat, in plain contravention of everything Rule 5 stands for -- is really harmful, and has a lot of harmful implications if we don't nip it in the bud, and by far not just for single handers.

[john61ct]

I don't disagree with any of that.

Just amazed at the lengthy "angels on a pin" screeds on what seems an obviously settled issue to me.

Perhaps a new "case law and enforcement examples" variation thread is called for.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by john61ct

I don't disagree with any of that.

Just amazed at the lengthy "angels on a pin" screeds on what seems an obviously settled issue to me.

Perhaps a new "case law and enforcement examples" variation thread is called for.

Yes, it is very unfortunate that I am travelling on business and can't get back to the library for a couple more weeks. I think it would be very useful to move on to cases.


It's tedious to read the whole thread, probably, but I am very grateful to those who have been arguing with me -- it's really useful to be pushed to formulate these things very clearly and to go back over first principles. It's easy to be intellectually lazy about what seems "obvious".

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Certainly, we all break dozens of laws every week -- no disagreement from me.



However, a "self image as law-abiding citizens" is not indeed the only reason, or even the main reason, why someone might be interested in what the law requires.


The COLREGs are -- if you will -- the grammar of seafaring, and following them is a fundamental part of seamanship -- as the civil cases always say. So it is part of seamanship, to be interested in correctly understanding what the COLREGS mean and what the law requires of us.


Every one of us may choose to disobey the law here and there -- and I do, too, as I already admitted. But we should not have any illusions about what we are doing.


Besides that -- violating Rule 5 doesn't mean "we're criminals; we own it; now we forget about it." The Rules -- and good seamanship -- don't let us off the hook so easily. It doesn't stop with Rule 5. There is still Rule 2 -- faced with the impossibility of fulfilling Rule 5, we have to do whatever else we can, to prevent a collision.





And lastly: I don't think that a casual attitude towards the requirements of Rule 5 and a casual attitude towards the practical questions of watchkeeping are unrelated at all. Maybe there are some exemplary seamen who don't care much about the letter of Rule 5, but do a meticulous job of preventing collisions in other ways. But in my experience, those who blow off the letter of the Rules usually are blowing off the substance as well, and I think that the general standards of watchkeeping on the average yacht are actually shockingly low, which must be the main cause of the significant numbers of collisions between ships and yachts. This is not a problem of single handers per se, who are only a small part of this problem. And so this discussion maybe is even aimed more at people sailing fully crewed boats, rather than single handers -- lest they get the idea that Rule 5 is flexible enough (or meaningless enough) to let single handers sleep with no one on deck. Why should just single handers then get this slack? So then why not indeed a quick boink in the cockpit, or read a novel with headphones on?



The idea that "at all times" doesn't mean what it says, but means rather what we would like for it to say, in order to allow us to navigate without anyone driving the boat, in plain contravention of everything Rule 5 stands for -- is really harmful, and has a lot of harmful implications if we don't nip it in the bud, and by far not just for single handers.

Now your prejudice is showing DH..
Singlehanders get no slack cut for them.. if they are caught breaking the rules they are just as lisble as a crewed vessel as well you know.. but I guess it suits your purpose to keep stirring the pot.
The question has been answered.. it is not illeagal.. even you admit that so why this repeated parroting of Rule 5.
If its a simple collision both parties are at fault and the insurance companies haggle it out.. if its with a commercial vessel then courts must become involved..
Yes we know this.. in the case of two pleasure vessels however.. short of injury or death they will never see the inside of a court.
Thats because they.. unlike commercial vesseds.. do not have a multitude of other imposed codes of practice affecting the running of the vessel and its licence to operate.
Basically this is just another cynical bandwagon thread.. Anchors, Guns, Whatever.. they all end up the same. entrenched positions and never any conclusion.
Other than me grinning and giving the finger.
Laws are made to be broken.. Else there'd be no laws..
Regard my finger as a Public Service..

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by boatman61

. . . Laws are made to be broken.. Else there'd be no laws..
Regard my finger as a Public Service..

Ha, ha. Now that's more like what I would expect from you!

Originally Posted by boatman61

Now your prejudice is showing DH..
Singlehanders get no slack cut for them.. if they are caught breaking the rules they are just as liable as a crewed vessel as well you know..

I never said otherwise -- I agree. You didn't understand my argument -- I said IF it were considered legal for singlehanders to sleep, THEN why would it not be considered legal for everyone else to maintain a lookout by popping their head out for a minute in every 20, for example?