A Plea For Decent Anchor Lights.

[Weyalan]

Originally Posted by rwidman

If an insurance company can deny a claim because someone failed to comply with a regulation, we might as well figure that every boater we meet is an uninsured boater because if they hit us it will be because they failed to take action to avoid a collision and that would give their insurance company cause to deny paying for our injuries and boats.

This will be my last post on this particular topic (I promise).

You said

They are incorrect. Insurance companies cannot get out of paying claims because someone broke the law. If they did, they would seldom have to pay.

I pointed out that this wasn't necessarily, or always, correct, and that the case under discussion had no relevance to the case you gave as an example.

You then said

Why don't you go ahead and photocopy the exclusion section of a policy and post it here? Otherwise, it's just hearsay.

So I did (and here it is again, just in case you didn't see it)


It says, explicitly

You are not covered for any loss or damage caused by or resulting from any illegal or deliberate act by you


Which you have, it seems, chosen to ignore because, apparently, actions are only actually illegal if you are drug running... ???

I don't understand what you are trying to prove here?

[Dennis.G]

This stuff about insurance being void if you don't have an anchor ball showing is wrong, regardless of your "illegal acts" clause in policy (which is common in most all policies).
> Illegal acts is generally interpreted as criminal acts that are a direct cause of damages. Infractions (e.g., no anchor ball) are not generally considered criminal acts.
> That said, insurance companies can try to void coverage if they think they can get away with it. Courts get involved. Generally illegal acts have to be pretty serious to be able to have courts support the "illegal acts" exclusion.
> Examples of non-exclusion include auto insurance companies having to pay damages for drunk driving accidents caused by their drunk driving policy holders. Happens all the time.

With COLREGS requiring that all parties do whatever necessary to avoid collisions, a strict "illegal acts" interpretation would result in coverage denied for all vessel collisions. This is clearly not the case.

[jgbrown]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

I see 16 on one side so that would be 32 in totalplus some on the stern let's say 35... times $4k each... hmm

I saw one recently with lights aiming up from every spreader on a 3 spreader rig... and a bunch below the waterline. Couldn't miss that. Ugly though.

[frant]

Originally Posted by Weyalan

This will be my last post on this particular topic (I promise).

You said

I pointed out that this wasn't necessarily, or always, correct, and that the case under discussion had no relevance to the case you gave as an example.

You then said


So I did (and here it is again, just in case you didn't see it)


It says, explicitly

You are not covered for any loss or damage caused by or resulting from any illegal or deliberate act by you


Which you have, it seems, chosen to ignore because, apparently, actions are only actually illegal if you are drug running... ???

I don't understand what you are trying to prove here?

A few of the bush lawyers need to get a grip. An illlegal act is one which is in breach of a criminal code and a deliberate act would be where you intentionally carry out the activity that caused the damage claim. Not flying an anchor ball, in many juristrictions is not even a breach of regulation.

[frant]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

OK...

In the case that I mentioned the yacht was at anchor awaiting a high enough tide to enter Scarborough Marina to clear customs. HE was near to but not on the leads for the channel into the harbour. The fishing boat was returning under auto pilot,no one on active watch, hit the boat (a Hans Christian 43) about amidships. It should have been a simple case, but the insurer for the F/V cited the missing ball and took it to court. The court eventually found in favour of the yacht. However, it took time and angst to get there. One can only guess as to what would have happened if the anchor ball had been displayed.

Incidentally, the plea of the skipper of the F/V was that it was the yachts fault because he was following a programmed route that he used every day, and the yacht should not have anchored there. Go figger...

And for Boracay, who thinks that it is too much trouble to follow that rule... well, I store the ball and its downhaul in the same bucket as the snubber. They come out of the sail locker at the same time just before dropping the hook. After setting the hook, I snap the spinny pole lift off the pole and on to the ball and then the downhaul to a stanchion base. Then I hoist it up... total time less than a minute. If that is too much trouble, well, you gotta make a personal choice between nuisance and legality.

Cheers,

Jim

Jim You might just be misquoting the whole case here. If you fly an anchor ball and anchor in a shipping channel or shipping lane then that does not make it a legal anchorage. Quite possibly the anchor ball was only incidental to the F/V claim that the boat was anchored in the channel. In Qld there is not a requirement to fly day shapes for non commercial vessels so that would be a non issue anyway.

[David_Old_Jersey]

I am not a lawyer (wahoo!) - but IIRC insurance companies can sometimes pay out less due to something like "contributory negligence", personal injury claims kinda ring a bell.

But the above firmly in the pot marked "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing!".

[Kettlewell]

The case of the fishing boat is a perfect example of the ridiculousness of the anchor ball. There is no way that having an anchor ball up would have prevented that collision--zilch, nada, 0. I find it very hard to believe that a court would rule that not having an anchor ball is an illegal act that contributed to a collision. If anything, not having an anchor ball should make other traffic more wary of your vessel, not less so. In other words, if you are violating the Colregs in this one case I would argue your vessel should be safer, and it is very hard to imagine how it would endanger another vessel.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by rwidman

They are incorrect. Insurance companies cannot get out of paying claims because someone broke the law. If they did, they would seldom have to pay.

Run a stop sign in your car and someone hits you? You are covered.

Guess you've never made a claim... payment is proportional to guilt.. IE; collisions at sea... short of intentional ramming its 50% as bith parties are responsible..
Any diligent company is going to leap on No Anchor Ball with glee.. limits the liability from 100% to 50%... failure to maintain anchor watch and/or comply with the appropriate Lights/Signals in the 'Rules of the Road'...
No Brainer...

[Kettlewell]

Any diligent company is going to leap on No Anchor Ball with glee.. limits the liability from 100% to 50%...

I'm not saying the insurance company wouldn't do that, but where is the logic? Tell me how an anchor ball would have changed the outcome when the F/V was running on autopilot with no watch. By the way, I don't believe there is any requirement for a pleasure vessel at anchor to maintain an anchor watch, though it might have been prudent being close to a shipping channel.

[daddle]

Do never confuse "justice" with "logic".

Why are yachties here so resistant to the anchor ball? Hoisting one in an appropriate context instantly promotes the yacht to the ultimate level of rights: just below lighthouses and continents.

I always hoist mine.

[boatman61]

Logic in life...
Be telling me the 'Tooth Fairy' is a real person...
and 'No'... Roger Rabbit the drag queen down the road don't count

[Kettlewell]

Why are yachties here so resistant to the anchor ball?

I'm resistant to anything that doesn't make any sense, does nothing to enhance actual safety, and is a hassle.

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by daddle

Do never confuse "justice" with "logic".

Why are yachties here so resistant to the anchor ball? Hoisting one in an appropriate context instantly promotes the yacht to the ultimate level of rights: just below lighthouses and continents.

I always hoist mine.

I have no place to hoist it to and no place to store it when not in use.

In my part of the world I have never, I repeat never, seen a recreational boat displaying an anchor ball. Law, regulation, or whatever, it's just not done around here. Boaters in my area would not look for an anchor ball and would not know what it meant if they saw one.

Wrong? Perhaps. I suppose the local law enforcement people could make a fortune running around giving failure to display anchor ball tickets, but I suspect they wouldn't hold up in court.

Let's compare the anchor ball regulations to the sound signal regulations. Do you (or anyone here) sound a horn blast when leaving your slip (at 6:00 AM when other people are sleeping on their boats)? Do you sound three blasts before backing into your slip? Do you use sound signals every time you pass or overtake another boat?

[Cavalier]

...and no place to store it when not in use.

Anchor locker?

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Be telling me the 'Tooth Fairy' is a real person...

Real enough to be one of the 3 governing members of the World Atheist Council - along with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. It's a Trinity thing ......

....it's all covered in The Book of Atheism, available from all good retailers in due course.