Is Singlehanding >24 Hrs. Morally Wrong?

[DumnMad]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I am not twisting anything. The Rule plainly says that the lookout must be maintained at all times, AND by sight and by hearing as a minimum. Is that really not clear to you? It is not written ambiguously.

Did you twist by adding the "as a minimum" ?

Proper lookout is not exclusively with the eyes otherwise ears would not be required.
Ears are better than eyes when it comes to alarms and sail noises and they alert the eyes. Furthermore they work when you are asleep.

During a stormy night eyes can be pretty useless except for the compass and then they are pretty much blinded for any nav lights until they are upon you.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

My point was that “most of us are sinners” ...... if the standard of morality is set such that single handing is “immoral”.

I agree, the morality bit was such a stupid label.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by DumnMad

Did you twist by adding the "as a minimum" ?

Proper lookout is not exclusively with the eyes otherwise ears would not be required.
Ears are better than eyes when it comes to alarms and sail noises and they alert the eyes. Furthermore they work when you are asleep.

During a stormy night eyes can be pretty useless except for the compass and then they are pretty much blinded for any nav lights until they are upon you.

I agree with all of the last part of this, but not with the twisting part. Are you familiar with the concept of a necessary but not sufficient condition? That's a visual (and audio) lookout, as treated by the Rules. You don't have a choice, as Rule 5 is written -- you MUST maintain a lookout by sight and by hearing AT ALL TIMES. And on top of that, you have to use other means which are available and appropriate to the situation. On top of that, and never "instead". "As a minimum" is what the Rule means -- it is not a twist. Sight and hearing are not optional under Rule 5.



And I agree completely with the hearing part -- a very important but much neglected part of watchkeeping. I've had a few unpleasant conversations with crew about headphones on watch.


And you know, not only at night. Hearing is very often the first sense, which picks up something which the vessel should be aware of.



Like some of the other posters in this thread -- I don't personally have such a high opinion of the so-called Mark I Eyeball. It's necessary to use it, it's elementary seamanship besides the legal obligation under the Rules. But the value of the Mark I Eyeball, which misses much important detail no matter how diligently it is used, should not be overestimated. The Mark I Ear is equally important, if you ask me.

[Pelagic]

I think an important clue as to how the various Courts look at Solo Sailors, would be to look at what influences thier Judgements?

They often seek advice from experts of each particulat type of vessel involved (they are traditionally called "Elder Brethren".)

Advantages and limitations of each style are explained and applied to court judgements like safe speed in limited visibility.

So it can pretty much be agreed that;
ALL VESSELS (and Crew) ARE NOT TREATED EQUALLY IN THE EYES OF THE LAW..

From this, one can also apply the limitations a solo sailor has to maintain a constant lookout, compared to a 3 man bridge team.

As I said before, the legal onus is clearly on a well crewed ship to avoid hitting a solo sailor far out to sea.

The closer to land, constrained traffic areas and separation schemes, this differences in lookout capabilities, carry less weight in judgements.

[Kelkara]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Well, you needn't worry about being pedantic, in conversing with me

What you are talking about is not mere pedantry -- it goes to the heart of interpreting legal language.

OK then I'll continue nit-picking ...
(appologies for the thread hijack to those who want to continue talking about morality not legality)

What is clear to me from the wording of Rule 5 is that:
* A proper look-out must be kept at all times.
* A proper look-out always includes sight and hearing.
* Proper use of sight and hearing (and other appropriate means) gives you a full appraisal of the situation.

But what the wording does not say is that your look-out requires using "sight and hearing at all times" ... the "at all times" seems to me to refer to "proper", and your lookout is "proper" if you have a "full appraisal of the situation" to which "sight and hearing" necessarily contributed.

Therefore, working backwards, if you have a "full appraisal of the situation", you have used your "sight and hearing" correctly, which means that your look-out is "proper" ... so whatever you just did ... keep doing it "at all times".

So the question is: can you maintain a "full appraisal of the situation" after an 'eggtimer break'? ... It doesn't matter what you are doing during that break whether it is taking a leak below, making a sandwich, reading a book, or napping ... none of these activities has your eyes and ears on "look-out", and all produce the same gap in your "appraisal of the situation".

Travelling at 4-5 knots in empty water I suggest that the answer is 'yes' as long as the break is short enough. I've only done two solo 24 hour passages, and since I don't have any working self-steering they were both done without blinking, I could maybe go 36hrs like this, but 48 would be pushing it a bit far... but if I had had an autopilot (and a reliable alarm) I think 5-10 minute naps would have significantly reduced my fatigue without reducing my "appraisal of the situation".

I've no idea if anyone actually does cross a whole ocean on short cat-naps, but I see it as a viable way to reduce fatigue on short passages ... while maintaining a proper watch ... I just need to fix my wind-vane ... or maybe I just aspire to be a lawless immoral buccaneer.

[TrentePieds]

Good job, Kelkara :-)!

I was beginning to look around for a pin with a bigger head so we might ALL dance on it. Now I don't have to worry about that :-)

Is there something in the water in the Salish Sea that works as a prophylactic against pedantry ;-)?

TP

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Kelkara

OK then I'll continue nit-picking ...
(appologies for the thread hijack to those who want to continue talking about morality not legality)

What is clear to me from the wording of Rule 5 is that:
* A proper look-out must be kept at all times.
* A proper look-out always includes sight and hearing.
* Proper use of sight and hearing (and other appropriate means) gives you a full appraisal of the situation.

But what the wording does not say is that your look-out requires using "sight and hearing at all times" ... the "at all times" seems to me to refer to "proper", and your lookout is "proper" if you have a "full appraisal of the situation" to which "sight and hearing" necessarily contributed.

Therefore, . . . .

Well, but even to the non-legal mind, how can you possibly read it that way?


"at all times . . . a proper look-out by sight and by hearing. .. "


This is not ambiguous. "a proper look-out by sight and by hearing". The "by sight and by hearing" is not optional. "At all times" refers to "by sight and by hearing" as much as it refers to "a proper look-out" -- these are not separate concepts. There's not even any punctuation between "proper look-out" and "by sight any by hearing."


But I suspect you perfectly understand this -- and are just having a bit of fun!

[Kelkara]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Good job, Kelkara :-)!

I was beginning to look around for a pin with a bigger head so we might ALL dance on it. Now I don't have to worry about that :-)

Is there something in the water in the Salish Sea that works as a prophylactic against pedantry ;-)?

TP

Maybe if I could get my act together to escape from Calgary and get back to the boat for a bit, I'd be spending more time sailing, and less time picking arguments on-line ... not long now.


Dockhead hurry up with those Greenland photos ... If I'm not sailing my boat, at least let me sail yours vicariously.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Is there something in the water in the Salish Sea that works as a prophylactic against pedantry ;-)?TP

Lol...the Beaver House Fudge Factory has some helpful products to help reduce the inflammation.
http://www.beaverhousefudge.com/catalog/

[OldManMirage]

Heck I'm just happy to have Dockheads blessing at this point to continue to sail solo. I don't even feel the need to comment further. Even if I think he's wrong about it being a moral issue.


I'm just gonna go sailing. By myself !

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Driving with blood alcohol over x% is a violation, which can get you a fine or jail time, whether or not this is a "causal factor" in any accident. Simple enough?

sure, but the correct analogy to what you were suggesting is drinking with blood alcohol below the % level. But analogies are usually fruitless to argue on the internet, so let’s justs drop that..

I'm not sure what officials or what clearances you are talking about, but the COLREGS are legal obligations. The fact that they may not always be enforced rigorously does not contradict that.

you missed the point. Three officials I talked to said explicitly they did not consider single handing a certain violation. It is not they are not enforcing, it is they do not consider it a violation thus nothing to enforce.

Good luck with that in court. Rule 5 says very clearly HOW a proper watch must be maintained -- "by sight and by hearing at all times". It does not say anything like "or by egg timer, or by radar alarm, or by substituting some other procedure which leads to a similar level of safety." I think I've read every published court case involving collisions with yachts (I'm writing a book on collision avoidance), and I never saw such an argument made even once. Although there are some pretty stupid judges and some pretty egregiously wrong decisions. As an aside, the exact conditions and procedures of watchkeeping was probably the number one issue in these cases -- you can be quite sure that any judge hearing any case concerning a collision you might get involved in, is going to care very much whether you were actually following Rule 5.

this is not the first time this topic has come up. The last time it came up I asked the USCG Navcenter (their colreg expert group) about rule 5. They said both interpretations were “plausible”, and that they were not aware of any official finding direct on the issue (it would require a quite unique case to cause a need to distinguish between them). So while you may feel it is clear, some professionals who study it for a living thought the two interpretations were both plausible.

There are (at least) two ways rule 5 can be read. The fact that you are fixated on one of these ways and can’t see the other does not mean that it does not exist.

I personally have no opinion and don’t really think that it matters. If one keeps a proper enough watch to be aware of collision risks/possibility then I doubt anyone is going to complain if you have taken some short naps. And I DO certainly believe it quite possible to be properly aware of collision risks using the egg timer approach for long voyages (with significant discipline).

Well, fine -- consider me put in my place, and let's get back to the real discussion.

great - we can both agree correctly that single handing is not a certain violation of the Colregs - that only improper watch keeping is a violation, and also perhaps you have learned how people might feel when you have similarity put them in their place on picky issues.

...........

[Jim Cate]

There are a lot of folks making singlehanded passages.

There are very few reports of collisions involving them.

The only one with which I am familiar was Jessica Watson vs the Chinese ship. The incident investigation noted that she was single handed and not keeping proper watch, but did not fine nor imprison her. In fact they kinda said she shoulda been doing better, but made no great to do about it. (All this from memory, not from a review of the report).

And FWIW, I reckon that she was behaving pretty badly, even for a singlehander! Sleeping even briefly in that high traffic area was pretty risky, a completely different situation than when far out to sea. I do recall that she had AIS and thought that it was broadcasting; it was not, and that perhaps had given her a false sense of safety.

So, to me the discussion of whether or not rule 5 strictly forbids extended singlehanding is kinda immaterial, for the courts don't seem to be too concerned with it.

One further thought is that small slow yachts post a fairly small hazard to other vessels. Not zero, but pretty small, even should a collision with another small vessel occur. To me, this mitigates some of the moral outrage expressed towards SH sailors who cavalierly threaten us all with their poor watchkeeping. And apparently, the odds are pretty good that such collisions won't happen.

I'm far less sanguine about big fast racing yachts, for we have seen that a collision between one of them and a fishing boat can lead to carnage. Consider what would happen if one of the giant mulltihulls should hit another boat, even a fairly substantial one, doing 35 knots as they often do.

As to morality, that discussion is way above my pay grade... a subject for argument between folks with nothing better to do.

Jim

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

..

great - we can both agree correctly that single handing is not a certain violation of the Colregs - that only improper watch keeping is a violation, and also perhaps you have learned how people might feel when you have put them in their place on picky issues.

Skipping over the other stuff, this is not indeed what I said, and we don't agree on this particular point at all, making it obvious to me that in this discussion, you have concentrated on "putting me in my place" to the detriment of paying any attention to what I actually wrote.



As I wrote a few times, my position is that sailing without maintaining a look-out at all times by sight and by hearing is a clear and obvious violation of the COLREGS, and a violation of the law. Perhaps widely tolerated, but an absolutely clear violation of the law expressed in the plain and unambiguous language of the Rule, and not questioned in any single one of the hundreds of collision cases I have analyzed.


I doubt that you understood correctly what the folks at the Navcenter told you -- a person with legal training could not have ever said such a thing, in my opinion -- but I was not a party to those conversations, so we'll just have to leave it at that, unless you would like to give me their names and phone numbers, in which case I will interview them and include their views in my chapter on this in my book.

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Skipping over the other stuff, this is not indeed what I said, and we don't agree on this particular point at all, making it obvious to me that in this discussion, you have concentrated on "putting me in my place" to the detriment of paying any attention to what I actually wrote.

LOL....you wrote “Which leads me to my opinion about single-handing, which may seem paradoxical to some -- I really don't condemn it, although it is a clear violation of the COLREGS in my opinion”.

Are you saying you did not write that?

That is not incorrect as written. Single handing is NOT a violation of the Colregs per say. Improper watch keeping is. The two are not the same.

Perhaps you are the one with a reading comprehension challenge.

I doubt that you understood correctly what the folks at the Navcenter told you -- a person with legal training could not have ever said such a thing, in my opinion -- but I was not a party to those conversations, so we'll just have to leave it at that, unless you would like to give me their names and phone numbers, in which case I will interview them and include their views in my chapter on this in my book.

LOL, the Navcenter’s responses are almost always short suscinct and clear. This one was, hard to misinterpret. Dock, you are welcome to ask them yourself. They are easy to reach. Their official opinions are presented as from the group, rather than from an individual. It takes them about 2 weeks to respond to this sort of query, and multiple people vett the final response before it is sent out.

i’l be honest. Your response(s) here surprise me a lot. I just expected you to say to my first post “yes you are right, thanks for the pedantic correction”.i did not expect all the defensiveness. I would have skipped making my post if I had realized you found such corrections so unwelcome.

.............

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

The last time it came up I asked the USCG Navcenter (their colreg expert group) about rule 5............

Curious, the nav-center has the following in its FAQ on the rules: (note especially the final sentence)

12. When do I need a Look-out? According to Rule 5, all vessels are responsible for maintaining a proper look-out at all times - this includes one-man crews, unmanned crafts, and recreational boats.

The term look-out implies watching and listening so that he/she is aware of what is happening around the vessel. The emphasis is on performing the action, not on the person. Still, in all but the smallest vessels, the lookout is expected to be an individual who is not the helmsman and is usually located in the forward part of the boat, away from the distractions and noises of the bridge. While no specific location on a vessel is prescribed for the lookout, good navigation requires placement at the point best suited for the purpose of hearing and observing the approach of objects likely to be brought into collision with the vessel.
The size of the vessel and crew effect this answer, however, the emphasis in every legal decision points to the need for a proper, attentive look-out. While the use of radar to evaluate the situation is implied in the requirement to use all available means, that is still understood to be secondary to maintaining a look-out by sight and hearing.