In irons

Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by fudheid Why the disbelief? Because if an insurance company is going to apply colregs rather than RRS its a) in defiance of very well established legal precedent and b) puts us all in an impossible position, since we'd be under two sets of sometimes contradictory rules. But under RRS stbd was wrong in causing a collision and as it was a collision that caused serious damage then the PC should have DSQd port under Rule 10 and rule 44.1 and stbd under rule 14. Thus sharing the blame is entirely rational under RRS.

How does the rrs DSQ ing two boats help to apportion blame?

Good grief, when did you last read the RRS?

14 AVOIDING CONTACT
A boat shall avoid contact with another boat if reasonably possible.
However, a right-of-way boat or one entitled to room or mark-room
(a) need not act to avoid contact until it is clear that the other boat
is not keeping clear or giving room or mark-room, and
(b) shall be exonerated if she breaks this rule and the contact does
not cause damage or injury.

1989-92 Rules. 32.1 Avoiding Collisions. When a collision has resulted in serious damage, the right of way yacht shall be penalised as well as the other yacht when she had the opportunity but failed to make a reasonable attempt to avoid the collision.

Originally posted by fudheid Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by fudheid  took action on colregs and who was to blame for the damage not who is to blame under the RRS.in a port starboard collision the costs were split as the RoW boat chose to make contact i.e took no avoiding action..... Are you absolutely sure about that in detail? That would be an odd thing to do since legally colregs don't apply in a race held under RRS. I can easily imagine insurance companies choosing to split the costs - indeed I'd expect it, but in the case of a P/S where starboard chose to make contact I'd expect both boats to be found at fault and DSQ under RRS anyway. Absolutely. We had a protest commitee which found fault with port and were dsq'd. However the insurance companies  - towergate from our side; did not ask for the protest committee hearings.  they asked for witness statements etc. but had no regard for the RRS.  The actual split was 60/40 i think in favouir of the starboard boat. they were not happy as they did not get a full pay out.

I'm not sure it is your incident we are too fixed on - it appears blame was aportioned about right - but the idea that an insurance company might ignore with rules we are racing under and use the col regs instead. If you were the insurance company for an F1 team, and when there was a crash used the rules of public roads to decide who was to blame, I don't think the team would be very happy.

Now, if the F1 race was run on a public road and a race car hit a car that was going to the shops, or a lorry, then the race rules couldn't apply. At that point in sailing, colregs will come back in.