Claims against Sailing Clubs

Originally posted by polc1410 There seems to be a lot of jibberish posted on here: Yes there is! 1. If an RO sets a line between two marks which also crosses an obstruction such as shallows expect complaints.  If on the otherhand an RO sets a line from a mark to a shore transit then you know there will be shallows.  Equally if the line is sailable but the water near the line is not that is less of an issue, especially if it would be obvious that it could be shallow there. Complaint yes - court action no. All of this is VERY different to sailing a course along a shore line where it is up to the helm to work out how close they can get to the shore to keep distances small (eg Round The Island style races). To make a claim he needs to make a case that the club or its representative(s) acted in a negligent way.  That basically means they need to prove the RO could have forseen that damage could have occurred and that other ROs would not have considered this an approriate place to put a start line.  If the club has a document that says its an OK place for a line - thats a good help.  It would be easy to find an RYA RO or even better an ISAF one who says "I'd never dream of setting a line in that location for this type of boat - there isn't enough water".  It would be better if the RO can say he considered the depth and asked the safety boat to check the depth along the line with their echo sounder and they reported it was Xm deep. (Provided Xm is the length of the maximum draft of a F18 with board down and a wee bit for room he had taken a reasonable precaution) 2. If the NOR/SIs name the organising authority as the club that is who any action should be againts not the RO.  If it names the F18 class association then they are responsible.  They may have subcontracted the club to provide the RO and so may wish to seek redress from the club but the sailor can't. If the club needs to recover costs they do so from their employee (the RO) - if and only if they feel thats appropriate.  I'd suggest if its a volunteer RO its highly inappropriate and is exactly why clubs take insurance and they should claim that if need be. Are you a lawyer?  Or an expert in this area.  Not sure that's accurate at all. 3. If the sailor did not submit a protest following the race in accordance with the RRS I'm pretty sure he has little to base an action on.  He should have protested and asked for redress, even if he thought the damage was not a cost issue. Its a basic question asked by most insurers when you claim following a collision. That may be - but this is not a collision.  Also I can't imagine any PC giving redress.  Arguably an action or omission of the RC, but one which could have affected all boats equally. 4. There is a lot of completely unfounded assumptions that the racer may not have been insured.  Provided he had 3rd party insurance he was legal to race - but he can't claim his own insurance for his stupidity or anyone elses if he had 3rd party.  Its only there for a 3rd party to claim from. 5. He raced on having sustained damage.  Show me someone who hasn't done some damage, thought it was minor, carried on for a bit and decided it was maybe not so minor.  You could argue that this caused more damage, or not.    This would only decide how much of the damage a claim would pay for not the responsibility of the initial damage.

I think the issue of damage to a capsized boat would depend on whether the damage was the kind of thing that tends to happen in capsizes in those conditions, or whether the safety boat made things a whole lot worse.
A kite gets ripped in big weather because the safety boat can only do the best they can?
That's tough, the competitor is responsible for that.

A rescue boat barges in and trashes your boat when there was no risk to life or property before they turned up, you might need to claim.

In between a big grey area, where I would hope volunteers, amateurs and well-intentioned people get the benefit of the doubt.

 

Originally posted by 2547     ... what else could it be from the facts presented? When the OP says "first race" I suspect he means the first race of the day ... the race numbers have gaps so perhaps they were sailed out of sequence.

He said it was day 1 of 3.

This is a sad reflection of the claims culture we live with today. But I doubt we are going to see a load of similar claims made against clubs. There are some details here that make the situation seem odd. Surely most people would simply make any claim through their own insurers. I have never heard of 3rd party insurance for a boat. Only someone sailing a wreck would have it. If the insurer believed there had been negligence on the part of the club it could choose to take the matter up with the club and its insurer. Insurance companies will obviously avoid litigation because of the cost. As to claims companies, surely they focus on personal injuries where the values of claims are potentially high, not prangs involving little boats? There would not be enough money in it. 

 The details of the incident seem unclear but there are questions in my mind. First, did the competitor take reasonable steps to minimise their loss and second, did they have appropriate insurance cover for a charter boat being used for racing? 

 Surely the action for the club (or any other party open to a similar type of claim) is well established and straight forward? Record the details of the incident, the parties involved, any witnesses, diagrams, weather etc etc. Contact the club's insurance company to advise them of the potential claim. Then leave the insurance company to deal with the matter - particularly if there is a potential dispute. 

I suspect that, in a case like this, a club's insurer would want clarification about the incident and the insurance cover of the other party. Insurance companies just hate being turned over (capsized).  

Originally posted by sargesail Complaint yes - court action no.

Well we are peering in through a dirty window.  We don't know what action did / didn't already happen.  I'd never begin a complaint with a lawyer.  That said I'm sure my lawyer would say I should to make sure I got the best deal I could.  For all I know this chap is a lawyer (or related to one) and is using his firm to put the pressure on.

There are always two sides to a story.  I have the 'delight' of dealing with medico legal complaints / cases on a fairly frequent basis and 9 times out of 10 if someone had said sorry and tried to fix a problem properly the first time those cases would never get a lawyer involved.  Instead when someone blames the system, bothces the fix or denies wrong doing thats when we get the men in wigs appearing.  This could be the 1 in 10 where he was gonna wheel out the lawyer no matter what or it could be the 9 in 10 where actually he had a grievance with the organisers about how they set the line and he got the kind of responses that people on here have posted and so he took the huff and set the big guns away instead.

We simply do not have enough explanation of how the line was set and what the situation was.

He's almost certainly not going to profit from the claim if it wins it'll cover the cost of the repairs and any costs.  If he was really lucky they'd award costs for attending the event, boat hire etc.  But its not like he's winning from a whiplash in a car.

2. If the NOR/SIs name the organising authority as the club that is who any action should be againts not the RO.  If it names the F18 class association then they are responsible.  They may have subcontracted the club to provide the RO and so may wish to seek redress from the club but the sailor can't. If the club needs to recover costs they do so from their employee (the RO) - if and only if they feel thats appropriate.  I'd suggest if its a volunteer RO its highly inappropriate and is exactly why clubs take insurance and they should claim that if need be. Are you a lawyer?  Or an expert in this area.  Not sure that's accurate at all.

Not a lawyer but deal with contracting issues on a daily basis.  Your contract is with the organising authority named in the SIs.  

If you employ British Gas to install a gas boiler and its badly fitted you take British Gas to court not their individual fitter.  If British Gas sub contracted the fitting your contract remains with British Gas they had the obligation to ensure the fitting was done correctly and didn't.  Its up to British Gas to the counter sue the sub-contractor.  Its common for both to end up in the dock on the same day as there will no doubt be arguements about who was responsible for what.

To give you a better boating example - there was a case recently of an employee from the Scottish Lighthouses who was injured on a RIB.  She sued her employer who counter sued the sub contractor of the RIB.  The subcontractor didn't then sue his staff because he is insured against such eventualities (plus the helm was the director of the company!)  The employee won and will be paid by her employer who will be compensated by the RIB company (or its insurers) plus all costs.

That may be - but this is not a collision.  Also I can't imagine any PC giving redress.  Arguably an action or omission of the RC, but one which could have affected all boats equally.

I can't see how they would be able to give redress given it was Race 1 and he was then retiring from the series so they have no means to assess what his performance could have been. 

Not aware that there is a Rule or a Case that says an act or ommission by the RC which could of affected all boats equally but which did not affect all boats equally is not subject to redress. 

The protest committee's job is to gather that evidence they'd at least be able to do what we cant do.  And which will be harder months/years later at court.  A protest would have a clearly documented decision which he can then use as evidence.