Claims against Sailing Clubs

Originally posted by SUGmeister Originally posted by alstorer There's also no actual evidence that it was definitely F18s- I can't find a record of an event last year with the numbers described and the competitor scoreline described. F18 Nats at Minnis?

26 boats, no scoreline that fits

Originally posted by alstorer Originally posted by SUGmeister Originally posted by alstorer There's also no actual evidence that it was definitely F18s- I can't find a record of an event last year with the numbers described and the competitor scoreline described. F18 Nats at Minnis? 26 boats, no scoreline that fits

Edited by 2547 - 08 Mar 13 at 5:22pm

Originally posted by shadeux Originally posted by SUGmeister Originally posted by alstorer There's also no actual evidence that it was definitely F18s- I can't find a record of an event last year with the numbers described and the competitor scoreline described. F18 Nats at Minnis?     ......or Hurricane Nats at Brightlingsea ?

Daggerboards

There seems to be a lot of jibberish posted on here:

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.

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.

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.

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.

There are some relevant points here and I think I detect some legal expertise, but IMHO an amateur RO (even an 'experienced'one) is allowed to make mistakes - be negligent even - without being sued. Some sailing events specifically state that you cannot resort to a court of law to resolve disputes about the rules. Not quite the same thing, but related. in any case, in this case no-one else seemed to consider that the RO HAD made a mistake. Asking the safety boat to do a depth check on a starting line that you have used many times before is a bit A Level. We provide 'safety/escort/patrol' boats. The SIs do have some sort of disclaimer about not making any promises about the efficiency of this service but we are told disclaimers have no force in law. So what if our rescue crew tears a sail while assisting a capsized boat. Would you expect the crew of the dinghy to make a claim against the rescue crew? The club probably has insurance to cover their liability but it just isn't polite to use it. If the club has a policy of requiring people to do race management duties whether they want to or not, then it has to accept their ability level 'as is' and also to accept that time pressure, changes in the weather, wind shifts, recalls etc often make this a high workload activity which entails an element of 'less than perfect may have to do'. I think that's all I shall say on this subject,