RYA pay out liability of £5.5m

Originally posted by Brass   Difference is, I think, modern karts are safety engineered to the nth degree, and in speedway racing all the vehicles are going in the same direction, no 90 degree mark-roundings.  I'd bet you could find formal risk assessment documentation as long as your arm.

Young people, mainly males enjoy excitement and take risks. Some kids race motorbikes, others ride horses or go sailing. Most of these activities are controlled and relatively safe. However controlled they are they still need to retain a level of excitement so that steam can be blown off. The consequences of making life tame and unexciting are terrifying. Muslim boys who because of our stratified society are denied access to these activities and search to satisfy their need for excitement by fighting for a 'cause' in Syria. We do not know details of course but five young people were killed in a car yesterday. They, or at least the driver, were presumably just behaving as young people do. Simple changes to the law (ban multiple occupancy for inexperienced drivers) could have prevented this.

I spent my formative competition years around powerboats and powerboat racing and to this day quite why the RYA engaged with either it or jet skis is beyond me, I guess it was to ward off Whitehall, but never the less if ever there were an area in need of regulation this was it and having a predominantly sail powered body in charge, how was that going to work for anyone?

Things may have changed a lot since those days, but an arena that permits anyone to get strapped to literally hundreds of horsepower without any formal training into an environment which can be hostile to say the least always seemed pure madness to me. They were also that low on the Darwin scale and equally hell bent on introducing little Johnny to the controls almost as soon as the umbilical chord was broken, it has always been a major accident waiting to happen and has frequently, I've seen it.

Even restricted to 25 horse, having 10 yr old kids racing around buoys in them? I baulk at watching the idiocy of the grown ups at times, even those allegedly skilled in the art, I've witnessed first hand on a couple of occasions those tasked with the job of rescue, flipping their own craft in acts of total stupidity.

The RYA Power and Safety boat course is riddled with incongruities, almost as if the person setting the course has had little to no experience of real life issues that face the use of light powered craft on water. I hate to say it but not having any form of legally based regulation, no test, no age limit, nothing, standing between anyone of any level of intelligence or competence and as high power a craft as they'd wish to acquire to use anywhere on our coasts is ludicrous, hell you need more qualifications to use them inland on far less treacherous water. (Why I had to take a Powerboat course even with a full racing license, to attend an RYA rally at Stithians or somewhere down there and launch my own rib.)

It is long overdue a shakeup, maybe something like this will precipitate it, if they can't continue to get cover or something like this breaks them, then it will be the Governments turn, which I guess is the only answer and the inevitable outcome of the stupidity of permitting that sort of carry on (kids racing in powerboats).

Either way not a future anyone wants, risk is one thing Darwinistic stupidity is another, there was a 16 yr old age limit to motorised land devices for a reason and that's without little 'extras' like prop walking, torque leverage, cavitation, windage and a dozen other things that will screw your karma as soon as look at you if you're not aware of them.


Edited by iGRF - 18 Nov 14 at 12:08pm

Lots of kids race in motocross.
I'm sure there are some injuries, just as there are in cycling and horseriding.
But most kids rise to the challenge, or their parents (etc) swiftly realise they are not ready for it.
Do powerboat kids have pushy parents like junior sailors seem to?

Not sure what the age of consent should be for powerboats, but looking at incidents like that in Padstow the other year, people don't always get better with age.
Is there something deceptive about the real level of danger in a powerboat?
With a motorbike, the fact that errors will hurt is perhaps more 'in your face'?

Originally posted by RS400atC Is there something deceptive about the real level of danger in a powerboat?

I would say yes most definitely. Lots of reasons, especially if they run you over with that nasty whirling bade thing on the back, or if you're knocked unconscious when you fall in, or if as most of them seem not to have, any appreciation of the effects of strong wind when you turn hard into it and the turn coincides with a steep wave face. Not much education available either.