Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 January 2010
In 1960 Dr. Calvert published a paper in the Journal (13, 127) which proposed a fundamentally new conception of how to avoid collision between single craft at sea or in the air, based on work carried out by the Mathematics Department of the Royal Aircraft Establishment. Later Hollingdale (14, 243) published a rigorously mathematical explanation of Calvert's ideas. The following paper to some extent draws together the arguments that have ranged so widely over this subject during the last ten years or so.
The chief criticism which has always been made against the existing Collision Regulations and is now being made against the revised ones, is that, except for the end-on encounter, no directives are given as to how a vessel should manœuvre to ‘keep out of the way’. Their role, it has been said, is not so much to prevent collisions as to enable lawyers to apportion blame after collision has occurred. The explanation usually given is that ‘the infinite variety of encounters which may arise at sea does not yield to a uniform treatment’.