‘Radar and the Rule of the Road’

Extract

We would like to reply to some of the comments and all the criticisms made on our suggested amendments and additions to the existing (1960) Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, which have appeared in this Journal(20, 103, 340).

to Captain G. Swallow, R.N.

Upon reflection we agree to some extent with the comment on our suggested re-wording of section 16 (b). However, for the very reasons he has pointed out, with reference to certain court cases, we feel that the mariner must be made absolutely certain about his position in law with regard to this section. This section, as it stands, can be very misleading in that it gives the mariner in charge of a power-driven vessel the impression that he need not always stop his engines if he hears a fog signal forward of his beam from another vessel, which has not been sighted. Yet in all the court rulings that we have seen, concerning the interpretation of this section, there is not one case where a mariner has been excused from failing to stop his engines on the grounds of the ‘apparent’ escape clauses, i.e. because of ascertainment of position and/or practicability.