Talk of commercial vessels and their lack of manouevering is irrelevant in this instance. There is a handful of them doing 3 trips past in the afternoon.
This relates to the hundreds pleasure boats travelling along a 'set course' that varies from 100m to 1km wide.
Windsurfers cross at right angles hundreds of times a day.

It is incumbent upon the boat driver to see what is coming from the side, and as windsurfers can't speed up or slow down, the boat driver varies his speed to avoid them.
Simple. Boaties: you speed up to go in front of them, or slow until they pass in front of you then you speed up again. Duh
Overtaking vessel rule is irrelevant 90% of the time as its a right angle interaction

Ignorance of rules is no excuse particularly when everyone has to have an RST now. "I didn't know windsurfer would be doing 30kn....": is no excuse.

Then again if people crash cars at intersections when there are special lights to tell them what to do, what hope do we have on a busy waterway......

^^^ if you read the post - he says with restricted manouvering - which is not the case here. They are able to give way just fine, but they are not.
Nothing to do with translation or interpretation.... it is power gives way to sail unless they just can't (narrow channel etc)

That is not applicable here, because they can give way.

If you are driving a boat in the middle of the day there is no excuse not to see a windsurfer coming at basically right angle to you at 30kn.
The windsurfer has obstructed vision to one side to some degree.

So whose fault is it..?

I am not making any comment the the actual incident, I was just expanding on windsuferings post about giving way to commercial vessels

here's the rule

(b) A vessel of less than 20 metres in length or a sailing vessel shall not impede the passage of a vessel which can safely navigate only within a narrow channel or fairway.

I interpret that as needing to give way to a power vessel in a channel such as the Gold Coast Broadwater or where I sail at Manly in Moreton Bay I give way to boats entering or leaving the harbour in the narrow channel

Mark _australia said..


It is incumbent upon the boat driver to see what is coming from the side, and as windsurfers can't speed up or slow down, the boat driver varies his speed to avoid them.
Simple. Boaties: you speed up to go in front of them, or slow until they pass in front of you then you speed up again. Duh
Overtaking vessel rule is irrelevant 90% of the time as its a right angle interaction

Spot on. Nothing difficult about it really.

This is what happened in my case - proving it is another thing however.

Believe there's a 22.5 degree rule - if a sailing vessel hits a powerboat up to this angle then it is the sailing vessels fault.

In other words whilst overtaking a power boat.

22.5 degrees is not far from parallel and any injuries sustained are likely to be a lot less severe as it will be more of a glancing collision.

Very hard to believe a windsurfer could miss a power boat sailing close to parallel with him,never mind not hearing the obvious noise it would make.

Sparky said..
This is not a narrow channel. Everything gives way to the Rotto ferries a few times a day. Just like Sydney harbour and the Manly ferries. Otherwise motor gives way to sail.

I don't know anything about the location or details so again not commenting on either incident but stating that sail has right over power as a blanket rule is not 100% correct. There are situations where power has right of way, navigating a narrow channel is one of those situations

Everyone at the Raceboard Nationals will remember the motor boat steaming through the start line abusing everyone just as the race started and we had to be recalled and start again.

He clearly thought he had right of way over sail as he was in a channel, turned out he was on the wrong side of the mark outside of the channel, the PRO wasn't silly enough to set the line across the channel but that's not the point. Despite 30 windsurfers communicating with hand signals and a few comments this guy thought he was in the right.

^^^ +1


Nor to those who state "we don't know the rules, nobody does, so we just ignore them" - and then claim the moral highground in another thread.

, PM me if you want to just argue heavy weather style, this thread is not for that I wont answer any of your trolling for arguments on this thread as you should have seen after you have already tried 3 times.

Imax1 said..
Was it a power boat or a sailboat ?

Motor id say cause Im pretty sure he said he didn't even see a boat till he heard the roar of the motors.

Would it of made a difference in these 2 collisions if it was sail ?

Maybe we should leave this thread for news about Neil, and have discussions on avoiding collisions on a new thread?

Lot's of people thinking of you Neil, that arent seabreeze members

This thread alone has demonstrated the problem. What hope do we have when even the windsurfing community here can't agree on the rules? Clarity is needed, and it needs to be in legislation not ****ty Department of Transport how-to guides.

And then education, and rigorous enforcement, is needed. Like many folks here, I was a skiff sailor for many years and lost count of the number of collisions caused by impatient boat drivers who don't understand the speed or steering limitations of a fully powered sail craft. If these incidents happened on the road, there would certainly be an insurance claim against the at-fault party, and possibly a careless driving charge too. I have never seen a power boat driver even pay for repairs let alone cop a criminal charge.

That's good news. He is lucky this incident happened here in Aust. where we have such a great public health system and world class medical staff.

Hectic ,,,speedy recovery

Neil is in surgery this morning- hopefully the last one for the full rebuild.

The good news at this stage is that infection seems to have been controlled and we are into rebuild and rehab mode.

It sounds like he will move to Bentley hospital for rehab mid week if all goes well. Thanks for everyones good thoughts and im sure visits would be much appreciated.

Reflex Films said..
Neil is in surgery this morning- hopefully the last one for the full rebuild.

The good news at this stage is that infection seems to have been controlled and we are into rebuild and rehab mode.

It sounds like he will move to Bentley hospital for rehab mid week if all goes well. Thanks for everyones good thoughts and im sure visits would be much appreciated.

Hi Matt any update on Neil as was planning to drop by and say hello if he's up for visitors?

Thanks

adam