Compulsory licensing and mandatory kill cords? What do you think?

[damianj1976]

My personal opinion is that the RYA Powerboat level 2 course should be compulsory for all. I know of too many people who venture out on the water with no previous coaching.

Perhaps this is something that boat insurance companies could enforce on behalf of everyone; i.e. no training, no insurance.

This could then be complimented by harbour masters/launch companies by not allowing boats with no insurance into the water?

[Savar]

Hello all, I've read about this really terrible accident in UK. I'm coming from Croatia, since I'm working with many UK colleagues, I have to say I was very stunned when they told me Compulsory licensing is not mandatory in UK. In Croatia it is mandatory last 40 years same as kill cords (on open boats), we have different categories of licenses, A,B,C... for example category B is for boats next to 12 m, training (theoretic and practical) and exam taking around two-three weeks for category B, without license you can not drive any boat and you cannot rent any boat without appropriate license (same it's on rivers/lakes and on a sea). But to be clear even licensing sometimes it's not sufficient and it happens accidents. Personal responsibility, awareness of your possibilities, compliance with the security rules and knowledge is always most important!
From my 25 years sailing experience and my point of view you should have compulsory licensing and mandatory kill cords!

[nigel52]

Originally Posted by Cypman

It is not Ribnet users who need educatiion or console reminders. It is the large group of boat owners who buy a boat and then go to sea, invariably without any training, insurance or life jackets.
How do we inform this group, without mandatory training, that is the question !!
Initiatives, like launching sites requiring to see insurance, etc,etc, are a good idea, but the information flow needs to be much greater. Maybe a government funded advertising campaign is now required, they do enough of them on driving related topics.

i am not sure this should be a Government responsibility but the responsibility of firstly the seller/Agent/Manufacturer. Then organisations like RYA/RibNet and Yacht clubs etc and ALL boating magazines. I remember when seatbelts became compulsory the take up was slow but now one would not dream of getting in to a car with out putting on a seat belt.

If passengers refuse to go out in a boat without a kill cord then the owners would soon get the message.

[kerny]

Originally Posted by Boycey

Yes, compulsory licencing. I have one so why shouldn't everyone?
"Freedom" I hear you cry. Bollocks to that

Perhaps you should look at emigrating then if you like to be controlled and regulated so much.

May I suggest North Korea

[Nos4r2]

Originally Posted by sib

surely the outboard manufacturers can make some kind of annoying "ping" noise to remind people to attach the cord, a bit like a modern car does with a seatbelt.

I spent an hour or so thinking about that idea last night and it's not really possible to do it and not hugely increase the risk of failure. You'd need a wired, waterproof flexible connection to the helmsman that detected if the cord was actually attached to the helmsman rather than left dangling.

it's a nice idea.

[HughN]

You can have responsibilities to the rest of society at all levels.

Own a dog?
Ride a bike?
Walk on pavements?
Ride a horse?
Have children?

The "its always somebody else's fault" culture of the last couple of decades doesn't help.

Today Nick Clegg has vetoed changes to the legislation on nurseries. As it stands, there are limits on how many children you can look after, you need to be qualified and you need to have a detailed CRB check to look after children - does this mean that becoming a parent requires vetting and regulation?

[brucehawsker]

I never cease to be amzed by the sight of powerful ribs going down lymington river with often more people on board than secure seats and no lifejackets and the killcoard just hanging. This is not a rare sighting from my balcony - yes I am watching you

The lurker overlooking Town Quay!!!!

[teamplonker]

It should be compulsory for everyone to have some sort of minimum training before going on the water,maybe PB level 2 or similar.
I think everyone who has spent anytime on our coastline will have ta story to tell about some inexperienced boater getting in to trouble.
Licensing and comp training can't come soon enoug.

[Ribbed41Pleasure]

I agree changing my kill switch perhaps is the answer . . .seems a bit odd when both engines have been brand new!

The issue I have with a blanket campaign/legislation on use of kill chords, there is, as has been admitted by others, a time and a place. I have to depart and arrive single crewed onto most berths. Does this mean I would get the Elf and safety do gooders shouting at me in the marina for being a stupid idiot for having my kill chord hanging there??

Ideally I believe we need to nudge people via a formal requirement to hold a certificate and for that certificate to be issued on the demonstration of sound seamanship. I do believe it is very easy to get the minimum qualification for very little in terms of demonstrated ability and mind set.

Nos4r2 - I think I get what you are suggesting but in reality to suggest any boat that needs to be permanently helmed requires a kill chord - well surely in the eyes of the maritime law, that is any power boat super tanker, cruise ship downwards!

I to am a pilot both professionally and to a much lesser extent for pleasure. I teach in both. I enjoy boating as a pastime because of the very lack of legislation when compared to aviation. Farting about on a boat is probably the very reason most people get into it in the first place. I would be interested to hear in due course whether any of the poor souls on that rib accident had any form of qualification.

My current belief is that if we use the present qualification program as a bench mark, will it really teach people the dangers? Be good to hear from some instructors in this field? Unless people get on a boat and appreciate the threats, they can do very little to avoid them. Does the current RYA scheme ram home the threats to us boaters??? It is hard for me to judge as I come from a threat and error managed professional background so this sort of thing is my bread and butter.

I re-iterate, there are threats to wearing a kill chord as much as there are threats to not wearing a kill chord, dependant on boat, helm, sea conditions, task in hand, souls on board, the list goes on. I do not want to be made, by legislation, into being a idiotic fool for making sound judgements based on present conditions by others around me and least of the 'law' if it became such.

As is the case when commanding a commercial aircraft, we have rules and procedures, but the skipper is paid to make judgements on when to apply and when not to apply such rules . . . We have the saying at work that those who fly purely by the book will fly themselves and others into the mountain with the book firmly clutched to their chest. We cannot legislate or make rules for every scenario. A good skipper knows that, the problem is do we have good skippers out on the water?!

[davesailing2004]

Originally Posted by Ribbed41Pleasure

And then Mercury users (if like the last two I have owned) will have a greater risk of injuring people from false emergency stops because the kill cord toggle switch is too sensitive. I gave up using mine for this reason. I had to balance risk of no kill chord against using one which caused it's own dangers. So now only briefed 'trusted' crew go near the throttle/helm. I make it quite clear to everyone the dangers and get quite 'shirty' with people on the boat who don't listen or head the warnings. Kill chords in my experience solve one problem but can create another - they are not the holy grail in my view (for Mercury anyway)

You can change the switch, its only a couple of quid (£10-25) depending on make but if you dont like the mercury switch fit a tohatsu or a honda or a....
our Honda throttle box has a tohatsu kill switch was about 15mins to swap.

[Shaggy]

If it saves lives (especially children's) then compulsory Training and Licensing should be adopted.

[biffer]

Who will do this training. The RYA will be rubbing there hands together. While I do agree to educate I'm not sure the RYA should be given complete control of the helm. I have chosen not to renew my commercial ticket. When they send me a reminder saying I need to do yet another little course and I can do it on line and take it as many times as I like I realise that they only want your money. Maybe the people who build and sell these boats have a moral duty to make sure the buyer have what it takes to drive it. Perhaps every decent boater has a duty to police the water. I don't know

[Nos4r2]

Originally Posted by teamplonker

It should be compulsory for everyone to have some sort of minimum training before going on the water,maybe PB level 2 or similar.
I think everyone who has spent anytime on our coastline will have ta story to tell about some inexperienced boater getting in to trouble.
Licensing and comp training can't come soon enoug.

Coming from someone who 'had a word with the harbour masters' in Bristol basin so you could nail about and speed test your boat, and filmed your child at the helm solo I think maybe you should be reminded that it'll apply to you as well.

[harryesd]

Whats the point in a law or course on RIB safety and kill cords ? some of the most experienced helms you'll find are on here, and already some admit they don't use kill cords.....so whats the point !!!!
If we can't get to grips with our own basic safety in place just now, how the hell are we going to police more rules.
I think the best way forward is for us as (bought the T shirt etc) to educate newbies to our sport, with our experience. And try harder to clean up our own act. I'm not saying we are in need of re-training or anything like that, but just simple things like reading check lists out loud, counting off safety checks etc, and letting crew and passengers hear us doing it (bit like a flight crew)
I know some of you will already do this, but it's all to easy to do checks in your head and it looks like your laid back.
Education is the way forward, and it's better to come from someone that knows than someone lining their pockets. IMO

[Nos4r2]

Originally Posted by Ribbed41Pleasure

Nos4r2 - I think I get what you are suggesting but in reality to suggest any boat that needs to be permanently helmed requires a kill chord - well surely in the eyes of the maritime law, that is any power boat super tanker, cruise ship downwards!

Ok, any vessel that can be helmed single handedly and doesn't have an autopilot turned on. It's minutae.

Realistically, we'll end up with a non-qualification if we get regulated and the training costs will be prohibitive.
Take a look at the Drivers CPC for HGV drivers for example.You only need to turn up, not prove you can even do anything yet the training costs are ridiculous-or Paddlers example of the deerstalking qualifications.

Neither have improved anything apart from the pockets of the training centres however they've deterred many from entering the industries.

[MIRO Stewart]

Having read all the comments and seen many eBay specials on the water helmed by untrained people, I think that the the two vote options really don't cover it.

Mandatory kill cord regulations are not practical and clearly the voluntary education system is not sufficient to prevent accidents. I would say the requirement should be for mandatory training to Level 2/ICC level and licensing before you are allowed on the water and I see no reason why this couldn't be policed at the slipway. There is no reason why a harbour master or marina owner couldn't ask to see a licence when people pay to launch.

Yes, I agree that mandatory licensing on the roads does not stop the idiots and it wont stop the idiots on the water but it would hopefully reduce them. However comparing boating to driving really is not a fair comparison as there are far more variables on the water than there are on the roads, the comparison to flying imo is far more accurate. I also accept that the number of these kinds of incidents is relatively low however, if you read the MAIB reports for leisure accidents it usually pretty clear that lack of training or experience was a major factor

The fact that you can go out and buy a boat potentially capable of 30/40/50 kts without any requirement for training or licensing is just mental. When I was younger, my parents had a 35 ft fly bridge cruiser which we used regularly and cruised around the west coast. We had no training whatsoever and got ourselves into some pretty dodgy situations which could probably have been prevented with a little knowledge. We went out in weather that was beyond or capabilities, weather in which most other boats stayed in the harbour, but we went for it anyway. We had buoyancy aids but not life jackets, we had no life raft although we did have an inflatable in a bag in the bilges and figured that was sufficient, we couldn't have plotted a position if our lives depended on it and it was at least a year of use before I (age 17) but not my parents, went and got my VHF ticket.

At the time we didn't see anything wrong with what we were doing, the dealer we bought the boat from didn't give us any info or suggestions - frankly that's not their job although the guy who delivered the boat did show me how to spring it properly, the marina didn't ask if we had any training or recommend any training - they just want boat in the water in most cases and most other boaters we spoke to were in a similar position to us.

We were the people who legislation is aimed at, the people who not only don't know what they are doing wrong but don't even realise that they don't know what they are doing wrong. The fact that we didn't end up as a news report is frankly a testament to good luck more than anything!

Having said all that the things I find most scary about this thread however is the number of people who CHOOSE not to wear a kill cord particularly in a leisure situation and the number of people who are clearly wearing it on their wrists or lifejackets! If you want to reduce the number of times you accidentally pull the cord then wear it on your leg, the wrist or LJ is just a crazy place to attach it. I will admit that I used to attach to my LJ but stopped given the number of times i pulled it by accident, not to mention the fact that you could easily get it tangled on the throttle and render it ineffective.

[jezza2011]

Ribbed41Pleasure do you mean the very good, merc/mariner toggle and loop kill switch.
these are extreemly good kill switches and are quite good and not falling out/off when you dont whant them to. if yours is easy to dislodge then i think there is something a miss with it.

[Ribbed41Pleasure]

oooooh Biffer, a Bluetooth kill chord could be the answer to all our issues!! I like!

To me a kill chord is just one piece of the puzzle. From a simplistic point of view attacking the issue of kill chords is a quick and easy response. But in practice I think we have all admitted it is flawed in terms of policing/legislation.

The very time you can be seen and scrutinised from another vessel/ashore is when berthing, when most people probably cannot use their kill chord (like me), so would we arrest them on the spot??! Nah, lets promote the use of kill chords by whatever means (stickers, campaigns and manufacturer etc) but lets stop people from going out with not a thought for their own safety or those around them.

A motorised boat underway, with a buffoon at the helm is still going to kill people, wearing a kill chord or not! That sadly in my mind, is the biggest hurdle for us to combat . . . and I do not know the answer

[Cookee]

Originally Posted by maxg

Also I think that all the legislation in the world will not make people were kill cord's.
I have see many skippers leaving it "dangling" just though habbit.
Why don't the manufactures make a styem? ie an actuator that would initiate a warning to start in the event the engine would cut if it went hard over to port and staid there ie out of control boat that has started to circulate?.

Hydraulic steering won't go hard over if left unattended - neither will no feed back cable steering for that matter!

With the exception of Verado's steering and engines (and often even rigging) are all done by separate companies

[RGBARKER1]

I think there is too much legislation in our lives. People need to drive their boats in a sensible manner. Perhaps the RYA (or may be another organisation) should print some bright red warning stickers that you put on your boat dash/ steering wheel etc... so when you set off there is a reminder to connect the kill cord. Sometimes I have "forgotten" to clip it on as have been distracted by the kids...But a simple sticker in my face would remind me "KILL CORD?"
These stickers should be compulsory for all new boats, and available from all chandleries as a freeby by the till.

One day, if there continue to be a number of reckless drivers of sport boats, we all might suffer by having to be trained, licensed and policed... it takes the fun out of our freedom! " Have a word" with anyone who is being stupid- boat owners can self-police!!

Rant over!