Hi, I have enjoyed the informative discussion. I admit to almost always violating the Cone requirement as we often laughingly describe our Catamaran as a SQUASHED TRAWLER!
Anyway, I can tell you the one reason most of us should want to use anchoring balls and other signals including proper lights required. LIABILITY. I talked to t a Brittish friend when we were in the Caribe last year and asked him why he kept putting up the black ball (we had one but used it sporadically up to then. He told me that his insurance company sent out a practical warning to all its policy holders. Seems a jet ski with 2 teens aboard over in Europe crashed at full speed into the side of a sailboat that was anchored, but NO ANCHOR BALL. One died and the other had $ignificant medical damages. A law suit was brought (do not believe it was a US case) and it was determined the kids were 90% at fault... but because of no anchor ball, the anchored boat was assessed 10% fault, since the jetski driver must have thought they would be moving out of the way of their earlier course. In marine and admiralty law, as I understand it, the decisions are based on comparative fault. Thus some percent for each party. Then the percents are applied to the damages. In the case of a jetski hitting a cruising boat at anchor you could have a damage of several thousand dollars. If the jet ski has someone killed or injured it could be a couple of million dollars. To use that example, if each party sought damages from the other in proportion to fault (assuming $5,000 for the damage to the sailboat and $1 Million to the other vessel) and assuming a 90 - 10 percentage split You would have: Anchored boat damages, $5,000 payable by jetski, reduced 10 percent ($500) for contributory negligence, thus the anchored boat would be entitled to recover $4,500 from the jet ski owners operators. But the jet ski and passengers, with damages of $1,000,000 would be reduced by 90%, leaving $100,000 due to be paid by the boat that was hit at anchor for no anchor ball. We always have put up our anchor ball since then. We wish to tell our friends on the list we are at Deltaville, shortly getting under way due to an electrical short fire behind the electrical panel. Scary time on the Chesapeake. We are still dealing with damages from our lightning near miss ($12,000 damages so far). Fair winds, Ed & Sue Ed & Sue Kelly aboard USSV Angel Louise Happily back in the USA from the Caribbean! DC Based SKYPE Phone # (202) 657-6357 please leave message for us You can see map and travel progress at http://tinyurl.com/EdandSue On Jul 12, 2010, at 12:53 PM, [email protected] wrote: Any lamp not on the masthead can be occulted by rigging. Mine is on a masthead but the mast is only about 10 feet above the deck. It could be occulted by a wind genny. I became disenchanted with kerosene anchor lights early on when they were almost always blown out during the night and I had to clean the globe and refill them every morning. For me they were messy and unreliable. I'm sure some would say I had the wrong type and I'm sure they would be right. For me a good automatic electric is so much more reliable, doesn't blow out, comes on even if I forget or am off the boat, that for me it is the only choice. But then, I have 1,300 Watts of PV on the roof. I think the anchor light specs call for 2 miles on less than 40 foot, and 3 miles on 40-and-greater. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I suspect most kero yacht- size anchor lights will not meet this requirement. I don't anchor in the throughfare and am very careful when operating out of the channel at night. The bottom line is that it is still an open question. Norm S/V Bandersnatch Lying Gloucester MA > Aren't kerosene hurricane lamps suspended from a halyard (and a pair of > downhauls) on the foretriangle a common and accepted form of anchor > light? _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
