RULE II - Responsibility - aka Damned if you don't, Damned if you do!!!

(a) Nothing in these Rules shall exonerate any vessel, or the owner, master, or crew thereof, from the consequences of any neglect to comply with these Rules or of the neglect of any precaution which may be required by the ordinary practice of seamen, or by the special circumstances of the case.

A literal translation would be that "the rules will not protect you if you fail to follow either the rules or basic common sense."

(b) In construing and complying with these Rules due regard shall be had to all dangers of navigation and collision and to any special circumstances, including the limitations of the vessels involved, which may make a departure from these Rules necessary to avoid immediate danger.

In other words, if you are the stand on vessel (according to the rules) and you continue to stand on until the other vessel is so close that a collision cannot be avoided then you would be held accountable for playing a contributory role in the collision itself. However, if you are witnessed breaking the rules in order to prevent a collision you would not be accountable.

So as mentioned in the title: You really are damned if you don't follow the colregs, but equally damned if you do.

Welcome!!!

Welcome to the Colregs blog,

In this blog I intend to discuss (light-heartedly), with the help of actual, real world examples, how the colregs (Collision Regulations), when correctly interpreted and applied can save your whole day.....

At first glance, on your first day of training, the colregs can appear overly daunting, with all of their legal terminology. I'm here to tell you they're really not that bad. Remember these things really are your bread and butter out there and with some thought, dedication and hard work they become second nature.

A copy of the colregs is attached to the blog (see "The Rules" Tab at left). I've left out the appendices for now due to their particularly technical nature, however, Annex IV (Distress Signals) will be dealt with on it's own due to the very important nature of that part.

In the meantime, do feel free to have a look around and let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Phil