Collision and Dismasting

[gs41escapade]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

So my insurance company decided to believe the FV story and hold me liable. It doesn't affect anything other than my mental state.

That is insult to injury. I hope you have the will to fight it.

[carstenb]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

So my insurance company decided to believe the FV story and hold me liable. It doesn't affect anything other than my mental state.

Don,

I probably would not accept that decision. Claiming that you "appeared" to be intoxicated is their opinion and unless they somehow can document it - it is not germane.

You should at least appeal it to the insurance company

Good luck

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by carstenb

Don,

I probably would not accept that decision. Claiming that you "appeared" to be intoxicated is their opinion and unless they somehow can document it - it is not germane.

You should at least appeal it to the insurance company

Good luck

Well it is the insurance company saying it am the liable boat as I was suppose to give way to a fishing boat. Of course they don't appear to care about my point of view. There is nothing from the CG etc.

The FV isn't claiming any damage or injury.

So I am just sitting around waiting to see if my boat is going to get repaired, it which case I sell it after at a great deal for someone. Or they total the boat and I walk awy with less money, but easy.

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

So my insurance company decided to believe the FV story and hold me liable. It doesn't affect anything other than my mental state.

If I were in your shoes, I would interpret this to mean that the insurance company doesn't think they have a case that they can prove in a court of law.


My advice is to try not to care what they think.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Jammer

If I were in your shoes, I would interpret this to mean that the insurance company doesn't think they have a case that they can prove in a court of law.


My advice is to try not to care what they think.

That is what I am trying to do. Just focus on either the boat getting repaired so I can sell it (cheap) or it being totaled. I am out of boating for the foreseeable future.

[gs41escapade]

Having just gotten to the current end of this thread, I would just like to say that I think the OP did a great job of dealing with the event after it happened. It takes mental toughness and mental flexibility to set the shock aside and get on with the difficult task of checking boat integrity, clearing the debris and making a new plan for where to go and how to get there.

Good on you.

[Iron E]

Originally Posted by carstenb

Don,

I probably would not accept that decision. Claiming that you "appeared" to be intoxicated is their opinion and unless they somehow can document it - it is not germane.

You should at least appeal it to the insurance company

Good luck

They claimed that...wow, I must have missed that part of this post... Though seems irrelevant from a legal point.


Regardless, OP says they're moving on.
I wish them the best and want to say that the world is vast, and the ocean is not the only way to explore it.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

So my insurance company decided to believe the FV story and hold me liable. It doesn't affect anything other than my mental state.

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

Well it is the insurance company saying it am the liable boat as I was suppose to give way to a fishing boat. Of course they don't appear to care about my point of view. There is nothing from the CG etc.

The FV isn't claiming any damage or injury.

So I am just sitting around waiting to see if my boat is going to get repaired, it which case I sell it after at a great deal for someone. Or they total the boat and I walk awy with less money, but easy.

That sucks but not surprising; I guess the insurance company doesn't care that both vessels were at fault unless the FV claimed against you.

Whatever will happen to the boat will happen but your mental state is top priority. Stay strong and I endorse the positive comments posted above.

[Don C L]

Originally Posted by Wotname

That sucks but not surprising; I guess the insurance company doesn't care that both vessels were at fault unless the FV claimed against you.

Is that true if the fishing vessel was the stand-on vessel? If you could confirm they had no lights and were not maintaining a proper look out (which I bet they weren't) then I think the fault would be shared.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by Don C L

Is that true if the fishing vessel was the stand-on vessel? If you could confirm they had no lights and were not maintaining a proper look out (which I bet they weren't) then I think the fault would be shared.

A stand-on vessel is not allowed to stand on into a collision thus they share some of the responsibility for any collision. Only a court of inquiry can determine the percentage of the blame.

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by pbiJim

Commercial boats catching for retail sale





That depends on what type of fish they are after.

So if they weren't lit, how did you know what they were?

The only reason for running dark would be doing something highly illegal, like picking up drug drops.

It was shrimp apparently - so bottom trawl. Bottom trawls stir up a lot of silt and clear out any vegetation. While the seabed returns to "normal" eventually, I doubt it's of much use to a competitor tracking you on radar. But I'm open to edification. Do you have any first-hand trawling experience?

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by skipperpete

He said in the first post he was 2nm offshore and the other vessel identified as a working shrimp boat with trawl arms down. Trawlers do indeed go over the same ground more than once and it has less to do with the seabed than the critters they trawl for, scallops move in quite large colonies and Prawns are also found in huge “schools”. Trawler owners spend more on ARPA Radars , excellent depth sounders, net monitors and big screen plotters than they do on their houses and cars. The waypoints on their plotters are highly secret info, even the crew aren’t privy to this vital data and they track each other constantly …. There’s bugger all else to do while dragging a net and boards across the ocean floor.

I appreciate your first-hand accounts. Perhaps you can explain how a competitor boat can figure out where you've hit a "hot spot" just by plotting your track on radar? Would you say it's common for shrimp trawlers to run dark? Why?

[skipperpete]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

I appreciate your first-hand accounts. Perhaps you can explain how a competitor boat can figure out where you've hit a "hot spot" just by plotting your track on radar? Would you say it's common for shrimp trawlers to run dark? Why?

Ok, this is for East coast Australia prawn and to a lesser extent scallop trawlers, I’ve not had anything to do with US shrimpers other than watching Forrest Gump. When a trawler winches up and the net is full of clean prawns the skipper will run back over the same ground again on the basis of the catch, no prawns he steams off to try another area and this is the behaviour other boats lookout for on the plotter with the tracks recorded in a different colour. On the boats I worked on we never ran without lights, it would serve no purpose at all , everyone can see and plot precisely where you are and by your speed, exactly what you’re up to…. Trawling is slow, steaming is fast. There’s also another seperate trawl gear called a “try net”, 2 small otter boards and a net towed ahead of the main net and frequently winched up to gauge how much is going into the main net. I’m no fisherman, I was a deckie to keep up seatime … then later an engineer aboard bigger trawlers but took no part in the fishing other than as a watchkeeper when we were very busy. The electronics on these boats is amazing.

[pbiJim]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

Well it is the insurance company saying it am the liable boat as I was suppose to give way to a fishing boat. Of course they don't appear to care about my point of view. There is nothing from the CG etc.

He probably was the stand on vessel. Assuming that he was properly lit, you should have given way. A failure to keep a proper watch is a base element that will be judged. Failure to be properly lit, would be a game changer. Since he claimed that you were not lit, and you claim that you were, I am going to guess that he has experience in knowing how to deal with these issues. He does this for a living. He probably has more to lose than you do. That should not change who is at fault, but it may add some perspective. Since his story & yours are different, It may be wise to document every detail you can think of before the memory starts to fade. That may be useful later. The stories are different enough that a simple misunderstanding may not be enough to cover it. The USCG report would be the one that I would want to read.

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

The FV isn't claiming any damage or injury.

So I am just sitting around waiting to see if my boat is going to get repaired, it which case I sell it after at a great deal for someone. Or they total the boat and I walk awy with less money, but easy.

I hope that you get a favorable response from the insurance company. I do not have experience in dealing with them.

[pbiJim]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

I appreciate your first-hand accounts. Perhaps you can explain how a competitor boat can figure out where you've hit a "hot spot" just by plotting your track on radar? Would you say it's common for shrimp trawlers to run dark? Why?

Any fishing boat that has been coming to the docks with full holds does not want the other boats to know where they have been fishing. It's been that way for longer than I have drawn breath. Will that desire cause them to run dark & perhaps switch off the AIS they are required to run? I don't know.