Case
89 is short and to the point .. but to be honest .. it's a case that I didn't take notice of until today.
Case 89 talks about attaching a drinking container to a crew's body. In my experience, it's pretty common for crew on larger boats with double lifelines on hot days to hang water bottles by a carabiner to a lifeline.
Reading this case, is that this is against the rules as well?
Comments?
There is no doubt that there is a point when a "water bottle" is no longer a water bottle and is being used as movable ballast (assuming being moved from one side of the boat to another), but a personal beverage I feel falls well short of that definition.
I'd think we'd want to encourage people to keep hydrated for safety.
Half the world won't know what you're on about!
RRS 51 is all that's needed here.
Therefore, Case 89, which is based on 50.1 (a) is irrelevant to boats with lifelines, so you can festoon them to your heart’s desire.
The offshore rules at 3.14 provide for specs of weight and construction of lifelines that make the weight of the functional amount of water you could attach by way of bottles pretty de minimis compared to the lifelines themselves, to be honest.
That is not correct. 50.2 states that 50.1(b) and (c) don't apply to boats with LL's.
Case 89 is about 50.1(a), which does apply.
However, 50.1 (a) is “wear or carry clothing or equipment for the purposes of increasing their weight”.
A bottle clipped to a lifeline is not worn; it is not carried; it is not clothing, and I don’t think it’s equipment; and it is not for the purposes of increasing their weight, that is, the weight of the person neither carrying nor wearing it.
So, how can 50.1 (a) apply, given a bottle clipped to a lifeline is outside what the rule covers? And, if 50.1 (a) doesn’t then apply, what is the issue with people having bottles?
Correct .. but did you read the Case 89?
This is the answer ..
Again .. this is the first time I've actually thought about Case 89. If the issue was not allowing crew to add weight to themselves, then simply put a volume-limit on it.
As it is written now .. there is no amount of water that is allowed.
Yea .. maybe .. probably .. but I don't think that's a reason to keep something just because it's so poorly constructed that people would be too embarrassed to enforce it.
Looks like the case is from 1996. In the past 30 years I think it's safe to say that we've put competitor health and safety much more at the forefront than we did back then.
I think this Case is ripe for a reexamination under those grounds.
I would note, though, as someone who once used a weight jacket back in the day as a handy way of transporting a six pack I’d won sailing, Rule 51 is phrased only in terms of water, and to adapt Merchant of Venice - the rule makes no mention of beer…
My point is that the issue at the heart of the case is a beverage container effectively moving with a crew member from side to side on the boat. One might use that case to conclude that this also applies to beverage containers carried from side-to-side with crew.
IMO, Case 89 could have said the following (with respect to Ben and the rest of the metric world) and made more sense and seemed more rational to me.