All watercraft in UK treated like ships

a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/more_sport/sailing/article6728335.ece"Times:/abr /br /blockquotep Canoes, surfboards and dinghies are to be given the same legal status as cruise liners and oil tankers in a clampdown on reckless behaviour at sea. /p p Unpowered craft including sailboards and bodyboards are to be reclassified as ships to bring their users within regulations for merchant shipping. /p p Users face prison and fines of up to £50,000 if they are held liable for any accidents. A family in a dinghy or a beginner oarsman could be prosecuted if they collided with a swimmer. Anyone out on the water would be liable to a random breath test. The change was initially prompted by pressure to reduce accidents involving reckless use of jet skis, which have caused nine deaths in the past ten years. But the Department for Transport has infuriated many of Britain’s four million water sports enthusiasts by proposing to extend the regulations to unpowered craft. All watercraft would be classed as “ships” and thus bound by safety regulations enshrined in the Merchant Shipping Act, 1995. Surfers and canoeists in particular are adamant that they should not be subjected to such legislation. /p p Mark Wesson, a member of the British Surfing Association’s executive council, said: “We shall certainly be opposing this, and goodness knows what holidaymakers are going to make of this. It may put a lot of people off investing in a surfboard.”br //pp...br //p/blockquoteIn the US the rule is basically that the more maneuverable craft will give way to the less maneuverable. Thus a power boat will give way to a sailboat. However ships in a channel have right away over all other craft because they cannot maneuver out of the channel. There was also the unofficial "big boat rule" which held that intelligent helmsmanship require boaters to get out of the way of any big boat near them. Usually the smaller craft were also the most maneuverable anyway.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5051247-2538782262410387184?l=prairiepundit.blogspot.com'//div

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