Hit and Run -HMB

[morspeed 1]

Any one happen to see a largish vessel maybe 35ft + smack into the bow of a launch parked in A pier berth over the last week?, most likely occurred sometime between last Friday and last night.

 

Would have been a significant noise and fairly obvious incident as he has buried his bow deep into my berth and ridden his anchor high up on onto my foredeck before reversing off and taking alot of my gelcoat /fibre glass and S/S bowrail with him - I assume his anchor has done most of the damage.

[ScottiE 174]

that's terrible. Does the marina have any CCTV cameras pointing in that direction?

[Marshy 30]

Ouch. if you PM me the details we can announce it at BBYC tonight with the racers, someone must have seen something, and Friday there was rum racing on which means lots of people having beers after racing on their boat!

 

With that much fuss someone in the club may have even heard it.

 

Marshy

[morspeed 1]

Looks like the culprit has been identified,quite possibly did happen on friday.

 

A witness would help the cause but there is CCTV aimed right down the fairway between A&B.

 

Marina just gotta trawl through footage to find the incident.

 

Thanks Marshy..was in HMB not BBYC ..but there could have been a racer see it as there are always a few happy sailors parked up on A on fridays evenings.

 

Seems the boat concerned did report the incident but reported it as having hit another boat not mine so when the incident was investigated there was of course no damage to said hit boat so no further action was taken.

[Clive 13]

Brace yourself for the insurance.

Tigre was hit by an out of control launch while she was moored on her berth.

The chap claimed that his gearbox cable failed and that he was not at fault. My insurance Company rolled over and I had to pay the excess.

 

By this theory I guess if a boat goes bang on it's mooring and takes out 5 other boats the insurance companies get to claim 6 * excess value instead of just the one.

[morspeed 1]

Brace yourself for the insurance.

Tigre was hit by an out of control launch while she was moored on her berth.

The chap claimed that his gearbox cable failed and that he was not at fault. My insurance Company rolled over and I had to pay the excess.

 

By this theory I guess if a boat goes bang on it's mooring and takes out 5 other boats the insurance companies get to claim 6 * excess value instead of just the one.

 

I hear you, this guys saying the same thing,big launch, control cable issues..i am with baileys and would be fairly pissed if they rolled over and stuck me with the 5 hundy excess.

[wheels 543]

The chap claimed that his gearbox cable failed and that he was not at fault. My insurance Company rolled over and I had to pay the excess.

 

By this theory I guess if a boat goes bang on it's mooring and takes out 5 other boats the insurance companies get to claim 6 * excess value instead of just the one.

Gee, that is plain wrong. They should never have rolled over. It does'nt matter what/who was at fault. Gearbox, cable or nut behind the wheel. It's all the same. The other Party was at fault pure and simple.

[morspeed 1]

The chap claimed that his gearbox cable failed and that he was not at fault. My insurance Company rolled over and I had to pay the excess.

 

By this theory I guess if a boat goes bang on it's mooring and takes out 5 other boats the insurance companies get to claim 6 * excess value instead of just the one.

Gee, that is plain wrong. They should never have rolled over. It does'nt matter what/who was at fault. Gearbox, cable or nut behind the wheel. It's all the same. The other Party was at fault pure and simple.

 

 

Yeah, i was just thinking bout that some more, absolutely wrong,what insurance company?.

[Clive 13]

Gee, that is plain wrong. They should never have rolled over. It does'nt matter what/who was at fault. Gearbox, cable or nut behind the wheel. It's all the same. The other Party was at fault pure and simple.

You would think so eh, apparently this is not the case. My insurers had an 'engineer' look at his boat.

 

I quote from Chris Laird's report:

 

"On the day in question the third party had apparently been down the bottom end of Waiheke

Island and everything had performed satisfactorily until he came to enter his marina berth when

obviously the clevice pin released and thus released the cable from the gearbox.

The failure of the retaining pin is just one of the things that happen from time to time, and in my

opinion I cannot see that the third party has been negligent in the upkeep and maintenance that

would have otherwise prevented the failure of this pin.

The remains of the pin have not been located and are probably lying somewhere beneath the

motor.

I do not believe the third party has any liability in the matter."

[wheels 543]

Nah I don't buy that at all. I would be getting a new insurance company. It could certainly be argued that the owner was not Negligent, (although see my further comment below) but the fact that his boat struck yours is still a Fact in that His Boat Struck yours. Therefore His company should pay up.

It could certainly be argued that the Owner did not carry out a proper routine inspection of all equipment. It is no different to a Car being out of date re the WOF and then a pin falls out and the car swerves across the road and hits another. It may not personally be the drivers fault that the Pin fell out, but the fact that he was operating a vehicle without proper and timely inspection means the Driver is responsible. I guess that comes down to Lawyers arguing the finer points of law, but certainly what Insurance companies should be doing between themselves.

[tuffyluffy 76]

I agree with what’s been said above.

 

The OP may not have been "negligent", but they were definitely the cause of the damage. As the engineer stated, there was a fault with the cabling on the other boat that caused the damage.

 

I’d be formally asking your insurance co to explain why you are out of pocket due to someone else’s "accident". It seems to defy the purpose of having insurance in the first place.

[Bogan 8]

....and failure to engage reverse shouldn't lead to a big prang of another boat. If it is inevitable from time to time that reverse will fail, good seamanship suggests we shouldn't rely on it working.

[Guest]

I quote from Chris Laird's report:

 

"On the day in question the third party had apparently been down the bottom end of Waiheke

Island and everything had performed satisfactorily until he came to enter his marina berth when

obviously the clevice pin released and thus released the cable from the gearbox.

The failure of the retaining pin is just one of the things that happen from time to time, and in my

opinion I cannot see that the third party has been negligent in the upkeep and maintenance that

would have otherwise prevented the failure of this pin.

The remains of the pin have not been located and are probably lying somewhere beneath the

motor.

I do not believe the third party has any liability in the matter."

I don't know Chris Laird and am in a country beyond the reach of bullshit litigation so here goes.

I have never read such a crock of sh*t engineering report in my life. My work entails me writing insurance reports for loss/damage as well as maritime safety enquiries and this snake oil salesman should be exposed for the fraud he is for sucking up to the insurance gods.

[Guest]

As an extra, peruse (carefully) operation and maintenance manuals for engines and gearboxes and I think you will find they categorically state inspection of all linkages as a regular maintenance item. If these guidelines aren't followed surely that is negligence and regardless of what the insurance ripoff people decide (based on the evidence of a charlatan) then you should have recourse to a civil claim with associated damages. Mr Laird has provided evidence of the cause of failure, all you should need to do is prove that inspection of linkages was indeed a listed maintenance item.

[Guest]

morspeed, take the owner of the other boat to disputes tribunal for your $500.

 

However you will probably be wasting your time. If your insurance company went to the time and expense of getting expert opinion to back their case and then decided not to seek recovery, then you will probably be out of luck. But strange things happen at disputes tribunals as the burden of proof is lower than court.

[morspeed 1]

morspeed, take the owner of the other boat to disputes tribunal for your $500.

 

However you will probably be wasting your time. If your insurance company went to the time and expense of getting expert opinion to back their case and then decided not to seek recovery, then you will probably be out of luck. But strange things happen at disputes tribunals as the burden of proof is lower than court.

 

Cheers Bob, for now I have no reason to lose faith in my insurer to do the right thing and hopefully the skipper that did the damage will put his hand up, all going well the whole thing will be resolved in a few days.

[G Force 0]

.Cheers Bob, for now I have no reason to lose faith in my insurer to do the right thing and hopefully the skipper that did the damage will put his hand up, all going well the whole thing will be resolved in a few days.

 

AS Tui says "Yea Right" but i do hope you can get it sorted

[wheels 543]

Sorry for high jacking your thread morspeed. The last few posts were referring to Vagabonds situation. Hopefully you situation will be resolved easily and smoothly.

[Battleship 100]

Interesting story, I had my boat struck whilst parked in its berth, the other party also claimed gearbox failure, (nothing to do with the fact that he was pissed) must be a standard defence, he did a runner and I had to track him down, he then argued about the extent of the damage.

I was asked to pay the excess and then claim it back not by my insurance company but by some other company they contacted to, I told them to forget it and they relented, I couldn't imagine claiming it back would have gone to well.

Strange thing is I went to insure my new boat through the same company (a well known Marine insurer) and the cost pretty much doubled even though I hadn't made a claim in 10 years so I changed insurers.

[JK 28]

A few years back I had a broken rudder. The insurance company said "Wear & Tear" and thus not covered even though I could provide receipts for work done on the rudder months earlier & the son & mates borrowing the boat that night were sure they hit something.

 

In the case of the boat doing the damage above, their insurance company could probably argue that failure of the linkage was entirely due to wear & tear & not cover them. Should still not stop the damaged boats insurance company chasing the other owner.

 

Am amazed at the report though. I would have thought that trying to recover the pin from under the engine would have not been too onerous a task & would have shed some light on the matter. Hard to see a clevis pins just breaking out of the blue & routine maintenance would should have picked it up. Probably more likely that the split pin retaining it was a steel one & long since rusted away allowing the pin to fall out.