I think this is a story about two guys who had to settle some old open bills. :lol:

I agree with Neal....it was definitely Bush at fault :p

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0ntMluaKA_c

dumbasses!:roll:

Bush+boat=disaster

bush+country=disaster

:lol:

I'm glad you know so much. Care to give a detailed explanation?

He wages disaster on land, in the air and on the seas!

wait until January 20th when Mr. Obama takes the helm. print more money for governement programs = hyper inflation (you think weimar republic had it bad). Troop pull out in ME, region in flames, europe crumbles under weight of Islam. Iran tests nuke, UN issues stern warnings.

Yeah, it was Bush, notice the small boat is going to the RIGHT that caused the collision.

Yup..you got that right. Im reading for the exam. However, you MUST always show good seamanship, so the rule can be overruled :)

Trouble is, most people get a boat, but don't bother to read the regulations. Manning the helm of any watercraft should be treated the same as driving a car, or flying a plane. The idiocy I view everytime I go to the lake to go fishing is downright frightening sometimes. I go back into an area where it's supposed to be a no-wake zone, and it's rather wide on the south side of the lake due to all the tree stumps in the area, yet people on jetskis and boaters will fly through the area at top speed, and then they get a stupid look on their faces when they hit one of the stumps that are right below the surface. I've seen people go sprauling off a jetski, and their jetski sink. And the lower unit on the engine destroyed.

When I talked to the rangers, they were telling me that maybe 5 to 8% of the people even look at the map of the lake at the boat launch, and a smaller percentage of us actually pay attention to it.

So I would say with this collision, it's dumb and dumber. But by regulation the boat that the filming was done from was at fault. Maritime regulations are even more strict than general motor vehicle traffic regulations are.

The video doesn't give enough information to approportionate blame. If we assume the final situation is simillar to the original, then yes, the boat the camera is on is to blame... But then, the other boat didn't get out of the way either. (The rules clearly state that it is your responsabillity to avoid collision by any means necessary, no matter what.)

If it begun as a head-on situation with a small CPA to starboard, then there's a whole mess of arguments you can get into. It's a lot more complex than "Go to starboard" (If could be argued that since there was a CPA greater than 0, a vessel could consider itself not to be in a collision situation, and simply increasing the passing distance by going to port. If the other guy goes to starboard, considering himself to be in a head on situation, then boom.)

Size of vessel has no bearing on the rules, except where a vessel of less than 20m (IE, pleasure craft) is involved with a large vessel that can only navigate safely within the constrain of a channel, or a vessel is constrained by her draft (And that's kind of a shaky status anyway). In theory, on the open sea, a ULCC should stay out of the way of a 30 ft sailboat. Don't try it in a river.

In this case, both the vessels at cause are big enough that they should have been manned by professional mariners - the kind of people who HAVE read the regulation. Heck, a navigation degree involes something like over 120 hours of collision avoidance training. There was a time I could cite the rules word for word.

There's probably blame to be had on both sides. Rules 2, 5, 6 as usual. But from a thirty second video, you can't really go "OMG STUPID BOAT!"

Edited to add that I entirely agree with Captain Vlad's post below.

That looked ridiculously avoidable. I hope no one was badly hurt.