Structural safety standards
During the trial the prosecution told the court that Douglas Innes had not maintained Cheeki Rafiki to the standard expected by a reasonably competent and prudent manager because he had not had the yacht surveyed before setting off on a transatlantic, and because the yacht was not coded at the time.
The defence said that the Cheeki Rafiki had been surveyed when Stormforce Coaching took over management of the yacht in 2011, that ongoing maintenance had revealed no indication it required another survey, and that coding related only to equipment required for commercial activity and would not have guaranteed the structural safety of the yacht.
Much of the discussion in court related specifically to grounding, and raised the question of whether every yacht should be routinely surveyed (and, if coded, reported to its coding authority) after every grounding.
The MCA’S advice on this specifies that the coding authority should be notified
‘in cases where the vessel suffers major damage…’ or ‘minor damage, detrimental to the safety of the vessel’.
In the case of Cheeki Rafiki, the court heard how the yacht had two minor groundings in 2013, one described as a low speed touch to the mud in Shamrock Quay, and another the same year as a minor grounding when the yacht drifted in Lymington River after the engine failed.
Cheeki Rafiki had also grounded in 2011, hitting Ryde Sands on a training day. Among the witnesses who had been on board there was disagreement whether the yacht was doing 2.5-3 knots through a tack, or 5-6 knots. The court was told that the keel bolts had been inspected for cracking afterwards and the yacht was lifted out ten days later. The yacht was not surveyed or reported after any of the three groundings.
The prosecution also raised the question of whether Cheeki Rafiki should have met coding requirements and, if so, to what standard. The yacht had previously been coded under Category 2, which requires the vessel to remain within 60 miles of a safe haven when operating commercially. That coding had lapsed before Antigua Sailing Week, and so the yacht had not had a threeyear inspection, known as a mid-term inspection, before she left.
The prosecution argued that if Cheeki Rafiki had been coded as Category 0 (for unrestricted waters), she would have been surveyed before departure and would have carried a higher specification of safety equipment, including ‘float free’ liferafts, which deploy automatically.
The defence case stated that Innes had complied with the coding law by refunding guests who had paid for training days before Antigua Sailing Week, and that because the return transatlantic crossing was not a commercial voyage, the yacht did not require coding.
They also said that because the
Cat 2 inspection was purely an