A Study of the Causes of Collisions with the Pair Trawlers and Inquiry into Their Solution

Yoshiaki Sato

Abstract:	This paper is concerned with collisions with the pair trawlers and attributes their causes to inappropriateness of the avoidance rules which amounts to lacune du droit on this point. The method of this research is to search for lessons by looking into the yearly reports by the Maritime Disasters Inquiry Agency of Japan covering the recent ten years. The selected typical and instructive cases find that the risk peculiar to the pair trawlers in operation consists in the difficulty for the other ships to discern whether the concerned two ships compose a pair of trawlers or not and whether they are actually towing trawl nets. The fishermen of Japan has tried to make others to recognize their composition of a pair. But ignorance about fishermen's effort allows other seafarers much inattentive. Lacune du droit on this point permits other seafarers excuse themselves by alleging that they did not recognize the intention of fishermen's effort to show that the fishing vessels concerned were composing a pair. In order to bring the principle ignorantia juris nocet into operation fishermen's practice should be incorporated in the COLREGS. Fishermen hoist green and red flags, fasten colourful buoys to their nets, paint their masts in one and the same peculiar way and make other efforts.
Published in:	Proceedings of the IAIN World Congress and the 56th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2000) June 26 - 28, 2000 The Catamaran Resort Hotel San Diego, CA
Pages:	195 - 199
Cite this article:	Sato, Yoshiaki, "A Study of the Causes of Collisions with the Pair Trawlers and Inquiry into Their Solution," Proceedings of the IAIN World Congress and the 56th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2000), San Diego, CA, June 2000, pp. 195-199.
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