Page 10 - Collision Avoidance Rules Guide

FOREWORD

I have had the pleasure and privilege of seeing this book during its
preparation and have known the authors for many years, more
particularly during all the years of preparation both nationally and
internationally which preceded the 1972 Conference. Both of them
devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the work of revision of the
1960 Regulations and are therefore well qualified to produce a work
of comment and advice for those who on a day in the future will be
required to put on one side the Regulations with which they have
worked and become familiar during many years of practising their
profession and to follow this new set of Regulations.
The unanimous desire of those who took part in the Conference
was to rectify things in the 1960 Regulations which they themselves
saw or which they had been advised by their own mariners as defects.
They also hoped by a complete change in presentation to make the
new Regulations easier to assimilate and understand by the user.
Inevitably this has led to the Regulations being very much different
both in format and in some important cases in content. This book
appeals to me as a very comprehensive effort to highlight the changes
and I therefore recommend it for careful study by both practising
mariners and those who aspire to become shipmasters or navigating
officers.
The book also contains much advice on how the Regulations are
to be interpreted and collisions avoided. The message which emerges
to me is that there is a great need for study and careful consideration
by mariners of the new Regulations before being presented with a
situation of danger in reality.
After such forethought and preparation the mariner will be in a
position to interpret the Regulations himself in his own particular
circumstances for it is he who in the ultimate may have to defend
his conduct in a court. If this book can produce this attitude of
forethought and consideration - and I think it can do so - I believe
the authors will have achieved their purpose.

A. C. MANSON

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