Introduction
Imagine a time, way back, whilst ships at sea had no policies governing their right of way and avoiding collisions or anything called colregs. At that time, sailing vessels were used to move cargo, ferry passengers, harvest fish from the ocean and deliver the mail. Recreational boating, as we realize it today, didn’t exist. Yachting was the domain of royalty and upper class society. Add into the mix that when policies were adopted, distinctive countries had their personal rules that pondered their country’s maritime background for stand-on and give-way vessels, lateral at sea navigation marks for channels, and onboard navigation lights. Internationally, inconsistencies and contradictions abounded and collisions at sea were frequent.
During the age of sail, the attitude of maritime countries was that ships moved slowly. Being governed by the laws of physics, sailing masters knew that ships couldn’t sail into the eye of the wind nor could they sail in the absence of wind. With the appearance of steam-powered vessels in the mid-nineteenth century, ships could maneuver at will irrespective of wind direction and wind velocity.
Until near the end of the nineteenth century, there were no international rules for the passing and overtaking of vessels on the high seas. For passing and overtaking on inland waters, some rules did exist worldwide, but these were far from universal, either in application or compatibility with all nations. In Europe, navigation rules were usually implemented through pilotage systems under which foreign-flag vessels took on local pilots when entering the respective nation’s inland waters.
American Civil War and Colregs
In the US, it did not have any federal laws or regulations for meeting or overtaking situations on its inland waters up until about 1897. Nor did it have federal laws or regulations standardizing signals or running lights. Some states and/or port jurisdictions had developed individualized regulations, and these—as in Europe—were in the main implemented by pilotage requirements. Again, as in Europe, there were more often than not considerable differences in rules from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
With the advent of the American Civil War, traffic on many United States inland waterways and harbors increased many-fold
over what it had been in peacetime. The Navy, which had been suffering an inordinate amount of collision damage, decided to do something about the problem.
On 4 May 1864, it issued General Order No. 34, which was distributed widely to all shipping interests on the Bay. General Order No. 34 specified rules for meeting and overtaking for both steam and sail vessels, as well as signals for passing and lights to be shown at night. If nothing else, the Navy hoped to limit its liability when faced with admiralty court actions. On 13 August, the War Department issued its own separate order (General Order No. 246), which reiterated the language of the Navy Department’s General Order No. 34. The Army’s order was to be “immediately adopted on all vessels owned or chartered by the Quartermaster Department of the Army.” Although Congress did nothing regarding rules applicable to commercial vessels until well after the Civil War, the 1864 Navy and Army rules set the stage for the standardization of collision avoidance for the remainder of that conflict—at least on the Chesapeake.
Chesapeake is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia USA.
First International Maritime Conference
In 1890, navigation rules were put into international practice for both commercial and naval vessels on the high seas, following the first International Maritime Conference held the year before in Washington, DC, where the rules were discussed and finalized. These rules, which became known as the International Rules of the Road, were rationalized by all participating nations. In 1897, the US Congress passed legislation for meeting and overtaking on United States inland waters. To these were addended rules dealing with sound signals and lighting. Since their original adoption, both the International Rules and the US Inland Rules have been amended several times, either by treaty to which the US was party or, in the case of the Inland Rules, through domestic legislation. Despite these many changes, it is interesting to note that for both the International and the Inland meeting and passing rules, there has been little alteration from that which made up the Navy’s General Order 34 back in 1864.
IRPCS
For the next 70 years additional rule changes were made, and the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) was promulgated on a regular basis beginning in 1914 following the Titanic disaster.
The worldwide, harmonized collision regulations that recreational boaters and commercial shipping use for safe passage today, were first introduced by the International Maritime Organization 1972 for ratification by member states. Beginning July 15, 1977 the International Rules for Preventing Collisions at Sea (IRPCS), more commonly known as COLREGs, became the rule of law. It is the foundation navigational document for all vessels operating on the high seas.
Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1972 (COLREGs)
Adoption: 20 October 1972; Entry into force: 15 July 1977
The 1972 Convention was designed to update and replace the Collision Regulations of 1960 which were adopted at the same time as the 1960 SOLAS Convention.
