made for crowd control and for the safety of other members and
spectators. Model boats will not be operated when anyone is in
the water.”
Preventing this type of accident is fairly easy. Keep people,
including the people operating boats, back from the shore and
don’t run boats with anyone in the water. The hard part is
actually enforcing the rules. We are all guilty of stretching the
rules in one special case. Please think about what could happen.
If insurance companies think people can be seriously hurt or
killed, NAMBA’s dues will run in the hundreds of dollars a year
and the per race fees will look like those above. The only thing
that keeps model boating affordable is our good accident record.
Everyone is a NAMBA risk manager from the race CD down to
the individual racer. If you are testing you still need to follow
the same rules. Enforce the safety rules on yourselves.
PROPWASH
10
April 2012
Rules…..
(Continued from page 9)
parts are no longer fun because so many want to know what
the rules are, how to interpret them, twist them to their
advantage, and add new rules for their benefit.
I recently became NAMBA Vice President and have been
involved with more crap then I care to think about. We are at a
time in our hobby where we should be simplifying things to
make them more fun, not adding things that will eventually
need more interpretation. At the past Nationals I saw protests
and arguments about rules. At a recent race in California, the
District Director took a preemptive strike and tech inspected
motors. I applaud him for doing this. Once this was done the
arguments about cheaters and rules became non-existent at that
race. I just fielded calls about making a ruling and interpreting
a rule and on the boating forums there are no less than 12
debates over rules with heated arguments attached.
This past weekend I drove to Scottsdale, AZ for some R&R
and to catch up with friends at the Fast Electric Warm Up Race
going on the same weekend. After observing the electric
contingent that was racing for the weekend I realized that not
one argument or rule interpretation was needed. I pondered
why. After a short time it occurred to me that this was a Fun
Run and not a point race. People took it to heart and had fun.
Racers had traveled from many states to attend this race, and
even with these diverse racers they made it fun.
During all of my years of practicing and testing I have
never gotten into a debate about a rule but once a race
weekend is upon me… Maybe the answer to all of our rules
issues is to not keep score and just make every race a fun run.
I’m going outside to play with my kids and have fun with no
rules. Just food for thought.
Safety Corner – Spring 2012
By Lohring Miller
NAMBA Safety Chairman
Other groups have very similar safety issues to NAMBA.
The APBA recently had its liability insurance canceled and
had to find a new carrier. Their insurance has a per race
weekend cost as well as a cost included in membership dues. It
is interesting to compare their per race weekend costs for
different types of racing. At the bottom is the RC model
category with a $149 charge. At the top is the Offshore with
Large Classes category that has a $6664 charge. Stock
Outboard racing is the least expensive full size category with a
$2488 charge.
I’ll reprint a plea from the APBA president: “In most cases,
2012 risk management requirements have not changed
significantly from 2011. However, it is mandatory that APBA
improve the enforcement of the requirements.” Doesn’t this
sound familiar? NAMBA doesn’t need a lot more safety rules;
we need to enforce our existing rules and use common sense.
For the first time in my tenure, NAMBA had a serious
accident where a boat hit another boater. It’s fairly hard to hit
another person with a boat unless that person is reasonably
close to the shore or, as in this case, in the water. NAMBA
safety rule #9 states “Reasonable and proper provisions will be
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This is PG rated. It could have been worse