3 The UK supreme court’s approach to situational assessment and its consequences for the proper application and understanding of the narrow channel and crossing rules:
The decision of the UK supreme court was partially built on a classification exercise. The UK supreme court attempted to classify the navigation of the Alexandra I within a certain category to then draw conclusions about the possible applicable rule(s). The classification was predicated on an assessment of the Alexandra I’s navigation, which was itself mainly reliant on observation of her movements (infra, 3.1). This seemingly mono-factorial approach stands in stark contrast to how the UK supreme court sought to prove that alterations made by a stand-on vessel are not necessarily in violation of the duty to keep course and speed (infra, 3.2). Stand-on vessels are said to be permitted to alter their courses and/or speeds, as long as these alterations are justified by what is referred to in the decision of the UK supreme court as the ‘navigation goals’, the ‘goals-in-mind’ or the ‘readily apparent nautical manoeuvre’ of the stand-on vessel in question. To identify these navigation goals, factors such as the location, the traffic, an assumption of proper knowledge and application of the regulations, were held to inform the assessment of the situation, in addition to the observation of the stand-on vessel’s manoeuvres. In the latter of the two situations, the range of factors which seems to have an influence over the assessment of the situation is much broader than just observation of manoeuvres. Nonetheless, it is in my opinion clear that both approaches share similar features. They both rely on factors which are discernible, or in other words, which are detectable, recognizable and intelligible without special knowledge of the intentions of the observed target vessel (infra, 3.3).