Rule 38 — Exemptions
Part E is a single rule, and a transitional one. It let vessels built to the 1960 Regulations keep some of their lights and sound signal equipment when the 1972 Regulations came in. What it covers, why most of it has lapsed, and the little you need for the oral.
It exempts certain vessels from some of the Regulations' requirements for lights and sound signal appliances. To qualify, a vessel (or class of vessels) must comply with the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1960, and her keel must have been laid — or she must have been 'at a corresponding stage of construction' — before these Regulations entered into force.
Paragraphs (a) to (h) then say what she is exempted from, and for how long.
Two kinds. Some were time-limited: four years from entry into force for the light ranges in Rule 22 and the colour specification of lights in Annex I section 7; nine years for certain repositioning of masthead lights (including, on vessels of 150 metres or more, that required by Annex I section 3(a)) and of sidelights, and for the sound signal appliance requirements of Annex III.
The others are permanent, and all concern where lights are placed: repositioning that results from converting from Imperial to metric units and rounding off figures; repositioning masthead lights on vessels of less than 150 metres under Annex I section 3(a); and repositioning all-round lights under Annex I section 9(b).
Annex I sets out the positioning and technical details of lights and shapes. The sections Rule 38 cites are section 2 (vertical positioning and spacing of lights), section 3 (horizontal positioning and spacing), section 7 (colour specification of lights) and section 9 (horizontal sectors — 9(b) concerns all-round lights not being obscured by masts or structures). Annex III gives the technical details of sound signal appliances, and Rule 22 the minimum ranges at which lights must be visible.
In practice, the time-limited ones are spent: the longest ran nine years from the entry into force of the 1972 Regulations, which was decades ago. The permanent ones remain in the text, but they can only help a vessel built before that date that complies with the 1960 Regulations, and they cover only the positions of certain lights.
As we read it, no. A vessel whose keel was laid after the Regulations entered into force cannot meet the condition at the start of the rule, so Rule 38 exempts her from nothing. Where it can still come up is a much older vessel — a classic yacht, for instance — whose light positions date from the 1960 Regulations.
No. Rule 1(e) deals with a vessel of special construction or purpose that the Government concerned determines cannot comply fully with the rules on the number, position, range or arc of visibility of lights or shapes, or on the disposition and characteristics of sound-signalling appliances. She must then comply with whatever the Government determines to be 'the closest possible compliance' with the rules. Rule 38 turns on when the vessel was built, not on what she was built for.
In our view it is a rule to know in outline rather than by paragraph. Examples of the kind of question to be ready for:
“What is in Part E of the COLREGs?”
“Does Rule 38 exempt your vessel from anything? Why not?”
“How does Rule 38 differ from Rule 1(e)?”
The common slips: thinking it lets a modern vessel off any of the lights or sound signal rules; confusing it with Rule 1(e); and trying to recite paragraphs (a) to (h) when the structure is what matters — vessels complying with the 1960 Regulations, built before entry into force, some exemptions time-limited and some permanent.
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