RATS stands for ‘Regulations and Technical Services’ and is an executive Committee of the Cruising Association. Meetings are held monthly (on the second Tuesday of the month) at C.A. House, and are chaired by John Lansdell

The Committee has three working groups which focus on particular issues:

• Technical working group
• Environment working group
• Communications working group

The Committee’s work involves dealing with individuals or, more often, official bodies. We deal with a large number of international, national, parliamentary, trade, special interest or local groups all needing help, advice, comments or consultation on matters which involve the cruising boat user.

The remainder of the work done by the Committee involves projects in any area covered by it’s ‘Regulations and Technical Services’ brief. Examples include work on Codes of Conduct or Policy papers, production of Technical Questionnaires, writing articles for ‘Cruising’ or ‘Bulletin’ and developing material for the C.A. website.

Without information we in RATS cannot function effectively. 

You can help fellow members of the Association and the wider yachting community by letting us know of anything, which may cause problems to us all.  We are particularly interested in proposed legislation, planning enquiries, public consultations, introduction of new local regulations and experience of their use in practice.  With that knowledge we can negotiate with those responsible and hopefully introduce sensible changes where it is necessary and practicable to do so.  It is much easier to do this if we have early knowledge of potential problems.  Please do not assume someone else will tell us.  We should rather have too much information than miss something important.  That goes for international, national and local matters, wherever you may hear of them, and as soon as possible.

We do have limited resources and have to prioritise our efforts, so please bear with us if we do not always have complete success in our endeavours on your behalf.

John Lansdell, Chair of RATS.

For current issues see here