Disturbing noise on boat, if you make noise in roadstead you risk up to 665 euro fine

Disturbing noises in roadstead goodbye? Perhaps. Of course, for those fleets of charterers who come roaring into the bay, give bottom wherever they happen to be, and go wild in parties under the banner of sound and alcoholic highs, life becomes more difficult. In fact, a new ban on causing “noise nuisance” when sailing (or stopping, or at anchor) within 500 meters of the coast has been in effect for the past few months.

Disturbing noise, what is at risk

This is one of the new offenses introduced with the recent amendments to the Regulations to the Recreational Boating Code in effect since last October. A rule, to tell the truth, singular, because to protect against excessive noise there were already several other provisions: from Art. 844 of the Civil Code on “sound immissions,” to the framework law on noise pollution (447/1995), to the crime of disturbing the public peace and rest of the people (Art. 659 Penal Code). The latter, by the way, often used by inhabitants of seaside resorts to contest the noise caused by the autonomous generators of ships moored in port or under the coast. Admittedly, the new anti-noise rule introduced by the Regulations to the Recreational Boating Code is certainly more specific, since it applies directly to recreational vessels “in transit, at anchor and at anchor within the limit of 500 meters of distance from the coast” sailing in maritime waters(in inland waters, the limit is determined by the competent inland navigation authority) prohibiting them from “producing disturbing noise.” And thus allows the Coast Guard or other control authorities quicker and more direct interventions.

But the risk is that of arbitrary assessments.

What are disturbing noises

What, in fact, is meant by “disturbing noise”? About a portable loudspeaker blasting hundreds of watts from the deck of a boat in the middle of the night, there should be no doubt. But about the stand-alone generator on a yacht moored in a roadstead that stays on all night? What about a choir sung in the cockpit strumming a guitar? Loud music from a radio? A jet ski snaking between boats? Hard to determine without assessing the context.

What the Civil Code says

After all, the concept of “nuisance noise” is itself vague enough and prone to subjective interpretation. For example, in attempting to define it, the Civil Code speaks of “nuisance noise” as that which exceeds “normal tolerability,” equally random terms that are in fact evaluated in courtrooms by considering the place, time, repetitiveness, intentionality, intensity, duration, necessity of the noise in question or by considering the difference of the noise caused with the background noise of the environment by resorting if appropriate to tables of sound levels, phonometric measurements, etc. Criteria that become even more difficult to apply at sea. In any case for boaters, it is good to know that the rule is in force and there is an administrative penalty of 65 to 665 euros for violators. So eyes (but also ears) open.

Fabrizio Coccia