A jimi type colregs question

[ubuysa]

Agree with a bright torch on your sails, but NOT at his bridge. You really don't want to screw up his night vision if you want him to avoid hitting you.........

Tony C.

<hr width=100% size=1>There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't.

 

[Benbow]

Obvioulsy depends on distance. At >1mile I would have no worries about shining a really good torch straight at him!

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[peterb]

The rule that ought to apply here is Rule 9, 'Narrow channels'. But Bedouin is right, the concept of narrow channels is very vague in the rules, and isn't defined. But there have been court cases in which certain waters have been judged to be narrow channels (including the whole of the Western Solent).

One of the problems with Colregs is that they don't appear to cover cases in which collision avoidance action is affected by the presence of shallow water on one side only (such as might occur with two vessels approaching a shore). Rule 9 doesn't seem appropriate, since the "channel" could be the Atlantic on one side, and that's hardly narrow. As someone else has commented, by definition a 'vessel constrained by draught' must be power-driven, so cannot be a sailing boat. Yes, there are catch-all clauses such as Rule 2 referred to by Bedouin, but there appears to be nothing specific.

Perhaps we need a wider Rule 9, covering any case in which actions to avoid collision are constrained by the depth of water in relation to the draught of one or more of the vessels involved. Such a rule could easily cover the narrow channel case (shallow water on both sides), but could also be invoked in the one-sided case as well.

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[Mike21]

Thought the stand on vessel was required to maintain course, also I believe that a vessel tacking may not impede a vessel overtaking.
Overtaking vessel is required to keep clear, but doesn't really define what keeping clear is.
At least Jools did the right thing, avoided a collision and got himself out of danger

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[Birdseye]

To give a less legalistic response, how about simply adopting the commercial vessel / fishing vessel approach - might is right?

Not just being facetious, but colregs has limited practical applicability when it comes to small boats like dinghies. Particularly those racing in fleets.

Dont agree? Well, where does colregs end then? Does colregs apply to the model boats on the park lake? Of course not, and I do not really see it applying to racing dinghies. They have much greater manoeuverability than you have, and just as you should keep out of the way of a tramp steamer, whatever the regs say, so the dinghy should not impede you!

Personally, I would have tacked.

<hr width=100% size=1>this post is a personal opinion, and you should not base your actions on it.

 

[BrendanS]

It comes down largely to understanding of capabilities of different boats. Even non racing dinghies can turn on a sixpence.

Dinghy sailing last year in Salcombe with an instructor, we were about to tack around a line of moored boats, inside a motorboat coming down the line. He saw us coming, and reversed engines. We had it all planned, but were stumped by him sitting in water so had to crash tack instead. Wasn't his fault, wasn't ours, just that no one is telepathic.

Same day, instuctor had us tacking acros lines of moored boats, we only tacked when about 6" from moored boats. If anyone had been onboard, they'd have been fendering off

<hr width=100% size=1>Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabris, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.