peterb
New member
There's a thread further down the board, started last Friday (7th of June) with a contribution "Powerboaters too" by WayneS. It's one of the common power v sail rants, but it raises some other points too.
In one of the contributions a fly-bridge powerboat comes out of a marina and makes a Topper dinghy give way. After some conversational interchange it transpires that the powerboat is operating on one engine and has difficulty in manoeuvring. Another contribution suggests that she should have been showing the signal for "restricted in ability to manoeuvre", ball-diamond-ball. Another points out that there is no sound signal to show the difficulty in manoeuvre.
Now under Colregs the definition of "restricted in ability to manoeuvre" is of a vessel which is restricted due to the nature of her work; dredgers, survey vessels, etc. The case being talked of here is not restricted in ability to manoeuvre, it is "not under command"; a vessel which "through some exceptional circumstance is unable to manoeuvre as required by the Rules". The correct signal would have been two balls (no diamond).
There is a sound signal to show that a vessel has difficulty in manoeuvring. It's in Colregs as the fog signal for almost anything except a normal power vessel: one long blast followed by two short. The signal comes from the International Code of Signals; it is Morse letter D (Delta), and means "Keep clear of me; I am manoeuvring with difficulty".
But the problem for small boat sailors is that most small boat sailors (whether rag and stick or smelly back-ender) just don't know these rules. Although the previous thread went on to over thirty contributions, no-one picked up the errors. So suppose that the power boat had shown two black balls, had flown flag Delta and sounded long-short-short, what would the probability be that a Topper dinghy's occupant(s) would have understood? Yes, the Rules are there; but what proportion of sailors know them? And is there any way by which we can improve our education?
The RYA Yachtmaster syllabus used to include the single-letter signals; it doesn't any more. And a little while ago I set a Colregs quiz which included a question on the difference between "not under command" and "restricted in ability to manoeuvre"; only one Yachtmaster out of fifteen I asked knew the answer. Worse, well under half failed to recognise the pattern of lights indicating that one was trying to pass between a tug and a tow!
What should we do?
In one of the contributions a fly-bridge powerboat comes out of a marina and makes a Topper dinghy give way. After some conversational interchange it transpires that the powerboat is operating on one engine and has difficulty in manoeuvring. Another contribution suggests that she should have been showing the signal for "restricted in ability to manoeuvre", ball-diamond-ball. Another points out that there is no sound signal to show the difficulty in manoeuvre.
Now under Colregs the definition of "restricted in ability to manoeuvre" is of a vessel which is restricted due to the nature of her work; dredgers, survey vessels, etc. The case being talked of here is not restricted in ability to manoeuvre, it is "not under command"; a vessel which "through some exceptional circumstance is unable to manoeuvre as required by the Rules". The correct signal would have been two balls (no diamond).
There is a sound signal to show that a vessel has difficulty in manoeuvring. It's in Colregs as the fog signal for almost anything except a normal power vessel: one long blast followed by two short. The signal comes from the International Code of Signals; it is Morse letter D (Delta), and means "Keep clear of me; I am manoeuvring with difficulty".
But the problem for small boat sailors is that most small boat sailors (whether rag and stick or smelly back-ender) just don't know these rules. Although the previous thread went on to over thirty contributions, no-one picked up the errors. So suppose that the power boat had shown two black balls, had flown flag Delta and sounded long-short-short, what would the probability be that a Topper dinghy's occupant(s) would have understood? Yes, the Rules are there; but what proportion of sailors know them? And is there any way by which we can improve our education?
The RYA Yachtmaster syllabus used to include the single-letter signals; it doesn't any more. And a little while ago I set a Colregs quiz which included a question on the difference between "not under command" and "restricted in ability to manoeuvre"; only one Yachtmaster out of fifteen I asked knew the answer. Worse, well under half failed to recognise the pattern of lights indicating that one was trying to pass between a tug and a tow!
What should we do?
