Another MCIB Report

[NDG]

Why?

Sorry I should clarify - I don’t doubt the seriousness of the question but I meant I‘d be surprised if anyone would refuse to sail at night without AIS and plotter. On reflection though, I wonder if reliance on electronic aids now means that there are people who would.

 

[shaunksb]

I hope I would have moved at least 60 degrees to starboard if it was fine on the bow and kept a very close eye on what to do next if that didn’t work.

That would have meant adding a single handed gybe into the mix in an already time constrained situation with an associated but unknown reduction in you speed and putting you across the bows of the oncoming tanker.

You must have some pretty big cahoonas...

_______________________________

 

[capnsensible]

Sorry I should clarify - I don’t doubt the seriousness of the question but I meant I‘d be surprised if anyone would refuse to sail at night without AIS and plotter. On reflection though, I wonder if reliance on electronic aids now means that there are people who would.

Thanks, yeah. You see the way some of these threads go and it makes you wonder. Modern electronic aids are great, in my opinion. They have the potential to make leisure boating much safer for everyone......provided, again in my opinion, that people practice a lot, are aware of the limitations of the kit and are prepared to back up when they fail.

It's the over reliance that may be bothersome. Plus watching YouTube vids of people walking into things whilst texting makes you wonder how good lookout watch keeping really is!

 

[Praxinoscope]

I found in busy waters an AIS receiver (NASA Marine) at night was a very useful addition to a visual lookout, particularly when watching a VLCC with all its deck lights on the navigation lights were invisible, the hand bearing compass helped but so did the AIS.
I have a NASA AIS receiver on my current boat but in our rather quiet area of water (Middle section of Cardigan Bay) it's only occasionally that I pick up a signal, even when crossing the Irish Sea.
Would I sail at night without AIS? Yes, if visibility is good and unlikely to deteriorate, in mist and fog it rapidly becomes an essential, but AIS is still only useful aid and doesn't alleviate the need to keep a good watch at all times.

 

[capnsensible]

That would have meant adding a single handed gybe into the mix in an already time constrained situation with an associated but unknown reduction in you speed and putting you across the bows of the oncoming tanker.

You must have some pretty big cahoonas...

_______________________________

A quick and easy gybe out of the way of a tanker sounds like a smart move to me! A couple of seconds to centre the main, helm over and roberts yer fathers sibling. ?

 

[shaunksb]

A quick and easy gybe out of the way of a tanker sounds like a smart move to me! A couple of seconds to centre the main, helm over and roberts yer fathers sibling. ?

I would have still gone with Ruperts alternative suggestion of an early turn to port to put some distance between us before we’d even started to bother the OOW.

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[Never Grumble]

In the absence of an AIS transmitter the yacht had two radar reflector fitted. One was on the backstay and the other was a diamond hoisted on the mast spreaders. There was no comment on the effectiveness of these in the report but from what I know about both these types neither perform great even when mounted optimally. One of the pictures shows the backstay one still in position, I'd have thought mounted at that angle it would have been next to useless.

I would have still gone with Ruperts alternative suggestion of an early turn to port to put some distance between us before we’d even started to bother the OOW.

Needs to be early and large enough an alteration not to confuse, not at the last minute, the yacht had no radar or any other means of accurately determining the tankers distance which can be deceptive in the dark. From their track shown in the appendices the yacht seems to have had plenty of safe water to the west.

 

[RJJ]

I would have still gone with Ruperts alternative suggestion of an early turn to port to put some distance between us before we’d even started to bother the OOW.

_________________________

Starboard. Early.

To remind us: they were fine on the bow and (although the sailors didn't check) on a constant bearing. Your manoeuvre would "work" if you assume the ship was steaming slowly at a large angle to the yacht's bearing - perhaps that's the assumption the crew made. When you see a side-light, you cannot assume anything about the heading of the ship except that you are looking at somewhere between her bows and 122.5deg aft the beam.

Turning to port is what COLREGS tells you not to do. If the ship did she was supposed to do - either because she took the stance of give-way vessel OR because she assumed herself head-on - she would turn to starboard (as indeed she did). Vessels would be turning towards each other.

Turning to starboard would be consistent with all possible correct actions of the ship, regardless of when she saw you. In the prevailing conditions, it didn't sound as though a gybe would have been particularly untoward.

I have to confess I'm a bit confused about what "green-to-green" means.

For me the mistake by the yacht crew is here: "The crew on the ‘Medi Mode’ believed that the situation was green to green i.e. each vessel had the other clear on its starboard side and that it would pass well clear of the tanker ‘Varkan Ege’. The watchkeeper did not take any compass bearing on the ‘Varkan Ege’. NARRATIVEIt maintained its course and speed at this time. "

 

[RichardS]

In the absence of an AIS transmitter the yacht had two radar reflector fitted.

I think I would equate a passive device like a radar reflector more to an AIS receiver than a transceiver. What's the least one could pay for an AIS receiver only which is all they needed? £50 - £100 probably, so a good family dinner out.

Richard

 

[Never Grumble]

Starboard. Early.

To remind us: they were fine on the bow and (although the sailors didn't check) on a constant bearing. Your manoeuvre would work if you assume the ship was steaming slowly at a large angle to the yacht's bearing - perhaps that's the assumption the crew made. When you see a side-light, you cannot assume anything about the heading of the ship except that you are looking at somewhere between her bows and 122.5deg aft the beam.

Turning to port is what COLREGS tells you not to do. If the ship did she was supposed to do - either because she took the stance of give-way vessel OR because she assumed herself head-on - she would turn to port (as indeed she did). Vessels would be turning towards each other.

Turning to starboard would be consistent with all possible correct actions of the ship, regardless of when she saw you. In the prevailing conditions, it didn't sound as though a gybe would have been particularly untoward.

I have to confess I'm a bit confused about what "green-to-green" means.

I was the navigating officer for a captain who had an obsession with turning to starboard. There is nothing wrong with turning to port, we all have to do it at sometime, otherwise we end up going round in circles. One time sticks in my mind returning to base port fishing vessel about 3 to 4 miles away on ships head the way he was manoeuvring and the position of other vessels meant an early alteration to port of 10 to 15° would have opened up his CPA plenty and there was loads of safe water to port. I was told by the CO that the rules said to turn to starboard, at that time there was no risk of collision it was still 3 miles away, but he wouldn't budge. In the end the fishing vessel continued manoeuvring and we end up turning further and further to starboard. In the end I was about 15 minutes late for the ETA all because of this fixation.

 

[shaunksb]

Starboard. Early.

To remind us: they were fine on the bow and (although the sailors didn't check) on a constant bearing. Your manoeuvre would work if you assume the ship was steaming slowly at a large angle to the yacht's bearing - perhaps that's the assumption the crew made. When you see a side-light, you cannot assume anything about the heading of the ship except that you are looking at somewhere between her bows and 122.5deg aft the beam.

Turning to port is what COLREGS tells you not to do. If the ship did she was supposed to do - either because she took the stance of give-way vessel OR because she assumed herself head-on - she would turn to port (as indeed she did). Vessels would be turning towards each other.

Turning to starboard would be consistent with all possible correct actions of the ship, regardless of when she saw you. In the prevailing conditions, it didn't sound as though a gybe would have been particularly untoward.

I have to confess I'm a bit confused about what "green-to-green" means.

I can see your rational and in Daylight I would have just stood on.

However here we're in an unusual situation where the yacht watchkeeper has more information available to him than the tanker OOW has, early on.

He can only assume that the tanker won't "see" him until he is around a mile away. That's not much time and normally a tanker would be going quicker so an even tighter window.

At the very least the lack of left to right movement of the tankers light would set alarm bells off but as the report says he should have taken a bearing.

He could have Gybed in front of the Tanker but in darkness you would be putting a lot of faith in the OOW and your speed would inevitably change so it would take even more time to establish if the tanker was going to hit you or not.

A simple early turn to port before the tanker became aware of you would have ensured that neither of your days would have been spoilt.



Green to Green means passing to starboard of each other instead of the conventional port to port passing of vessels on reciprocal headings. It would normally be agreed by a bridge to bridge conversation in advance.

________________________________

 

[Uricanejack]

The wee nudge? Can be very tempting, Not going to lie and say I never do such a thing.
Could the wee nudge fit the few known facts here? possibly.
The yachts version of events on auto pilot maintained course no alterations.
The concept would be to make your own green light or aspect clearer and less ambiguous.
The late sighting of the red light by the tanker, My conclusion, there was no wee nudge. Or the Tanker would have sighted a green light not a red light.,

The problem with the wee nudge or course tweak to just open it up a bit.

The other vessel may look at the same situation and determine it’s head on or nearly head on, if acting on this interpretation this vessel will alter to starboard.
Generally, the wee nudge or tweak, is not recommended,
Good practice would usually be an early alteration to starboard.

Sometimes, the wee nudge works, So never say never.
hard to defend when it doesn’.t

The wee nudge or tweak, is possibly the most common, passing arrangement I hear on VHF.

One of the reasons, I prefer to avoid it.

You bugger yourself, if you sight something else. You have put yourself into a situation where you now can’t alter to starboard.

Never say Never, I have been know to nudge. Or tweak. Sometimes there is something else to consider.

Eg, you observe the other bugger has nudged. Now to comply with the preferred or recommended practice, You’d have to cross him.
Oh well, what can you do, Get on with life and take action sooner next time.

 

[RJJ]

I was the navigating officer for a captain who had an obsession with turning to starboard. There is nothing wrong with turning to port, we all have to do it at sometime, otherwise we end up going round in circles. One time sticks in my mind returning to base port fishing vessel about 3 to 4 miles away on ships head the way he was manoeuvring and the position of other vessels meant an early alteration to port of 10 to 15° would have opened up his CPA plenty and there was loads of safe water to port. I was told by the CO that the rules said to turn to starboard, at that time there was no risk of collision it was still 3 miles away, but he wouldn't budge. In the end the fishing vessel continued manoeuvring and we end up turning further and further to starboard. In the end I was about 15 minutes late for the ETA all because of this fixation.

Right, but from the yacht's perspective in this instance, we're told they saw the ship in good time, but not whether they had any clue about range to the ship.

And you were 15 minutes late. You didn't have a crash or come close to one.

As you describe it, you were in a position to exercise judgment as to whether to go to port, given you could see how the fishing boat was manoeuvring; evidently the yacht in question did not; if they had done what COLREGS (and your ersthwhile captain) prescribes, there would have been no collision and we'd have to find something else to talk about.

I can see your rational and in Daylight I would have just stood on.

However here we're in an unusual situation where the yacht watchkeeper has more information available to him than the tanker OOW has, early on.

He can only assume that the tanker won't "see" him until he is around a mile away. That's not much time and normally a tanker would be going quicker so an even tighter window.

At the very least the lack of left to right movement of the tankers light would set alarm bells off but as the report says he should have taken a bearing.

He could have Gybed in front of the Tanker but in darkness you would be putting a lot of faith in the OOW and your speed would inevitably change so it would take even more time to establish if the tanker was going to hit you or not.

A simple early turn to port before the tanker became aware of you would have ensured that neither of your days would have been spoilt.



Green to Green means passing to starboard of each other instead of the conventional port to port passing of vessels on reciprocal headings. It would normally be agreed by a bridge to bridge conversation in advance.

________________________________

Per above, the yacht watchkeeper doesn't know the range. His critical omission is not taking bearings.

He shouldn't assume the tanker won't see him until a mile - his nav lights are visible for a minimum of a mile and he has two radar reflectors; he should consider that the tanker is probably keeping an adequate lookout (and allow for the risk he isn't). He should take actions prescribed by COLREGS that are consistent with all possible actions by the tanker.

There's no provision for "green to green" in COLREGS. It's not ambiguous. If you are set to pass "green to green" you need to be confident there's no risk of a close-quarters situation. To say "I was confident it was green-to-green" without taking bearings (and without a radio chat, and without an understanding of range) is a nonsense

 

[RichardS]

There's no provision for "green to green" in COLREGS. It's not ambiguous.

I'm not sure why it's relevant that there is no provision for green to green in ColRegs. I go "green to green" with dozens of vessels every day. The fact that it's not mentioned in ColRegs seems irrelevant.

Richard

 

[Never Grumble]

Right, but from the yacht's perspective in this instance, we're told they saw the ship in good time, but not whether they had any clue about range to the ship.

And you were 15 minutes late. You didn't have a crash or come close to one.

As you describe it, you were in a position to exercise judgment as to whether to go to port, given you could see how the fishing boat was manoeuvring; evidently the yacht in question did not; if they had done what COLREGS (and your ersthwhile captain) prescribes, there would have been no collision and we'd have to find something else to talk about.

Per above, the yacht watchkeeper doesn't know the range. His critical omission is not taking bearings.

He shouldn't assume the tanker won't see him until a mile - his nav lights are visible for a minimum of a mile and he has two radar reflectors; he should consider that the tanker is probably keeping an adequate lookout (and allow for the risk he isn't). He should take actions prescribed by COLREGS that are consistent with all possible actions by the tanker.

There's no provision for "green to green" in COLREGS. It's not ambiguous. If you are set to pass "green to green" you need to be confident there's no risk of a close-quarters situation. To say "I was confident it was green-to-green" without taking bearings (and without a radio chat, and without an understanding of range) is a nonsense

If you read the report given by the yacht at appendix 7.7 there is no mention of the tanker in the watch handover at 0200 ... suddenly it appears at 0210 off the starboard bow and then the collision happened 11 minutes later. There is no reference to the aspect on the tanker. I can't understand why the yacht didn't see the tanker much sooner?

I have already commented on the effectiveness of the radar reflectors. And earlier about how easy it is to see a yacht on a big ships radar, particularly in a reasonable sea.

As for my erstwhile captain, he was extremely poor in close quarters situations, before then I had spent over a year doing navigation training spending most of my time in restricted waters, so believe I had pretty good judgement.

 

[shaunksb]

He shouldn't assume the tanker won't see him until a mile - his nav lights are visible for a minimum of a mile

They were visible from at least a mile - when they were new, which looks about 40 years ago from the picture of the yacht and before the plastic crazed, and the incandescent bulb lost some of it's efficiency.

We only have the OOW word that he saw them at 1.5 miles but he still turned on top of them?? If it was that distance he should have had room to complete the manoeuvre.

Hard lessens were learned following the Ouzo disaster as to the visibility of a sailing yacht at night.

________________________________

 

[Uricanejack]

One of my regular trips. Is a visit to Vancouver, I often single hand it or do it overnight by myself.
Sometimes my wife joins me or on rare occasions one or more of my kids.
Sometimes just me and the dog.
I like to go through Polier Pass. head for the ski hills at cypress till I open the bridge Then skirt the Banks and into false creek.
Pretty Easy little trip.
About an hour out of Polier. I cross the mid island Ferry route. They pretty much run on rails, Between the Sand Heads TSS and Thrasher Rock.
be another hour before I tangle with Vancouver harbour traffic between Sand Heads and Iona.
Sometimes I meet traffic coming or going between Merry Or Sabine and Sand Heads.

Last summer, my timing worked pretty good. I had a nice stiff westerly breeze, coming out of Polier on the Flood, Couple of big Bin-liners following me didn’t like it much and turned back. I was having a great sail, it would be a nice quick trip.

I sighted the S bound Ferry. Coming from Nanaimo. up by entrance. there pretty quick coming up from the horizon at 20 knots. It was pretty steady, I saw him alter to take my stern,
Round the same time I spotted a S bound Pusher. passing entrance. looks kind of steady.
Yep kind of steady.
No worries I got the N bound ferry from Sand heads beat.
My pusher buddy is still kind of steady.
And I know what he’s gone and done.
Particularly since I can see, a couple of Tugs with chippers heading up the straights from Sand Heads.

I could be nice and let him off the hook. But I figured if let him off to easy, He will never figure it out. So I’m not just being a dick, I’m going to do him a favour.
So he knows better next time.

Now if my wife had been there, I‘d get an ear full, for being a dick. But it was just the Dog and she wasn’t bothered

So I sat back, and watched,

He kept making wee nudges. Or tweaks

The Ferry was pretty happy he just went behind me. The green to green with the Pusher wasn’t a problem for him.
The Tugs with the chippers couldn’t have cared less. I wasn’t an issue for them.

The Pusher couldn’t go to Starboard to give way to me. He was boxed in. He couldn’t go much to port ither or he’d get into a situation with the N Bound Tugs.
He had buggered himself, by tweaking it port to get a green to green with the N bound Ferry.

Now he sweating trying to figure out what to about me.
It was ok he would clear ahead by a couple cables,

After I figured he had sweated enough, I bore off and let him by,

He even gave me a friendly wave. I smiled and waved back.
Sometimes there is just to much temptation to be a dick.

10 knot guy on a 15 knot Pusher Tug,

 

[westhinder]

I wonder why everyone is still pretending we live in the first decades of the 20th century and no communication between ships is possible?
If you see a green to green situation developing and have the slightest doubt about it, or if anything else risks being unclear, a short VHF call to the other ship will sort it out, or will at the very least draw their attention to your presence. That is what OOW’s are doing all the time in congested waters. I have noticed they appreciate it when they are certain of your intentions, it is one thing less to worry about. A place like the Nieuwe Waterweg/Rotterdam harbour, which is extremely busy, requires you to actively use the VHF for traffic flow. When we go there, one of us has the exclusive task to man the VHF and instruct the helm accordingly.

 

[dom]

I wonder why everyone is still pretending we live in the first decades of the 20th century and no communication between ships is possible?
If you see a green to green situation developing and have the slightest doubt about it, or if anything else risks being unclear, a short VHF call to the other ship will sort it out, or will at the very least draw their attention to your presence. That is what OOW’s are doing all the time in congested waters. I have noticed they appreciate it when they are certain of your intentions, it is one thing less to worry about. A place like the Nieuwe Waterweg/Rotterdam harbour, which is extremely busy, requires you to actively use the VHF for traffic flow. When we go there, one of us has the exclusive task to man the VHF and instruct the helm accordingly.

This is fine for MMSI-MMSI, AIS, etc. support advance communication. Not a good idea at all to hail over Ch 16 when a collision situation looms.

Section 5.3 from the Report:

"The ‘Varkan Ege’ should not have attempted to communicate via VHF with the sailing vessel when it was so close. This is not recommended, and was not successful. This wasted valuable time when an immediate alteration of course to starboard may have been sufficient to avoid collision."​

 

[arc1]

MCA use of VHF and AIS
Para 3 of link is interesting reading wrt use of VHF for collision avoidance (and how counter productive it can/has been).