Blinking green, what would you think?

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jonjo

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Not a serious question...

You are motor sailing SW down the north Brittany coast about 15 miles offshore in good visibility, it is 11pm.

There is another craft in sight to the west, it is a yacht about 1 mile distant approaching on a reciprocal course. You expect to pass green to green by about 300 yards.

As you watch the other yacht you notice that it occasionally shows green over white over green and then reverts to white over green.

What do you make of this?
 
Misalignment of mast head and other lights. Lumpy sea obscuring viz ? Obstruction on approaching yacht (e.g. radar blipper) obscures light. Another yacht behind the first one.


Take up gardening.
 
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yacht as perterb says with tricolour, steaming and deck level side lights with a dodgy connection to the tri or a burgee getting wrapped around it.

or a trawler, smaller than 50m, with a dodgy green light
 
Answer.

peteb was partly correct, the other yacht seen to the west and heading NE with the intermittent masthead green, was myself.

However my experiment in thought transference failed both here and at sea. The helmsman heading SW observing my blinking masthead light was meant to ponder "what's up with his electrics" and then look at his masthead. At which point he would have realized his deck, streaming and masthead tri lights were switched on.

Oh well I will never know who was driving the Brit yacht unless shudder the thought, I was due to cross paths with our resident master mariner Robin as he headed out to SW Brittany.
 
and what is wrong with the International Code "P" ? (.//.)

At sea, it means your lights are out or burning badly. Though I suppose you should really precede it by "K". :eek:
 
jonjo said:
peteb was partly correct, the other yacht seen to the west and heading NE with the intermittent masthead green, was myself.

However my experiment in thought transference failed both here and at sea. The helmsman heading SW observing my blinking masthead light was meant to ponder "what's up with his electrics" and then look at his masthead. At which point he would have realized his deck, streaming and masthead tri lights were switched on.

Oh well I will never know who was driving the Brit yacht unless shudder the thought, I was due to cross paths with our resident master mariner Robin as he headed out to SW Brittany.
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At the risk of being flamed, what the hell does it matter?

I've come across boats with all manner of lights that weren't colregs compliant. If I'd seen you with flashing greens my immediate thought would have been 'Oh dear, someone's got an electrical problem/ got some weird set of lights'

In the Irish Sea I've seen trawlers with a reds and greens as a string running from mast to stem, off the Bahamas I've seen yachts with every light on and regularly on the South Coast boats with tri and anchor light on both at sea and at anchor.

Surely the point at issue is, 'Can I determine the actions of this craft?' Not are they showing the right lights?

Have you ever tried to find the reds and greens on a fully lit cruise liner?

Oh, I've just re-read your OP, not a serious post. So don't take this one too seriuosly either.......
 
boatbuilder said:
Once came across a flashing yellow Halfway across Biscay, after much thought crew decided it was a fork lift.:)
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Had a similar experience in the Solent a few years back. It felt 'out of body' due to exhaustion. I couldn't focus on this slowly flashing yellow light at what seemed to be half mile range. I seemed to close on it very quickly though. It turned out to be a traffic lamp from some road works somewhere - the plastic type - and it was only 100 feet away bobbing between waves.
 
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