Coastal Night Passages

Oh all right!

Off Ushant August 2005 about 20mls short of Chenal Du Four, boatspeed was around 8kts sometimes more, yeeeeehah!

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More and more people I talk to are becoming reluctant

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Me! Me! I'll do 'em!

....Calls to mind a passage in 'Hoshi' some years ago, Brixham to Treguier River, with the moon up and just me on deck, helming the old lady towards a star.... when suddenly there were 'torpedo tracks' in the water close alongside, both sides..... then crossing under the bows.... then more....

Skipper was a lady called 'H'. Only the 'on-watch' pair of lurkers could be roused to share this magical visitation.

A midsummer night's dream.....?


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I dont imagine you have many big wood carriers in the UK...but surely your shipping lanes must be congested with other ships.A good radar set I would think is mandetory if you are going to do it on a regular basis.


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Lots of ships but they mostly track in straight lines between the TSS (Traffic Separation Schemes) at either end of the English Channel. Then there are the cross Channel ferries, lots of leisure vessels, fishing boats and not to mention the yacht races, quite busy out there really! Radar is very helpful in poor visibility (we get fogs) but not essential just because it is dark, under sail we probably won't have ours running unless there is a particular need, although under motor it probably is on.
 
Night sailing can have its own 'unexplained' mysteries though!

Once when sailing from Ft William we had stopped for the night in Carllingford Loch in Ireland before recommencing our passage to Plymouth. I came on watch to be briefed and shown flashing lights off to port. We were sailing down past Arklow, about 3 miles off shore. We knew we were going to be sailing between the mainland and an area of offshore reefs (sorry cant remember their name, but someone will remind me). We could pick out the nav lights around the reefs but could not explain what were now clearly orange flashing lights. There was nothing on the updated charts to explain the mystery, but as we got a little closer, we could see using binoculars, even at night, that it was a wind farm!

On another occasion, I became very concerned about a port nav light that was visible on the horizon, it was bright! Bugger I thought, as it got closer, no "who's the stand on vessel", we got to get visible, quick! As I dug out the white collision flares, the bright red port nav light, burst over the horizon into a fabulous bright red sun!
 
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Night sailing can have its own 'unexplained' mysteries though!


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How many missed hearbeats for a white masthead light suddenly appearing close by as Venus appears from behind a cloud!

Oddly the really clear nights often provide the most cause for concern, especially on a really black moonless one. We have been mid-Channel and seen lights (not looms) on both sides, so 30mls visibility, and lights are showing all over where brain says nothing should be - but they are so far away. We saw what we first thought was a laser display over North Brittany around 25 mls north of Roscof area last year, then thought it might be something odd under tow maybe but much closer (there was a tug/tow in the area reported on VHF) but nothing visible on radar, then it looked like a French fisherman with a strobe light. It turned out to be flashing white lights on a radio mast 25mls away on shore, three lights between top and bottom I think and flashing so that the light seemed to move up and down the mast. Then same night afterwards we picked up a bank of red lights flashing which were not shown on the charts, these turned out to be the approach landing lights to Brest Airport and were also miles and miles away, not usually seen in 'normal' visibility.
 
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....Calls to mind a passage in 'Hoshi' some years ago, Brixham to Treguier River, with the moon up and just me on deck, helming the old lady towards a star.... when suddenly there were 'torpedo tracks' in the water close alongside, both sides..... then crossing under the bows.... then more....



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You see some queer things at night. I've seen those 'torpedo tracks'. We had them once all the way from Guernsey down to the Trieux river. There was phosphorescence in the water so each fish, as it dived underneath us, was floodlit.

On a similar passage another time there were fish imitating flying fish, leaping out of the water and gliding several yards. We were told later that mullet do this, chasing your navigation lights.
 
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Methinks that if a log or container has your name on it, theres nowt much you can do about it.


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Now I am worried.
Yours sincerely
Ned Lloyd /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
 
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I've seen those 'torpedo tracks'.

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These were, of course, our good friends the dolphins..... most of what I would describe as my ( near ) religious experiences have been at sea, in a sailboat, at night.

Like the occasion of trying to get a sextant moon-sight on a brilliant night somewhere NW of La Corunna. Peering through the telescope, with the moon brought down almost to the horizon, there swimming and sounding right across the shimmering moonbeam path on the water was a pod of great whales.....

Like the occasion in mid-Channel when, sailing quietly along, we became aware of an entirely-unlit vessel, stopped, ahead of us. Not even a glow from the bridge..... As we crossed 100 metres ahead, we fired up our 2-million candlepower QI handheld searchlight straight at the bridge of the Revenue cutter.

As she fired up her turbines and roared off, we had no doubt that we'd 'flared out' her expensive infra-red binoculars for some time and, with it, the night vision of her cheeeky bridge crew.....

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Like the occasion in mid-Channel when, sailing quietly along, we became aware of an entirely-unlit vessel, stopped, ahead of us. Not even a glow from the bridge..... As we crossed 100 metres ahead, we fired up our 2-million candlepower QI handheld searchlight straight at the bridge of the Revenue cutter.


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I'm convinced we came across them one night in thick fog because we had a target we could not 'lose'. It was we thought crossing us port to starboard, we stopped to let it clear ahead, it seemed to stop too. We started off again and tried to pass behind it but whatever we did it stayed right on a constant bearing, and same range always about 1 mile. Then Brittany ferries came to our rescue (we think it was them, it was a fast moving north-south vessel coming up astern of us and we were headed Poole - Cherbourg about 15mls out) and our 'target' suddenly took off westbound at a rate of knots. If it WAS the Customs boat they were a serious PITA that night, that kind of stress is not needed!
 
...and then there the time there was this amber light somewhere south of the Roches Douvres where no light should be. It was almost dead ahead. As we drew closer I could not see anything like a hull so, thinking it might be a buoy, I slowed and altered course towards it. Just a few yards from it now, there wasn't even a buoy. It was a light on a pole sticking straight up out of the water.

Suddenly I got an inkling of what it might be: a submarine. With a conning tower and rigging just below the water? I turned immediately and didn't look back, cursing myself for being curious.
 
There is a French fishing boat that operates in the shipping lanes east of the Ushant TSS that we have come across frequently, it has a very bright flashing yellow light which combined with it's deck lights makes it impossible to see his normal lights and judge what he is up to. Last year when we had incredible visibility it was impossible to tell if it was 1 mile away or even on shore 20mls or more away, we had radar running and initially had no target showing (it was too far away on 6ml range) then as we got closer we saw him on radar but as usual with fishing boats it was making totally unpredictable course changes. As we closed we tried to pass well clear astern of him, then he turned 180 degs again and came straight back at us, we ended up passing maybe 100m across his bows albeit he was only doing maybe 2kts. We were surfing at over 10kts at the time with 2 reefs in and a part rolled genoa, speeding up or slowing down wasn't an easy option!
 
Everyone seems to agree loose containers are a real danger but I don't think they are that common, are they? The chance of hitting one must be very unlikely.
How many container incidents do you know of? I know of no personal accounts, and only 1-2 from professional's stories that I've heard in the media.
I don't night sail if i can help it because i don't have radar, my night vision is awful and I tend to avoid it, although i'd love to experience it again.
My only experience was in New Zealand waters when I was pretty green to offshore sailing, we got into a storm en route for Tonga - I couldn't help thinking that behind those crashing rollers was a tanker about to really make it a bad night. The boat was steel and really felt secure but the feeling of "what might happen" kept me alert! I was far too afraid to be seasick and as we had 2 down completely gone including the skipper, we had one navigator below and me on the helm all night. Very entertaining in a scary sort of way.
We left in a flat calm mid-morning, by midnight we were triple reefed and surfing.
On the dolphin side of things, we had some with us surfing in our bow wave, which the navigator thought I was imaging until the headsail furler snapped and she (God-bless her) went up the bow and repaired the line. We hit a sizeable wave that I failed to judge better and she went underwater, on opening her eyes she came face to face with dolphins! They got a fright and disappeared!
 
The best time out of this world is a clear night, running your fingers through the stars and sailing a starpath across the sea.

S x
 
Dolphins all round us in the moonlight off Brixham - magic

Standing on the pulpit of a Challenge 72 looking up at that massive spread of sail in the moolight - also magic

I like night sailing !!
 
[quoteNow I am worried.
Yours sincerely
Ned Lloyd

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You think you have problems ??
Yours Sincerely Nosmo King /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
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