COLREGS: yacht vs ferry

Jammed steering, perhaps? Obviously trying to slow down by dumping the sheets, but not altering course at all.

Doesn't look like too much damage though, assuming she didn't get caught on the stern somehow after the end of the video. Bent pulpit maybe.

If that had been one of the Red Funnel ferries here, I'd have expected them to avoid the yacht. But I guess the Strines do it differently.

Pete
 
I believe special regs in Sydney Harbour give the Ferry the ROW.

I understand the back story to be an inexperienced sailor caught out by a 50 knot squall and couldn't control the boat.
 
As with the IOW ferry, the amazing thing is it doesn't happen more often. Weekends, Sydney harbour is stuffed to the limit with yachts, many racing. I estimated 1000 on one occasion I was there. The Manly ferry has to plough through the middle of them.
 
That harbour is an impressive place to sail. Just over a year ago, I took a yacht out for the day from Darling Harbour. Went up to Sydney Heads and back. Wonderful.
 
I can only feel sorry for the guy, the boat is utterly out of control and it looks like he has lost all the sheets. I suppose you have to wonder if the squall came completely out of nowhere or if conditions were already bad when he set out, as he has all plain sail up, to know if he stupidly put himself there or was caught out. Either way options for doing something about it, once it has happened, are all difficult if you have a small crew. If the guy was inexperienced I guess he will have not felt able to do much.
 
bitbaltic said:
If the guy was inexperienced I guess he will have not felt able to do much.
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You'd think "steer away from the ferry" would have been obvious though. The boat was still making headway, so putting the rudder over ought to have averted the collision (albeit if he'd made a large turn to port he may have gybed dramatically).

Pete
 
Yeah agree. But is anybody even at the helm, can't see from the video on an iPhone. I can imagine with both sails feathered into the wind but still driving it might be sailing itself. Of course the skipper should have been doing something about it but it looks totally abandoned from a sailing point of view?

Does anybody know the outcome of this?

Cheers
 
I don't think the yacht would have managed to tack given how much the sails were flogging. Hauling in a bit of main might have let her round up and led to a more effective depowering.
 
Kelpie said:
I don't think the yacht would have managed to tack given how much the sails were flogging. Hauling in a bit of main might have let her round up and led to a more effective depowering.
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Hauling the main in would definitely have had that effect but I'm not sure they had the main sheet even in control to do so. It would be interesting to know what exactly was going on. How long before the collision did they end up like that, did they still have control of the sheets? If you did, you would try to get head to wind long before you came near the ferry? And use the engine.
 
Looks like a typical southerly buster on the harbour. The ferries do have right of way and show an orange diamond to that effect. While they are pretty good at dodging through a crowded fleet they don't take prisoners normally for a single boat. I doubt the ferry thought that the yacht would carry on all the way. It's one of the Manly ferries doing the run from Circular Quay to Manly.
 
Kelpie said:
I don't think the yacht would have managed to tack given how much the sails were flogging.
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Probably not, no. But heading up, stalling for a while, then falling off again would probably have delayed it enough to pass astern of the ferry instead of hitting it amidships.

Kelpie said:
Hauling in a bit of main might have let her round up and led to a more effective depowering.
Click to expand...

Might also have simply accelerated into the side of the ferry, of course :)

Pete
 
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