Dangerously unintelligible VHF exchanges

[Irish Rover]

In any case, the primary audience is ships' officers, and that's a graduate-level profession - you don't need a degree, but it's at that level

I suspect, but I'm not sure, there are thousands of watchkeepers on smaller commercial ships who hardly saw high school never mind college and would fall into the literacy category I mentioned. I'm certain there are fishing vessel skippers all over the world who've been at sea since they were 13/14 and never attended high school. Are we to dismiss the affect the millions of leisure boat skippers have on safety at sea?

 

[TwoHooter]

"A vessel shall be regarded as overtaking when coming up with another vessel from a direction more than 22.5° behind a line perpendicular to and either side of the midline of the vessel, that is, in such a position with reference to the vessel she is overtaking, that at night she would be able to see only the white light at the stern of the vessel, whose angle of viewing is restricted to an arc extending rearwards 67.5° either side of the midline of the vessel, but neither the red light on the left-hand side of the vessel looking forward not the green light on the right-hand side of the vessel looking forward are visible. The angle of viewing of these lights is restricted to an arc from the midline of the vessel looking forward to 22.5 ° behind a line perpendicular to the midline of the vessel.

I wrote legal documentation for many years. I don't like the way the COLREGS are worded. Here's my attempt. Comments welcome.

ORIGINAL
A vessel shall be deemed to be overtaking when coming up with another vessel from a direction more than 22.5° abaft her beam, that is, in such a position with reference to the vessel she is overtaking, that at night she would be able to see only the sternlight of that vessel but neither of her sidelights.
57 words, 306 characters

MY RE-WRITE
A vessel (X) is overtaking when:
(1) X is approaching another vessel (Y), and
(2) X is going faster than Y, and
(3) X is within an arc of 67.5º either side of the centreline of Y, so that at night X would see only the sternlight of Y but neither of its sidelights
54 words, 262 characters

I might chip in some thoughts on the use of ship-to-ship VHF later.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I suspect, but I'm not sure, there are thousands of watchkeepers on smaller commercial ships who hardly saw high school never mind college and would fall into the literacy category I mentioned. I'm certain there are fishing vessel skippers all over the world who've been at sea since they were 13/14 and never attended high school. Are we to dismiss the affect the millions of leisure boat skippers have on safety at sea?

I didn't say they had a degree, I said they were degree-level. The qualifications of a ships' officer are certainly at that level; I'm watching a young friend go through it! She's finding it tough and she already has a degree in an unrelated field. And she, although English isn't her first language, quite definitely has to understand ColRegs far better than I ever will. I also restricted that particular remark to ship's officers; Of course I know quite well that many skippers of small craft don't have that level of qualifications - but equally, they have to have appropriate certification before they can skipper any commercial vessel, and a better knowledge of ColRegs than most yachtspeople have is part of that.

In my own estimation, it's anglers and other hobby fishers that are most likely not to appreciate that there are rules.

 

[Irish Rover]

I wrote legal documentation for many years. I don't like the way the COLREGS are worded. Here's my attempt. Comments welcome.

ORIGINAL
A vessel shall be deemed to be overtaking when coming up with another vessel from a direction more than 22.5° abaft her beam, that is, in such a position with reference to the vessel she is overtaking, that at night she would be able to see only the sternlight of that vessel but neither of her sidelights.
57 words, 306 characters

MY RE-WRITE
A vessel (X) is overtaking when:
(1) X is approaching another vessel (Y), and
(2) X is going faster than Y, and
(3) X is within an arc of 67.5º either side of the centreline of Y, so that at night X would see only the sternlight of Y but neither of its sidelights
54 words, 262 characters

I might chip in some thoughts on the use of ship-to-ship VHF later.

With all due respect, I don't think all this blurb is necessary. "Overtaking" is not a difficult concept for anyone to understand unless, of course, you overcomplicate it, and then people begin to doubt themselves.
So IMHO if we just told people something simple like
"when you're overtaking another boat/ship you have to stay well away from it"
everyone would understand.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I wrote legal documentation for many years. I don't like the way the COLREGS are worded. Here's my attempt. Comments welcome.

ORIGINAL
A vessel shall be deemed to be overtaking when coming up with another vessel from a direction more than 22.5° abaft her beam, that is, in such a position with reference to the vessel she is overtaking, that at night she would be able to see only the sternlight of that vessel but neither of her sidelights.
57 words, 306 characters

MY RE-WRITE
A vessel (X) is overtaking when:
(1) X is approaching another vessel (Y), and
(2) X is going faster than Y, and
(3) X is within an arc of 67.5º either side of the centreline of Y, so that at night X would see only the sternlight of Y but neither of its sidelights
54 words, 262 characters

I might chip in some thoughts on the use of ship-to-ship VHF later.

That's not bad; the only change I'd make is to add "from behind" after " vessel (Y)" in the first point - unnecessary given the next point, but adds clarity. I was thinking purely in terms of grammatical English; doing it in bullet points works too. Unfortunately ColRegs isn't going to get changed any time soon - it is embedded in International agreements and is therefore difficult to change; also of course, precedent etc. are all based on the wording as is, so radical changes to the wording are unlikely to be acceptable. But this kind of thing might be useful in a textbook to expand and explain ColRegs.

All this is a distraction; from earlier discussions, the problem is seeing how the different rules interact in complex situations - and that's inevitably difficult.

 

[KevinV]

Nice tries on the rewrites, but if literacy is the perceived issue then a picture paints a thousand words - shown in a diagram it's easy as pi(e)

 

[AntarcticPilot]

With all due respect, I don't think all this blurb is necessary. "Overtaking" is not a difficult concept for anyone to understand unless, of course, you overcomplicate it, and then people begin to doubt themselves.
So IMHO if we just told people something simple like
"when you're overtaking another boat/ship you have to stay well away from it"
everyone would understand.

True - but ColRegs defines overtaking in such a way that it includes what most of us would regard as a crossing situation. If someone is coming up on me from 30 degrees behind my beam, I'm more likely to think of them as crossing! So the detail is important.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Nice tries on the rewrites, but if literacy is the perceived issue then all a picture paints a thousand words - shown in a diagram it's easy as pi(e)

But laws are written, not diagrammed. Again, fine for a textbook, but not for the actual regulations.

 

[Irish Rover]

I didn't say they had a degree, I said they were degree-level. The qualifications of a ships' officer are certainly at that level; I'm watching a young friend go through it! She's finding it tough and she already has a degree in an unrelated field. And she, although English isn't her first language, quite definitely has to understand ColRegs far better than I ever will. I also restricted that particular remark to ship's officers; Of course I know quite well that many skippers of small craft don't have that level of qualifications - but equally, they have to have appropriate certification before they can skipper any commercial vessel, and a better knowledge of ColRegs than most yachtspeople have is part of that.

In my own estimation, it's anglers and other hobby fishers that are most likely not to appreciate that there are rules.

Someone recommended to me the other day to read the plethora of reports issued by the MAIB [and that's just UK, every country has one]. I do read summaries from time to time and I don't see too many hobby fishers mentioned.

 

[Alicatt]

I very regularly hear ship’s pilots arranging to pass each other green to green when that seems the most appropriate or the most practical way. They most certainly know the COLREGS

Thats what your blue board is for

On that note, VDSES, how are people's VHF ready for that transition?
I was on the phone looking for a new radio for my boat and if what they had complied with the change in regulations that are coming for Belgian (and other EU) boats on 1st Jan 2024, one dealer got me to hold on while he contacted Icom, the current radios in stock don't comply but the new ones coming should be compliant, so far no answer from Standard Horizon/Yaesu

 

[KevinV]

But laws are written, not diagrammed. Again, fine for a textbook, but not for the actual regulations.

But the point that Irish Rover was making was about making them comprehensible to the less lingual.

The highway code for instance is not the letter of the law but a comprehensible explanation of the law - it is taught to the masses with pictures and diagrams.. That does not affect the letter of the law.

I think the whole discussion is a bit of a red herring to be honest - colregs are very carefully written, but most people only need to learn the meaning of the words, not the words themselves. There are already very good learning materials available, but they only work if people use them - a matter of educating people that they need educating.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Someone recommended to me the other day to read the plethora of reports issued by the MAIB [and that's just UK, every country has one]. I do read summaries from time to time and I don't see too many hobby fishers mentioned.

But they only investigate a minority of small boat incidents. And there have been some real howlers involving hobby fishermen. Also, most infractions of ColRegs don't result in anything that can be investigated because the other vessel did take avoiding action, as required by ColRegs.

 

[Irish Rover]

But they only investigate a minority of small boat incidents. And there have been some real howlers involving hobby fishermen. Also, most infractions of ColRegs don't result in anything that can be investigated because the other vessel did take avoiding action, as required by ColRegs.

So the vast majority of serious accidents and particularly those involving serious injury or death are those involving larger commercial vessels being operated by "qualified" officers. Interesting, even telling, wouldn't you say?

 

[Sandy]

That's a completely separate matter and has nothing to do with the point I was making. If you tell me that a person with limited education and literacy skills wouldn't have difficulty with language like quoted below then I guess I must be wrong:
"A vessel shall be deemed to be overtaking when coming up with another vessel from a direction more than 22.5° abaft her beam, that is, in such a position with reference to the vessel she is overtaking, that at night she would be able to see only the sternlight of that vessel but neither of her sidelights."

I was trying to look at a more general approach on how people in Türkiye view things like the equivalent of the UK Highway Code. Do they totally ignore any regulations to the driving of motor vehicles?

I expect that the COLREGS are translated into Turkish, in fact I've done a delivery with a Turkish skipper who a) spoke excellent English and b) had a full understanding of the COLREGS.

Regulations, I know as I spent many years writing and enforcing them, need to be written in a very precise way so that there is no ambiguity. 22.5° abaft her beam might sound strange to somebody who is not use to nautical terms. Another way to describe it could be, 'from behind you until the relative angle is more than 22.5° from at a tangent from the widest part of the ship. That sounds very unwieldy and a) is the widest part of the ship the correct place to run the tangent from and b) does everybody understand that a tangent is?

Sometimes, that precision needs to be broken down into 'plain English' for people to understand the meaning. I know when I first looked at the COLREGS I was lost until some really good people sat over a pint in the bar and started to explain the meaning.

 

[Irish Rover]

I was trying to look at a more general approach on how people in Türkiye view things like the equivalent of the UK Highway Code. Do they totally ignore any regulations to the driving of motor vehicles?

I expect that the COLREGS are translated into Turkish, in fact I've done a delivery with a Turkish skipper who a) spoke excellent English and b) had a full understanding of the COLREGS.

Regulations, I know as I spent many years writing and enforcing them, need to be written in a very precise way so that there is no ambiguity. 22.5° abaft her beam might sound strange to somebody who is not use to nautical terms. Another way to describe it could be, 'from behind you until the relative angle is more than 22.5° from at a tangent from the widest part of the ship. That sounds very unwieldy and a) is the widest part of the ship the correct place to run the tangent from and b) does everybody understand that a tangent is?

Sometimes, that precision needs to be broken down into 'plain English' for people to understand the meaning. I know when I first looked at the COLREGS I was lost until some really good people sat over a pint in the bar and started to explain the meaning.

With respect, I think you're avoiding the point I made - the difficulty for people with limited education/literacy to understand the complex language of the colregs.

 

[Sandy]

So the vast majority of serious accidents and particularly those involving serious injury or death are those involving larger commercial vessels being operated by "qualified" officers. Interesting, even telling, wouldn't you say?

I think you are splitting hairs. Large commercial vessels need to be operated by 'qualified' officers as that is laid down in the international regulations. If unqualified officers were to operate them very quickly the company would quickly find itself in court.

The MAIB are there to investigate incidents where death, serious injury to a person or damage to a vessel occurs.

 

[Sandy]

With respect, I think you're avoiding the point I made - the difficulty for people with limited education/literacy to understand the complex language of the colregs.

With respect I am not I am using an example of regulation in another transport environment.

 

[john_morris_uk]

With respect, I think you're avoiding the point I made - the difficulty for people with limited education/literacy to understand the complex language of the colregs.

That’s why there are lots of books and training aids to help people understand the rules. They really aren’t that difficult to understand.

 

[mjcoon]

That's not bad; the only change I'd make is to add "from behind" after " vessel (Y)" in the first point - unnecessary given the next point, but adds clarity.

I don't think (2) makes it unnecessary at all, since you can approach another vessel from in front, although it is hardly relevant which is going faster in that case. But that is a deduction, not inherent in the wording. I used to write instructions (programs) for computers. If they can see a different result from what is intended, they will take the wrong one!

 

[mjcoon]

Sometimes, that precision needs to be broken down into 'plain English' for people to understand the meaning. I know when I first looked at the COLREGS I was lost until some really good people sat over a pint in the bar and started to explain the meaning.

Ah, but can you still understand them when sober? ;-)