Dive boats and passing boats.

Sea Devil

Sea Devil

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Does anyone else feel not quite sure what - 'I have a diver down - keep well clear at slow speed' means?

Frequently 'Dive' boats are parked somewhere showing a pretty small A or the dive flag and it is not clear they are a school or dive party until you are fairly close. Close being a relative term because the signal flown implies that the 'diver(s)' is close to the parent boat but (and I dive myself) that is frequently not the case.......

Without commenting on the recent accident is there a case for dive boats displaying larger signs and in some way marking the area their divers are operating in???

I try to be careful but a couple of times have unintentionally passed closer to a dive party than is ideal. What do you think?
 
An "A" flag really needs to be a flag and not some tiny little pennant. It is near on impossible to see whether doing a spot of angling or guarding divers until, as you rightly say, you are almost on top of them.

It would also help if, and now I'm really in cloud cuckoo land, the pennants were taken down when the boat is not engaged in diving operations, rather than being left in place like some posey badge of office.
 
An 'A' flag on a diving boat is not an 'A' flag. It should be a rigid replica of an 'A' flag at least 1 metre high, and measures should be taken to ensure its all round visibility. Rule 27(e)(ii)
 
Definetely larger signs/flags/shapes would be helpful. One of the problems is that the boats that they use look just like any other fishing/angling boat out at sea so I've found myself under sail with an apparent day angling motor boat coming at me and not seeing the A pennant until far too close. The problem is the dichotomy of ColReg action that one would take between motor angling boat (underway) and dive boat circling dived divers.
 
I have been teaching just that since the present colregs came into force on the 15th July 1977, but try telling that to a diving school and they just laugh in your face.
I have the same difficulty with two cones points together which should mean "engaged in fishing" but how many times do you see trawlers et al dried out in places like Brixham inner harbour with the cones permanently welded to the rigging?
 
The other side of the coin is, how many yachts motoring with their mainsail up have a cone hoisted.......

Totally agree about the visibility of the "A" flag. Most are no bigger than a burgee or courtesy flag. Left out in the sun to fade or be torn to tatters by the wind..... a bit like yachties and ensigns maybe??? A sign of how well travelled they are??
 
While we're on the subject of admonishing others, how many here display the correct day shape while motor sailing /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Rule 25;

(e) A vessel proceeding under sail when also being propelled by machinery shall exhibit forward where it can best be seen a conical shape, apex downwards.
 
[ QUOTE ]
vessel proceeding under sail when also being propelled by machinery.

[/ QUOTE ]
This begs the question –
If a sailing boat just has its main up, is it ‘proceeding under sail’, especially if it has its head to wind, or there is no wind!
Does this also apply to a motor yacht with a mizzen stay sail or a ketch with its mizzen up?

IMO these vessels are NOT ‘proceeding under sail’ as without the engine on the vessel would not proceed!
Equally a yacht under full sail with the engine on but not in gear is NOT ‘being propelled by machinery’.

Tin hat now goes on as I duck for cover.

As for Dive Boats, they have a hell of a job on their hands, if diving a wreck with a shot line, good practice is that divers descend and ascend via the shot line, so the dive boat can then place its self between the divers and any approaching potential hazard. All well and good, but if divers scatter over the wreck and ascend from wherever or on a slow drift dive some divers either stop still or decide to go upstream the dive boat can only motor slowly between the various groups of bubbles or better – around the area of Surface Marker Buoys (SMB’s). It is then much more difficult to warn off any approaching potential hazard.

It is the responsibility of the divers to '''Plan the Dive and Dive the Plan’’’
 
I do. Because if you expect others to go by the rules that suit us, then we should show respect for the same set of rules.

It cannot be one set of Col Regs for one group and another for a different group.
 
So far this year, on passages between Weymouth and Chichester, I've seen 1 (ONE) sailing boat motoring with the mainsail up displaying a cone.

Regret to say, it wasn't me. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif
 
That's all well and good for the dive boat skipper but it does not excuse him/her from obeying Rule 27 (e) (ii). Been there, done that, and understand the problems but that is what makes a good skipper.

As for motoring cones Yes, and I was prepared to put up with the sniggers from the ignorant/unintelligent yotties and just waited for them to come to me for their Yachtmaster exam. I loved giving them their come uppance! I am now retired from that game, but I believe current examiners are just a hard as I was. After all, it is a certificate of competence.
 
[ QUOTE ]
This begs the question –
If a sailing boat just has its main up, is it ‘proceeding under sail’, especially if it has its head to wind, or there is no wind!
Does this also apply to a motor yacht with a mizzen stay sail or a ketch with its mizzen up?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that if there is any doubt then you assume that this is the case and act accordingly.

At least one sail up, check.
Boat underway and making way, check.
Prop turning in the water and propelling the boat, check.

It's not that difficult to understand /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Not sure that the cone and the A or dive flag are comparable.

I have never bothered to hoist a cone - ever - but then it is decades since I have been in Chichester Harbour. It is pretty easy to work out if a yacht has its motor driving it if viewed from another small boat. Frankly I think it all a bit irrelevant.

The A or divers flag actually represents a life threatening situation.

A dive boat can have its divers spread out 10s of metres from the boat and giving it a 'wide berth at slow speed' is sometimes problematical. What constitutes a wide berth? Where are all these divers going to surface....? If the warning flag is small then you can already be too close before you recognise it..... I think diving in crowded busy waters without a larger guard zone of some sort is a disaster waiting to happen... I have dived in the Caribbean, Pacific, Asia etc with some pretty big sharks around but I think the risks there are less than the crowded waters of the south coast........
 
I think you are ducking half the case

At least one sail up, check.
Boat NOT making way, check.
So that’s why the Prop is turning in the water and propelling the boat, check.
Cone or No Cone?

At least one sail up, check.
Boat underway and making way, check.
Engine on but Prop NOT turning in the water and propelling the boat, check.
Cone or No Cone?

Is it that difficult to understand /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
An 'A' flag on a diving boat is not an 'A' flag. It should be a rigid replica of an 'A' flag at least 1 metre high, and measures should be taken to ensure its all round visibility. Rule 27(e)(ii)

[/ QUOTE ]

But that's not all. By definition, under Rule 3(g)(ii), a diving boat is a 'vessel restricted in its ability to manoeuvre'; a vessel which from the nature of her work is restricted in her ability to manoeuvre as required by the Rules and is therefore unable to keep out of the way of another vessel. As such, she should carry the ball-diamond-ball combination, with balls and diamonds showing the safe side to pass.

But Colregs recognise that these are impractical on a small vessel, and allow the use of a rigid replica of flag A as a substitute. Impractical on a small RIB perhaps, but a lot of diving boats are quite big enough to show ball-diamond-ball. I wonder whether they might be shown more respect if they did? Or even showed both?
 
In fairness, I think that our Mobo friends would be entitled to say that if we've got our cones up at least it means that they know what to expect and that we are not likely to suddenly tack in front of them. Also, once we are motoring we become a powered vessel and the give way rules are a little different from when we are under sail!..........we do sometimes cheat a little by obliging Mobo's to give way when they needn't.

Having said that, I never use a motoring cone because I'm too lazy to put it up.

I take your point though about the need to get dive boats properly flagged; as you say, it really is a life a death matter.

Isn't the "wide berth" requirement simply a matter of common sense? When I see the flag I stay well away and I've not hit anyone yet. There's still plenty of space on the water for us to play and I've never yet seen a dive boat positioned where it isn't possible to give him a wide berth.
 
'vessel restricted in its ability to manoeuvre' only applies to dive boats that have divers down using surface demand diving from a bell or diving on a pipe or the like. ie: Commercial diving, as was more the case umpty years back.

Not the case with the majority of dive club RIB's.
 
Re: Motor sailing cones

Surely you knew that the local bye-laws have modified the "motor Sailing cone" to be used merely for signifying that the boat is carrying a Yachtmaster Examiner!


As for the dive boats. I have driven them myself, and would like a change in the rules to alllow some form of strobe light to be used to signify that diving was actually in operation.
 
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