Do you ignore col regs

[timbartlett]

...you make them sound more like a duel to the death/ game of chicken with tankers than sensible guidance.

If you would take the trouble to read what I have taken the trouble to write, and compare it with the actual text of the colregs you would see that I have never said or suggested anything of the kind.

We all perceive the 'last chance to live' opportunity at different distances depending on our boats and experiences (but not class room experiences).

I have many thousands of sea miles under my belt, in ships, yachts, and motor boats, as a professional and for pleasure.
And yes, I do teach, and I train instructors. I am commissioned to write books, and I am invited to speak at conferences. I don't understand how (or why) you regard any of those as indicating ignorance, nor why you think that having studied the colregs precludes the possibility that I also apply them afloat

when you are preaching col regs you need to be aware that your preachings come across to 80% of us that you are standing on to near death, I realize you dont but thats how it comes across to us.

I'm sorry. I try not to "preach", but I've been misquoted so often (often by you!) that I have had to reiterate this point so many times that I am becoming bored with it.

I'm not going to repeat it: if you really believe that is what I said, then please just look back over some of my previous posts. http://www.ybw.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2798952&postcount=30 would not be a bad place to start: it says (amongst other things):-
you are not bound to hang on until a collision becomes inevitable
and The guy who stands on out of pure bloody-mindedness is just as wrong as the one who bottles out early!
It's not exactly ambiguous, is it?

 

[rubberduck]

I agree, but nobody has is suggested mixing it with ships in that manner - so why mention it?

Why is it that people get involved in a discussion & then forget where it started half way through, perhaps its age, or a glass or two too many.

 

[DAKA]

If you would take the trouble to read what I have taken the trouble to write, and compare it with the actual text of the colregs you would see that I have never said or suggested anything of the kind.
I have many thousands of sea miles under my belt, in ships, yachts, and motor boats, as a professional and for pleasure.
And yes, I do teach, and I train instructors. I am commissioned to write books, and I am invited to speak at conferences. I don't understand how (or why) you regard any of those as indicating ignorance, nor why you think that having studied the colregs precludes the possibility that I also apply them afloat
I'm sorry. I try not to "preach", but I've been misquoted so often (often by you!) that I have had to reiterate this point so many times that I am becoming bored with it.

I'm not going to repeat it: if you really believe that is what I said, then please just look back over some of my previous posts. http://www.ybw.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2798952&postcount=30 would not be a bad place to start: it says (amongst other things):-
you are not bound to hang on until a collision becomes inevitable
and The guy who stands on out of pure bloody-mindedness is just as wrong as the one who bottles out early!
It's not exactly ambiguous, is it?

You have side stepped the question on what you would do in my example as quoted above.
I fear you are still lost in the red mist bank , however the tone has lowered slightly so lets try to find a solution why 80% of forum members dont apparently agree with you.
Your preaching of self grandeur smacks of the latter years of thatcherisum but eventually even she was toppled mainly because she also stopped listening to the masses as she thought she knew best, so please see through the red mist and hear me out with an open mind as I have no wish to topple you from your pedestal .

its this bit which needs a little further explanation

the give way vessel hasn't seen you, or is unable to conform to the rules, or even if they can't be bothered, you are not bound to hang on until a collision becomes inevitable


I think most of us prefer to have a little extra safety margin beyond 'inevitable' in my case having missed the opportunity to join the forces and not being trained to stand fast under fire I like to miss tankers by more than a few meters, perhaps you think Im a coward.

Thankyou snowleopard for agreeing I can use it.

Using the photo as a view from my flybridge and assuming the tanker is going to pass astern of me by 50-200 metres @ 20 knots and I am cruising @ 20 knots what action if any would you take ?

From 1.5 mile away the time to close contact is 3-4 minutes away, not much time to make a decision .
Yes I know I dont travel 1.5 nm in 3 minutes but the bit everyone missed before on this photo is the tanker MAY be 2-3 miles away but the area of predicted 'close contact' is MUCH closer as the 2-3 miles is reducing very fast as the Tanker moves forward.

 

[timbartlett]

You have side stepped the question on what you would do in my example as quoted above.

I don't see that you have posed a question, or quoted an example above. I'm sorry if I missed something.

I fear you are still lost in the red mist bank , however the tone has lowered slightly so lets try to find a solution why 80% of forum members dont apparently agree with you.

No red mist, though I am concerned that you and one or two others are propagating some very bad advice, that is both dangerous and illegal. I suspect that part of the reason so many appear to have said they flout the rules is because the poll questions were ambiguous. I notice that some of the 80% have said that their replies are being misinterpreted. I also notice that you have inflated the figure slightly be arbitrarily disregarding anyone who has responded as both a raggie and a stinkie. (Why would you do that? I do both. I know I am not unique)

Your preaching of self grandeur

No "self-grandeur", I assure you. But as you and others (particularly HLB) have seen fit to mislead the forum about my qualifications, I don't think it unreasonable to counter with some facts.

I have no wish to topple you from your pedestal

No pedestal, either ... though you do seem to have set out to topple me from the one that only exists in your mind! .

I think most of us prefer to have a little extra safety margin beyond 'inevitable' ...

Which bit of "you are not bound to hang on until a collision becomes inevitable" is so difficult to understand?

Using the photo as a view from my flybridge and assuming the tanker is going to pass astern of me by 50-200 metres @ 20 knots and I am cruising @ 20 knots what action if any would you take ?

I don't need a photo to know what a tanker looks like, thank you. And if that was the view from your flybridge, I would say that it is quite unlikely that the tanker would pass astern of you unless you are doing a lot more than 20 knots.
And if that photo was taken from a flybridge, the range is about 3 miles -- maybe a smidge more.

The arithmetic is very simple, though it does involve some approximations: you say the tanker is doing 20kts, so if we assume that you are crossing at approximately 90 degrees the range is reducing by 28 miles per hour. 2.8 miles per six minutes. Even if you were going to have a collision, it would take about 7 minutes to get to it.

Depending on the visibility, the tanker may well have been visible 10-12 miles away, so by the time it gets to the stage in the photograph, you've already had twenty minutes to think about it. If you really wanted to avoid any possibility of risk of collision, you could legitimately have taken avoiding action ten minutes ago, when the range was still >6miles

I would do what the colregs tell me to do:
(1) I would stand on, but keep an eye on the ship
(2) if the bearing of both ends of the ship are changing in the same direction, no problem
(3) if the range reduces to about a mile or so, I could take my own avoiding action by altering course to starboard (altering to port is illegal in this situation)
(4) Personally, in this particular situation, I would stand on beyond this point. If the range closes to about 1000m (roughly four ship lengths), the bearing still appears to be steady, and the ship has still made no alteration of course, then I would alter course about 90 degrees to starboard and slow down until the ship is past.

This would conform to the letter and spirit of the rules, it would not have made life difficult for the OOW, it would have delayed me by no more than a minute or so, and it would have achieved a CPA in the order of half a mile. What's not to like?

But there are several other perfectly good and legitimate options. What I do not understand is why so many people apparently insist on doing precisely the wrong thing:-
i.e. alter course when rule 17a(i) specifically tells them to stand on
alter course to port when rule 17c specifically tells them not to.

 

[MapisM]

Using the photo as a view from my flybridge and assuming the tanker is going to pass astern of me by 50-200 metres @ 20 knots and I am cruising @ 20 knots what action if any would you take ?

Do what you wish, but don't dare turning to port to pass behind the tanker.
You might not know it, but surely there's a frantic activity going on in its bridge, and they're already steering 10 or 20 degrees to stbd.
By steering to port yourself, you'd force them to convert such maneuver into a 40 degrees steering to port!
Comical.

 

[timbartlett]

Do what you wish, but don't dare turning to port to pass behind the tanker.
You might not know it, but surely there's a frantic activity going on in its bridge, and they're already steering 10 or 20 degrees to stbd.
By steering to port yourself, you'd force them to convert such maneuver into a 40 degrees steering to port!
Comical.

Where did you get that stupid idea from? It couldn't be a deliberate attempt to misrepresent an earlier post of mine in which I pointed out that altering course a few degrees at long range was a lot easier than making a big alteration at short range, could it?

Who would think such a thing?

Someone who is incapable of understanding a very simple plain english sentence such as "A power driven vessel which takes action in a crossing situation to avoid collision with another power driven vessel shall not alter course for a vessel on her starboard side". Mind you, that's only what the law says. And some people are above the law -- it only applies to professionals, commercial vessels, and big ships. (Oh, and anyone who isn't as rich as HLB -- I nearly forgot)

 

[webcraft]

From 1.5 mile away the time to close contact is 3-4 minutes away, not much time to make a decision

Hope I never meet you on the road then

- W

 

[westernman]

I don't see that you have posed a question, or quoted an example above. I'm sorry if I missed something.
No red mist, though I am concerned that you and one or two others are propagating some very bad advice, that is both dangerous and illegal. I suspect that part of the reason so many appear to have said they flout the rules is because the poll questions were ambiguous. I notice that some of the 80% have said that their replies are being misinterpreted. I also notice that you have inflated the figure slightly be arbitrarily disregarding anyone who has responded as both a raggie and a stinkie. (Why would you do that? I do both. I know I am not unique)
No "self-grandeur", I assure you. But as you and others (particularly HLB) have seen fit to mislead the forum about my qualifications, I don't think it unreasonable to counter with some facts. No pedestal, either ... though you do seem to have set out to topple me from the one that only exists in your mind! .
Which bit of "you are not bound to hang on until a collision becomes inevitable" is so difficult to understand?
I don't need a photo to know what a tanker looks like, thank you. And if that was the view from your flybridge, I would say that it is quite unlikely that the tanker would pass astern of you unless you are doing a lot more than 20 knots.
And if that photo was taken from a flybridge, the range is about 3 miles -- maybe a smidge more.

The arithmetic is very simple, though it does involve some approximations: you say the tanker is doing 20kts, so if we assume that you are crossing at approximately 90 degrees the range is reducing by 28 miles per hour. 2.8 miles per six minutes. Even if you were going to have a collision, it would take about 7 minutes to get to it.

Depending on the visibility, the tanker may well have been visible 10-12 miles away, so by the time it gets to the stage in the photograph, you've already had twenty minutes to think about it. If you really wanted to avoid any possibility of risk of collision, you could legitimately have taken avoiding action ten minutes ago, when the range was still >6miles

I would do what the colregs tell me to do:
(1) I would stand on, but keep an eye on the ship
(2) if the bearing of both ends of the ship are changing in the same direction, no problem
(3) if the range reduces to about a mile or so, I could take my own avoiding action by altering course to starboard (altering to port is illegal in this situation)
(4) Personally, in this particular situation, I would stand on beyond this point. If the range closes to about 1000m (roughly four ship lengths), the bearing still appears to be steady, and the ship has still made no alteration of course, then I would alter course about 90 degrees to starboard and slow down until the ship is past.

This would conform to the letter and spirit of the rules, it would not have made life difficult for the OOW, it would have delayed me by no more than a minute or so, and it would have achieved a CPA in the order of half a mile. What's not to like?

But there are several other perfectly good and legitimate options. What I do not understand is why so many people apparently insist on doing precisely the wrong thing:-
i.e. alter course when rule 17a(i) specifically tells them to stand on
alter course to port when rule 17c specifically tells them not to.

Thanks for the clear and unambiguous description of the situation and how you would react.

 

[westernman]

Another concrete situation (which happened to me):-

You are motoring on a straight line course at 180 opposed of that of another vessel, a fishing trawler, coming towards you. You are on each others starboard side. But you are on a collision course - at least you are going to remove a good amount of paint from the starboard side.

You make change of 15 degrees to starboard at a range of about 700m. I.e. a fairly comfortable distance for the size of boats involved. Then you perceive that the fishing boat is still on a collision course for you - he must have changed course at about the same time to port.

What do you do now?

Was the change of 15 degrees to starboard wrong?

 

[webcraft]

Another concrete situation (which happened to me):-

You are motoring on a straight line course at 180 opposed of that of another vessel, a fishing trawler, coming towards you. You are on each others starboard side. But you are on a collision course - at least you are going to remove a good amount of paint from the starboard side.

You make change of 15 degrees to starboard at a range of about 700m. I.e. a fairly comfortable distance for the size of boats involved. Then you perceive that the fishing boat is still on a collision course for you - he must have changed course at about the same time to port.

What do you do now?

Was the change of 15 degrees to starboard wrong?

You can't win with fishing boats. They may well be steering to the display on the fishfinder. You just have to keep out of their way, even if they seem to be trying to collide with you. In any event this isn't really relevant to this topic as originally posted as a fishing vessel engaged in fishing is nearly always the stand-on vessel.

- W

 

[MapisM]

Who would think such a thing?
Someone who is incapable of understanding a very simple plain english sentence such as...

Why worry about what others are incapable to understand, when you just said that you don't understand "why so many people apparently insist on doing precisely the wrong thing".

That's dead easy, I reckon.
The wrong thing is the one which gets the job done quicker and easier, doesn't pose any practical risk in spite of the fact that it's against colregs, and doesn't force ships to alter their course - though they mostly wouldn't anyway.

 

[benjenbav]

You have side stepped the question on what you would do in my example as quoted above.
I fear you are still lost in the red mist bank , however the tone has lowered slightly so lets try to find a solution why 80% of forum members dont apparently agree with you.
Your preaching of self grandeur smacks of the latter years of thatcherisum but eventually even she was toppled mainly because she also stopped listening to the masses as she thought she knew best, so please see through the red mist and hear me out with an open mind as I have no wish to topple you from your pedestal .

its this bit which needs a little further explanation

the give way vessel hasn't seen you, or is unable to conform to the rules, or even if they can't be bothered, you are not bound to hang on until a collision becomes inevitable


I think most of us prefer to have a little extra safety margin beyond 'inevitable' in my case having missed the opportunity to join the forces and not being trained to stand fast under fire I like to miss tankers by more than a few meters, perhaps you think Im a coward.

Thankyou snowleopard for agreeing I can use it.

Using the photo as a view from my flybridge and assuming the tanker is going to pass astern of me by 50-200 metres @ 20 knots and I am cruising @ 20 knots what action if any would you take ?

From 1.5 mile away the time to close contact is 3-4 minutes away, not much time to make a decision .
Yes I know I dont travel 1.5 nm in 3 minutes but the bit everyone missed before on this photo is the tanker MAY be 2-3 miles away but the area of predicted 'close contact' is MUCH closer as the 2-3 miles is reducing very fast as the Tanker moves forward.

Geez yer all wrong!!!! What about givng way to the stand on sailing dinghy or the stand on rib? No point in mowing them down before taking on the tanker.

 

[Robin]

Do what you wish, but don't dare turning to port to pass behind the tanker.
You might not know it, but surely there's a frantic activity going on in its bridge, and they're already steering 10 or 20 degrees to stbd.
By steering to port yourself, you'd force them to convert such maneuver into a 40 degrees steering to port!
Comical.

Actually NOT so funny if you realise it is not what the tanker bridge officer does at this point that should concern you, because they will miss you for the very reason you gave. However what the ones do on the VLCC following behind it and that you are now on a collision course with should concern you. In the English Channel and other busy areas it is rarely just a one on one board game but a very much more complex evolving one indeed. The skilled bridge officers on the ships out there will have their 'boards' mentally neatly laid out with perhaps the odd course tweak as they see fit from several miles, then along come a headless chicken who thinks he knows better than the Colregs and does exactly the opposite of what the rules say.

DAKA's question is not difficult to answer, stand on a bit but don't even think of cutting close across the bows, then turn to starboard and slow right down. You could even just stay on the original course and just stop until the tanker passes ahead. What is dangerous or wrong with that?

The problem with threads like this is that some people imagine the situations only from their personal experience. Some will never have been in busy seaways (I'm talking with ships not small boats) so see it from a them versus a lone ship or another small boat point of view. Some seem to see it all as a power versus sail thing. Some will never have encountered the busy seaway scenario but have very active imaginations about them and therefore see the beam me up Scotty avoid everything approach as their simple answer.

The Colregs have been tried and tested and re-tested and discussed and refined and again and again, by the REAL experts and the conclusion is they are the best it gets, they are also international law.

 

[fireball]

If you find a website that tracks AIS, you can monitor the movement of whole chunks of ocean. You can on some also filter the AIS signals from different types of ship. By moving mouse over each 'blip' you can see current course and speed...

I spent a couple of hours watching Southampton and English Channel/Dover on two screens this afternoon and have to say that the big stuff doesn't seem to alter course much. That's in no way conclusive and it could be that being January there ain't many day trippers out there? I'd have expected a few channel hoppers and thus some course changes for crossing traffic? Those changes I have seen seem to stick to any new course for quite some time and wouldn't appear to have been avoiding anything. I'm impressed how the cross-channel's nip through what I assume to be 'gaps' (I say 'appear' as they look on the map sometimes to go 'over' each other) - and I never realised they can do close to 30 knots!

I'm bored now, seeing ship-shapes before my eyes and my hand aches from mouse and scribbling down/updating courses, speeds and names (who'd have wanted to be an air traffic controller in the early days?) More worrying still, of the 54 I was tracking, I lost two altogether... (Yes, I could have used the 'search' facility to find them, but I was struggling to keep up as it was and could neither scribble fast enough nor risk losing the other 52!

That experiment over, I've concluded little more than from this debate, so I'm going to invoice those of you still squabbling for encouraging me to waste 2 hours of my life...

If you want an alternative dose of reality - I have had big ships give way to me with no fuss - on a sail boat you're generally travelling at 1/2 the speed of the commercial boys and quite a few will take your course and speed (along with the conditions!) into consideration - some others will stand on regardless - why they do this I can't be certain, but probably they're not certain about my heading/speed and more likely - have other vessels to take into consideration. From first sighting via AIS to deciding on whether to alter course is usually around 15 minutes at which point you can be pretty certain if they are taking avoiding action or not (they may not deem it necessary - they've got a better vantage and more stable vessel than me!) - by which time I'll usually try and aim for their stern. Once or twice I've fired up the engine to give a burst of speed - this just helps put the ship back outside my personal comfort zone.
It's no big issue and I don't expect commercial shipping to automatically give way just because I'm sailing and I'm sure some skippers do carry on regardless in the knowledge that leisure skippers will give way. However, I will stand on (if allowed too under colregs) until I can make a judgement on the commerical's intentions - if it isn't clear and we're still at long range then I may decide just to give way anyway.

As has been said it is also local custom for leisure boats to give way to the commercials (it's law for certain vessels in the Solent) - and this is common sense if there is a significant density of leisures that the large commercials couldn't even start to plan a route through.

 

[fireball]

<snip> In the English Channel and other busy areas it is rarely just a one on one board game but a very much more complex evolving one indeed. The skilled bridge officers on the ships out there will have their 'boards' mentally neatly laid out with perhaps the odd course tweak as they see fit from several miles, </snip>

Quite agree - I had the privileged of visiting the bridge of the Poole->CI's fastcat - it was great to watch the officers spot vessels both visually and on radar and track a path through them at 35 knots. They were spotting vessels 2 or 3 heading changes ahead - not disimilar to a motorbike weaving through traffic.
Mind you - with them at 35 knots and the gaps they gave - if I altered course in my boat at 6 or 7 knots it would have no affect whatsoever ...

 

[DAKA]

Do what you wish, but don't dare turning to port to pass behind the tanker.
You might not know it, but surely there's a frantic activity going on in its bridge, and they're already steering 10 or 20 degrees to stbd.
By steering to port yourself, you'd force them to convert such maneuver into a 40 degrees steering to port!
Comical.

Well I am so pleased I posted this, as I also feel I am learning something, I had missed the most obvious reaction to the col regs which had been staring me in the face all these years, thankyou Tim and Fireball, I dont know how I could have missed it.

Just slow down and wait for the Tankers/raggies to sail past, Of course there is a ******* great hick up, in that it is illegal to alter speed if you are stand on , perhaps on busy days it might be easier to cruise across @ 4-5 knots and be done with it.
Next time the wife and kids ask how long it will take to get to Guernsey (3-4 hours) I will be able to tell them 25 hours , thats 8 times the usual enjoyment packed into the same journey, now I am beginning to understand why sailing is so popular.

 

[webcraft]

Just slow down and wait for the Tankers/raggies to sail past, perhaps on busy days it might be easier to cruise across @ 4-5 knots and be done with it.
Next time the wife and kids ask how long it will take to get to Guernsey (3-4 hours) I will be able to tell them 25 hours , thats 8 times the usual enjoyment packed into the same journey, now I am beginning to understand why sailing is so popular.

Now the truth is out. DAKA ignores the IRPCS because he is too important to slow down.

- W

 

[DAKA]

Now the truth is out. DAKA ignores the IRPCS because he is too important to slow down.

- W

Where did you deduce from my post

You posted a nasty thread about me yesterday on scuttleburks, in the thread I asked you if it was intended as a joke or if you were really attempting to be as nasty as I took it.
You didnt respond as far as I know but cant be certain as the thread has been deleted by the moderators ( I didnt specifically request this action however I am very pleased they removed it).

I ask again was it your idea of a joke ?
If it wasnt I cant understand why you would wish to communicate with me now or why you should expect a response from me.

 

[timbartlett]

Now the truth is out. DAKA ignores the IRPCS because he is too important to slow down.

- W

I thought it was 'cos he was just paranoid -- convinced that hundreds of ships were lying in wait somewhere off the Cherbourg Penninsula, ready to pounce on him when he tried to get to the Ship and Crown

 

[webcraft]

You posted a nasty thread about me yesterday on scuttleburks

A nasty thread is one - like this one - which potentially puts lives at risk.

Is Scuttleburks meant to be a term of endearment? You seem to use it all the time. Sounds a bit sneering and unpleasant to me, and not particularly conducive to good Mobo / Raggie relationships.

Could it be that you are keen to dish it out but not so good at receiving?

- W