Fireworks and FOG!!

[Moose]

We went to watch the fireworks at Cowes the other night despite all the warnings about people bashing into us e.t.c. Very good they were too except that No1 didn't see any of them cos' he was making sure we didn't hit anything as well as giving us a good view/forums/images/icons/smile.gif The new horn worked well except that the Mongoose in the 40something foot Princess behind us didn't have a clue what 3 blasts means when we had to reverse rapidly to avoid the Police boat heading for us at 30kts with all his lights flashing (okay so I could read the name oN the firework barge, but we weren't that close/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif) After the fireworks had finished we decided to run the gauntlet down the Medina to meet up with NorthernWave at the Folly. We finally left Cowes at about 12:30am to get back to Chichester by 2:00am. (LW was at 3:10am) We had a nice trip back to Chichester through the Solent and across the Bar. After turning the corner at East Head to turn North up towards Chalkdock pile we hit a patch of incredibly thick fog, which reduced our speed to a crawl and navigating with GPS, radar and trying keep on the Transit heading we managed to get up to the Pile at the north of the Channel. I was standing on the Bow as a lookout and I saw the pile pass about 9feet down our Starboard side but I never saw the Green light on the top/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif We now turned to Starboard and picked up the Fairway buoy on radar at 0.8nm along with all the other boats anchored along the Itchenor fairway bit. After seeing the buoy disappear into the short range clutter on the radar I saw it pass about 4feet down our Starboard side/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif After deciding that it was foolhardy to try and carry on to Chichester bearing in mind that we would have to pick our way through 1.5nm of moored boats in 15foot visability (No1 could now see me standing on the bow/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif) and then navigate up a 20foot wide unlit channel with 100feet between each pile, we picked up the first mooring buoy we could see and stayed there until 5am when we could get in on the rising tide and hopefully see where we were going, we also needed to get back ASAP as we had friends on board who had to get back to feed their starving dog.
We did get in at 5:30 and the visability was about 300m by then so all was well in the end.

BUT, What should I have done? was it safe to carry on to Itchenor in the conditions or should I have anchored at East Head when the Visablity first came down? (could I have anchored in 5foot visablity?)
Oh and another thing, how do I get horrid black marks from Fireworks out of my GRP, they are not burns but are difficult to get out with all the cleaning stuff I have.

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El Alce

 

[Moose]

Should have said that at this time there was a "Pan Pan" regarding a boat that hit the Eastoke Pile in bad visability!!
And I am quite glad I didn't carry on up to Chichester because 3 boats that did took the wrong turning (i.e couldn't see the turning) and were still on the Mud when I went past at 5:30am.
Oh and why can't people use the proper sound signals in restricted visability? At one point a smallish MoBo went past me about 15feet away and never once gave a nice long blast on his horn,,,I did.

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El Alce

 

[tcm]

This sounds very good to me. A mobile radio for the guy up front works well. Yeah, with hindsight stopping earlier might have been better. Hayd7yn magic boat cleaner works well, but make sure you dilute it a lot. I would like an automatic horn praper but they cost loads.

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[Observer]

Automatic foghorn

This is a feature on the Raymarine 230E VHF (along with a loudhailer and some other functions) which I assume is not overly expensive - but perhaps the foghorn sound is a bit pitiful and not "shiplike" - I dunno?


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[markdj]

Re: Automatic foghorn

We used our electric auto foghorn for the first time coming home from the Channel Islands to Strangford, Northern Ireland. The vis was down to 25 metres at times though generally was a few miles...

When we got in to strangford lough the vis was less than 10 metres (unbelievably bad) so we had to anchor off until morning as going into a sheltered mooring with around 150 boats swinging was just too risky. Searchlight was next to useless as we couldn't see much further than the bow of the boat!!! Have never seen it so dense and thick before. After anchoring the night in a small bay we moved in at 9am after the fog lifted.

BTW the radar and compass were the most useful items that night. The chartplotter certainly told us where we were but you can't maneouvre in thick fog using only the chartplotter. If we hadn't have had the radar and of course the compass, the story could have been different.

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