Got radar, needs AIS as well??

[Sans Bateau]

The writing was on the wall long before the Ouzo tradegy, you cannot offload your safety and security to some one else, mainly because they will never place the same level of importance on it as you do.

If you are ina vulnerable vessel you need to be more carefully about who is around you than some one who is in a rather invulnerable vessel.

One of the big changes I have noticed since AIS is the way big ships now talk to each other. The know the other ships name and call them directly. In the old days there was lots of "the ship in front of the big tanker, etc etc and you did hear cases of mistaken identity. Of late I have even heard harbour control calling a ship and telling them their status was incorrect.

Excellent, first class! Key words "you cannot offload your safety and security to some one else"

 

[timbartlett]

Seconded. Anyway, after the Ouzo tragedy the key lesson for me was that we need to keep out of their way, coz they won't be looking out for us even if we are transmitting and have a radar reflector.

It is simply not true to say "they won't be looking out for us even if we are transmitting and have a radar reflector". Of course there are a few watchkeepers who are lazy, incompetent, or exhausted. But Ouzo's watchkeepers were none of those. The key point that emerged from the Ouzo investigation was that they were looking out, but they did not see -- for various reasons.

Nobody really knows for certain exactly why not, but contributory factors would almost certainly be that no passive radar reflector sold for recreational craft meets the performance standards specified by IMO and that most yacht navigation lights are almost invisible.

Another big myth is that ships can "filter out" class B transmissions. They cannot. There are systems around that can automatically filter vessels that do not pose a collision risk, but they cannot arbitrarily delete class B. Moreover, I suggest that if any officer did, somehow, manage to filter out class B (such as by using hobbyist software on a laptop instead of the approved equipment his ship is required to carry) and a collision occurred, he would find it very difficult to avoid a charge of failing to keep a proper lookout by all available means.

Refusing to use Class B in open water seems, to me, to be like cyclists who ride along main roads at night without lights. Playgrounds like the Solent are different.