How come IALA 'A' and IALA 'B' ?

[NigeCh]

How come IALA \'A\' and IALA \'B\' ?

What caused the difference to happen? (If YM were on the ball then this could make an alternative to Q1 in the August YM quiz - It's a nice question and I won't give the game away. However, Q3 has 3 errors in the question. Tom Cunliffe, I'd really like to meet you and see whether the man with a wooden leg and a pork pie in his smock ever really existed)

Nige (CO26 Port Dinorwic)

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[Cornishman]

Re: How come IALA \'A\' and IALA \'B\' ?

It's quite simple really. When the Association sat down to devise a worldwide buoyage system one lot, led by the Yanks, insisted the direction of buoyage for the lateral part should be 'on leaving harbour' while the rest insisted it should be 'on entering harbour'. They could not agree which it should be - so the classic compromise was to have the two regions. You will note that Region 'B' is generally the Americas and those parts of the world where the US has had influence since WW2.
If this lot in power in the UK stay there much longer I can see us becoming Region 'B' soon!

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[NigeCh]

Sorry.You\'re wrong

It's a superb set of reasoning that does have to do with the 'Yanks' .... and it's rider is why the Elephants in India caused the change in driving from to left to the right to go back to the left again.

Go back and find out how a storm in a teacup became the USA.

 

[oilyrag]

Re: How come IALA \'A\' and IALA \'B\' ?

Someone shoot me down in flames, but wasn't this simply because our American cousins refused to fall into line with the rest of the world?

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[NigeCh]

Nope (nm)

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[peterb]

But ...

R.. R.... R........

 

[Cornishman]

Re: Sorry.You\'re wrong

Oh! I do apologise - I got that story from the IALA publication on the subject. I must write and tell them that you disagree with them

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[oilyrag]

Re: Sorry.You\'re wrong

I'm beginning to wonder - would the nice Americans really have agreed to their system being known internationally as the 'B' system, thus inferring that their system must be inferior to the ROTW?

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[Solitaire]

Re: Nope (nm)

I have no idea - but its certainly got the juices of other forumites running. Mind you, not sure I really care, but it would be interesting to know - actually the bit about not caring is **** 'm intrigued now!!!

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[davidhand]

Re: Sorry.You\'re wrong

I once sat in a room where a "nice" officer from the USCG was giving a talk on pilotage, buoyage etc. and he was outraged that the US system was called the 'B' system. He felt that America being the most powerful nation in the world their system should be known as the 'A' system.

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[NigeCh]

I meant to ask for the original reason

You are quite correct in what you say, but I wasn't precise enough. I suppose I should have rephrased the question "What was the reason that the Americans changed they bouys round in the first place that eventually gave rise to IALA 'B'?"

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[NigeCh]

I\'ve rephrased the question

Cornishman has answered it, but it was not the answer I was looking for.

The question should read: "What was the reason that the Americans changed they bouys round in the first place that eventually gave rise to IALA 'B'?"

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[ghostwriter]

Trou de memoire ???

dear Mary , the subject was discussed , and you were there , yonks ago on the other side of the edge , where the hooligans meet.....the answer was given by the froggster , now wot is the prize for loading up your batteries on this one ??? /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

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[ghostwriter]

Cunliffe fixation ??

now what's all this with that Tom Cunliffe fixation of yours Nige ? as far as one can see , senor Cunliffe is just another plonker like you and all of us , of course he shines through the commercial conglomerate of IPC (ltd , inc , acme) as "the sailor supremo" and probably he is bloody good , but beware....rumours have it that he DOES fart , he DOES scratch his back , he DOES swear and he even DOES cock up once in a while ; we are only not allowed to know about that , what with not staining his shiny armour of the "knight of the high seas and adjacent ponds".

or is it that you still want his signature on your T-shirt ? (can be had from cunliffe.com , a subsidiary of Cunliffe & Westernman inc , ltd , acme )
/forums/images/icons/wink.gif

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[peterb]

Re: I\'ve rephrased the question

The reason that the Americans like to give was to confuse the British Navy during the various wars (Independence, 1812, etc). However, it doesn't stand up to inspection because the British system of buoyage wasn't standardised until well after those wars, and at that time the RN wouldn't have known what a red buoy meant.

The reason they wanted to hang on to the Red to Starboard system, though, is more interesting. They had hammered into all their sailors' heads the mnemonic "Red, Right, Returning"; i.e. red to starboard when coming in to harbour. They realised that during the transition to a "Green, Right, Returning" system there were too many probabilities for error, and hence insisted on Region B.

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[Mirelle]

It dates from the Varne Wrecks

which were but 32 years ago. The realisation that many merchant ships had no idea what a British wreck marking buoy and light vessel looked like started the move to standardisation.

PeterB is right in saying British buoyage was not standardised.

A famous example, recently tracked down by the Arthur Ransome Society, is the buoyage in the Orwell. Readers of "We Did'nt Mean To Go To Sea" may recall that the Beach End Buoy is described as red, whereas of course nowadays it is green, and before then, in my youth, it was black.

It turns out that in the 30's the River Orwell was using what is now IALA B, allegedly because of the proximity to Holland, so it was indeed red.

One is staggered that so few of our forebears drowned!

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[Cornishman]

Re: I meant to ask for the original reason

I'm not sure the Yanks did change their buoys around - they've always done it that way and were not prepared to change. It might well have been us that got it wrong, I hate to have to admit. The present system was 'kick started' into being following a series of accidents in the Dover Straits when various ships misread our green Wreck marking buoys as starb'd hand marks and ran aground on a previous wreck. I think one of the ships involved was called Texaco Caribbean.
Just after WW2, during which most buoys were taken away, ports and harbours anxious to get business going again installed their own buoyage systems, many of which were the opposite of the port next door! Can you imagine the confusion?
I suppose that the American system is called Region 'B' because, just for once, it is not the biggest thing in the world!


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[Mirelle]

Re: I meant to ask for the original reason

The TEXACO CARIBBEAN was in collision with another ship whose name I have forgotten, she caught fire and exploded and sank on the Varne. The wreck was marked with green wreck buoys but the NIKKI hit it and sank. Two green lightships were put on station as well but the BRANDENBURG none the less piled into the wrecks and sank too.

I think some 62 lives were lost.

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[NigeCh]

Scuppered - Read PeterB\'s post above ...

I was told the story in 1998 when crewing on a boat in the 1998 Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race as we were passing Fort McHenry heading for the start in Annapolis. Being a Brit, I had to ask the question why the bouyage was different. The story is slightly different from PeterB's, but I'm assured that it is taught in USA schools. Whether it is true or not, is a matter of conjecture. The story goes like this:

In the American War of Independence the British ships were massive and could only fire broadside with a range of 2 miles. The Americans only had small cutters, still firing broadside but with a range of 1 mile. In trying to work out how to overcome the British in the shallow waters of the Chesapeake Bay some bright spark came up with the solution that if the buoys marking the channel were swapped then the British Captains would obey the reds and the greens and pass them so that they would go awry and then run aground on the shallows ... which they did so allowing the small American cutters to run in, broadside them from the quarters and destroy them.

After the war was won, they were too idle to switch the buoys back and so they stayed that way ...

It may have happened. It may have not. But 'Red, Right, Returning' is just so useful. POSH is also nice, but probably referred originally to the sun streaming through portholes on the India run - The trouble with POSH is that you have to work it out each time.

But then we have 'We left (the) port (on the table)' ... which contracts to 'Leave port.' But it doesn't have the same nice ring or visual connotations to it as 'red right returning' has.


<hr width=100% size=1><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by NigeCh on 24/07/2003 13:54 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[Mirelle]

The American story is no more than a story

as Peter B says. But before the IALA A and B system was developed, the real distinction was between nations with lateral marks and nations with cardinal marks - the two systems were not combined. Northern Europe in particular used cardinal marks.

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