Near collision

Re: In fairness

Dont aplogise Ian! You must be close to getting the prize for starting this years longest thread - if not the all time record!

Does your gizmo track this Kim? If so is Ian up for a YBW Mars bar?

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Re: Viral marketing

I think some of you are missing the point - Surely all the posters here would get out of the way if they saw a collision looked likely, but certainly in "my" incident, we were not aware of his approach from astern (and I understand that was entirely our fault for not keeping a closer watch behind) . What I cannot understand is, when we were the ONLY two boats in the area between Portsmouth and Ryde, why he felt the need to steer a course from directly behind, that at best was only going to miss us by a few metres. A few blasts of the hooter would have woken us up, or (heavan forbid?) he could have steered a few degrees to give us a wider berth - he had the whole of the bloody Solent in which to do so. I am convinced this 'so called' professional, was intent on teaching us a lesson. Had we been going the other way, and seen him, I can guarantee we would have got out of his way, but being a bit busy in a rather noisy F7, we failed to keep a proper look out ourselves. This though that is hardly a good reason to be deliberately "sorted out" - he was the overtaking boat after all. In my view, no error on our part forgives his thoroughly unprofessional actions, nor indeed as in Kim's case, should he cause a small yacht to be in danger of running aground, or being forced into the path of an even bigger vessel.

One day, this behaviour WILL end in a tradgedy.

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Re: Viral marketing

Nicho
My point exactly..we had a force 6 - down wind just the genoa out empty sea, not expecting to be counting rusty rivets..made me look a right prat when I told a nervous crew - "no need to worry these ferries know what they are doing, they'll miss us by miles"

Ian


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Re: Viral marketing

Nicho - your scenario sounds very similar to mine, the ferry was approaching from well aft of the beam (overtaking vessel), I was clearly under sail on a calm afternoon, only making a couple of knots (hardly enough speed to even take evasive action), and with my outboard raised out of the water, so no question that I might be under power - also making it more difficult for me to power out of his way. Unusally, and like you, not much else around in the Solent - certainly nothing else anywhere near close enough to be remotely involved in any course changes for either of us. Location pretty well half way across not far from Ryde Middle buoy.

On a converging course like that its extremely difficult to tell exactly what the ferry is doing . If I had altered course, or reversed course to avoid him, I would be putting myself directly into the course I would expect him to be taking astern of me. I could not turn towards him to go round behind him and allow him to pass ahead because of the angle he was approaching, so the 'classic' avoiding manoever was impossible. I could only turn away from his course to allow him to cross my bows - which he did so close that I was forced to gybe all standing, my boom narrowly missing him as he passed.

Now I have been afloat both as an amateur and a professional skipper for nearly 40 years. I have no idea how many sea miles that represents, but in excess of 30,000 miles in the last 20 years anyway - and all my professional skippering was in confined and busy waterways, meeting craft of all shapes and sizes often every few minutes.

I KNOW how to avoid unexpected manoevers. I have only once been involved in a collision - and my boat was moored up at the time! I shaped my course to avoid him, but he still came right in as close as he could.

Now - there are 2 sides to every story. I would dearly love to know what he was up to, other than that he was bored and decided it was time to beat up a yottie. Dont give me 'limited vis'. Dont give me 'unpredictable amateur versus pro skipper - at 2 knots there is very little you can do to be unpredictable against a 12knot ferry. Don't tell me I was being foolish, stupid, rash or whatever to 'insist on my right of way' - when a ferry starts chasing you at 6 times your speed and is determined to scare the pants off you there is damn all you can do about it. My course change to present my stern to him - effectively making me stationary in the water so that he could pass either side of me safely, was made in plenty of time for him to see what action I was taking and for him to adjust his course accordingly.

So why DID he pass within 20 feet of me unless he was playing silly games?

There WILL be a tragedy if this goes on.

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Re: Viral marketing

I've just solved the problem!........someone needs to tell the skipper of this offending ferry to stop looking through 'big ends' of his binoculars'!......
Sorry chaps had to put that one in!

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Kim - Can we invite any responses...

... I know QHM reads and contributes to this forum, I don't know about Wightlink - can we invite a response from either? Or at least bring the discussion to the attention of Wightlink?

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Re: Kim - Can we invite any responses...

good idea.. must be stressed that its not a kangaroo court but that experienced and cautious yachtmen have experienced problems .. if I recollect properly JJ was on board when Nicho experienced the "incident"?

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Re: Kim - Can we invite any responses...

No it was David Harding doing the report, and if I remember, he was darting around in a RIB at the time taking photos, which is why we were somewhat distracted. The skipper of the boat was someone used by Opal Marine for tuition/handovers, but as this is some two years ago now, my disappearing grey matter cannot remember his name. I do remember though, that he was pretty pissed off by the ferries aggression, which caused us to crash tack to get out of his way.

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To report back

Nothing to report back - not heard a sausage from QHM..seems us little folk don't really score..

Ian

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Re: To report back

"Q" only returned from holiday on Monday! One of my collegues has also forwarded this link to him.

<hr width=100% size=1>Boating is <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.powerboattraininguk.co.uk>Serious Fun</A>
 
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