Near collision

Re: Ah right...

Thanks l'escargot.

The quality of your interpretation of what I am saying will demonstrate to more alert, and I suspect more experienced and open minded readers exactly what I am getting at. It also clearly demonstrates that some are a lost cause.

Safe sailing.

John

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Re: MainlyHotair

You are the individual who is preaching and not listening in this thread.

We are talking about specific local conditions, incidents, vessel design, distances, example plots and changed behaviour.

You are spouting off on the generic frustrations of your profession regarding leisure sailors and you have the arrogance to do this having never commanded a small yacht or ferry in the Eastern Solent in recent years.

Even when presented with photographs you do not back down.

Please do not twist my words, I referred to "the advantage of an elevated perspective on their whole route" and did not claim the Wightlink ferries had a 360 view. The single helmsman of such a ferry does have a uniquely advantageous perspective on the whole forward route.

The incidents that have been cited in this thread could have been avoided by any ferry helmsman with a 60 degree field of forward vision.

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Re: To sum up

Ian was doing nothing wrong and got into a conflict with a ferry.

The lesson I learnt from my experience and Ians is to expect the unexpected.

Many of us have learnt to trust the ferry skippers to do the decent thing but for whatever reason we might need to change our thinking.

I've been doing some training with the big ship guys lately and the stories they tell of yachty conflict and the difficulties they face in picking out what we intend is very real. The ferries are quite manouverable but many other ships have very few options when commited to say Portsmouth harbour entrance.

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Re: insupprt of mainlysteam

I don't think he's preaching. No others were there, but the facts are that there's plenty of forewarning of these ferries, visible a mile or more away. The initial poster decided to hold course, although must had had many opportunities to bear away and be somewhere else.

None of this excuses the ferry: but who knows what's going on on the bridge or at the helm of another boat or ship? Isn't it better to adopt a position where there no issue even if the other guy is having a bad day, a heart attack, broken gear or anything else rather than run things close? For the crew at least, it would seem so.

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Oh please don't go for the sympathy vote now.

You allude to your special professional knowledge of the frustrations experienced by the crew of a commercial vessel but at the end of the day you have not made a single useful comment that helps a yachtsman understand the thought processes on the bridge.

A summary of your professional advice in this thread so far seems to be, little boats should ignore collision regulations and get out of the way because you haven’t a clue about all the distractions and staffing problems on the bridge. Maybe Wightlink ferries should permanently hoist the “not under command” day symbol.

No doubt if we had a conversation 20 years ago where a yachtsman dared to question the wisdom of cross channel ferries heading to sea with their bows still open, you would have employed the same argument that we just don't understand the pressures faced by crews.

Sometimes it takes a Herald of Free Enterprise type disaster to knock sense into closed-shop navel gazing cultures.

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Re: Ah right...

You're welcome John

I wouldn't call you a lost cause, but you do really need to read the threads to grasp what people are actually saying. I think it may also help if you can find some way of moving out of your entrenched position of always believing you are right and that you have more experience than anyone else. It is somewhat conceited for a person to adopt such a knowledgeable air about circumstances they admit that they have no experience of.

You sail safe too..

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Wow. The Solent sure is special - seems to me it has quite a few angry men sailing on it and that is sure to make it so. Me going for the sympathy vote - I will be able to amuse my friends recounting that one, probably get a few beers while doing so too. But I am sorry that you cannot accept that there may be another side to the situations that get described.

As I do not sail on the Solent I can regard it all with amusement I guess. In fact with a smirk I suppose, because while a couple of amateurs half way around the world have been getting upset at me today, I have been working for a fleet operator, also half way around the world, who thinks quite the opposite of me.

I'll leave you to your agonies /forums/images/icons/smile.gif.

John

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It is interesting to compare this to Southampton Water & Cowes where if anything the ferries are more frequent and I've never had a problem there or seen anyone else having one. The Portsmoutth to Wooton Creek ferries do appear to have a culture all of their own.

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There was once a post from someone who had been buzzed by one of the Red Jets (Neraida?) I have certainly never had a problem, the Central / Western Solent ferries have to put up with a very high density of race traffic and seem to cope admirably. Mind you, I have never encountered problems with the Ryde ferries either, although they are more difficult to predict. From what I saw at the weekend you are less likely to obstruct them by staying on the Swashway transit, as they seem to cut the corner now.

<hr width=100% size=1>Think I'll draw some little rabbits on my head, from a distance they might be mistaken for hairs.
 
Re: Its not a perfect world

Oh dear this thread seems to be getting a bit personnel
Nobodys perfect, us or the ferry Guys ( who include some of my ex deep sea ship mates ). They are trolling backwards and forwards and sometimes see some right perlers from us WAFIs and Mobos. No wonder human nature takes over sometimes even on innocents encountered on the next crossing. Its not right but it happens. When I think back to some of things I have done regards road positioning on Motorways some days I am not impressed with myself and some of my boating decisions are equally silly with hindsight.
We should also bear in mind that what we feel is collision bearing from our cockpit might not be when viewed from the bridge instrumentation. Modern radar and tracking can tell if you on collision or not very accurately.
Anyway a pea for tolerance from all and enjoy the Indian Summer which metcheck is forecasting although I am off to the Doreset Steam Fair this weekend.

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Re: To sum up

<and the difficulties they face in picking out what we intend is very real>

If COLREGs weren't regarded as optional by so many pleasure boaters, as made obvious by previous posts on this forum, then professional skippers & mates would know what we intend - follow COLREGs and any local rules.

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Re:Ferry rage

This is not a question of whether the ferries can see, or manoever safely to avoid yachts in mid Solent. They have been doing it admirably well, often in difficult and crowded waters for a very long time.

Simply put, I can no longer be sure whether an approaching ferry expects to pass ahead or astern of me, or if he is expecting me to get out of his way. I can therefore no longer plan my own actions to avoid him safely.

Either they must obey Colregs, as they have done safely for many years, or they must ask QHM to issue an exemption giving them absolute right of way.


But recent episodes of 'Ferry Rage' are completely unacceptable and must be stopped before someone gets hurt or killed by the unpredictable behaviour of one or two skippers.

I have seen this from both sides having regularly skippered passenger vessels through crowded waters, and can see no reason or excuse for the situation I was faced with 2 years ago and have to conclude that the dangerously close approach by the ferry on that occasion was calculated and deliberate.

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And I think this is the nub of the problem - I cannot recall any posts criticising Red Funnel or the Lymington/Yarmouth Wightlink in the same way.

I believe their attitude comes from the fact that Wightlink are the harbourmaster of Wootton Creek and they seem to think this gives them carte blanche to act as they wish in the whole of the eastern Solent.

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Re: Ah! If only it was that simple

Firstly it's not a ColRegs issue for yotties alone. Shipping that uses "might is right" is the norm in open water. Local rules, in favour of shipping, can be prime over ColRegs. The Solent would indeed be an entertainment if yachts stuck to the rules on every issue.

The reason shipping has trouble judging what yachts might do is just the complexity of choices. It's not uncommon to do the right thing by the boats in your local area and still cause doubt to a bridge team who are taking a longer view.

It's not a unique problem. Ships get puzzled by other ships too.

Being overtaken is, on the face of it, one of the more clear cut rules. If the ferry was claiming, through light, mark or sound, no special rights, that the yacht being overtaken would stick to it's course was all he could expect.

I find sailing quite dull. The fun would go out of the whole job if I knew what everyone would do everytime.

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Re: Yer pays your money

and takes yer choice.

You can run away or stand on.

The thing that interests me is that the Southampton pilots get on the hooter pretty quick if they don't understand something. That scatters the yotties like chickens. The ferry men will get close enough to you to demonstrate how clever the Benoulli's were without a peep.

The deep sea guys put it down to a poor attitude by ferry drivers.

The mind set, which is well documented, is found in many other professions and is often explored in accident investigations. The person is often operating powerful machines and is in a responsible position. They meet tough deadlines and are very familiar with the environment they operate in. Overtime this results in a feeling of invulnerabilty. Enverlopes can be pushed and safety margins are slowly eroded.

I wonder.

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Re: Ah! If only it was that simple

But surely, if the commercial vessel has difficulty in deciding what the private boat is intending to do, it is all the more reason to alter course a little to ensure there is no risk of collision. In my case, we were the ONLY other boat in the water (between Ryde and Portsmouth). Winds were up to F7, and there was a fair bit of commotion on board as the testers put the boat through it's paces. We were a bit busy, but that's no excuse for not keeping a good look out behind.
No, it was pretty obvious this guy had some kind of agenda going, and felt the need to teach us a lesson. Like I say, a few blasts of the horn would have woken us up rather than scaring the life out of us with a very near miss.

I believe QHM monitors this forum, but he's pretty quiet on this one - his views might be of interest however.

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Agreed, it seems the only culprits are a couple of skippers on the Portsmouth - Ryde run. The Red Jet guys in particular are very skilful at threading their way through the mass of traffic at the Hamble/S'ton Water junction at 40 kts without scaring the living daylights out of people. Just imagine the carnage that would ensue if they were less forgiving!

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Thanks for your support MainlySteam & ardacy.....what people here seem to forget is that the Solent over the years has become almost over crowded!......and people today still insist on using the collision regs when they are in fact the craft to be the most nimble to manoeuvre. Instead of spilling some air from their lungs they should try spilling some from their main!.......If people with this kind of attitude sailed across the busy shipping lanes in the channel they would either be fined heavily be the Coast Guard or worse still be mowed downed by a container ship pushing 30 knotts!

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