Ningaloo
Well-known member
Gentle southerly wind yesterday lunchtime, Tide slightly against me but nothing better to do and the day was perfect for sailing so I sailed out of Chichester Harbour.
It's pretty narrow, especially with 2m draft so I had to make several tacks but I made reasonable headway and reached the Bar Beacon 45 minutes or so after leaving my anchorage at Pilsea.
Am I wrong to expect vessels under motor to give way to me in these conditions? What about when making a tack? I was astonished how many boats (sail and motor) didn't seem to anticipate that I was going to need to tack and did not adjust their course or speed to make allowances for this. Everyone did give way, but often left it too late to do anything other than slow significantly when an earlier course correction would have allowed them to proceed without decreasing speed. Obviously I wasn't showing signals to indicate that I was constrained by draft but it should have been pretty obvious that I would need to turn when 30m from the beach.
With apologies to anyone I got in the way of ;-)
It's pretty narrow, especially with 2m draft so I had to make several tacks but I made reasonable headway and reached the Bar Beacon 45 minutes or so after leaving my anchorage at Pilsea.
Am I wrong to expect vessels under motor to give way to me in these conditions? What about when making a tack? I was astonished how many boats (sail and motor) didn't seem to anticipate that I was going to need to tack and did not adjust their course or speed to make allowances for this. Everyone did give way, but often left it too late to do anything other than slow significantly when an earlier course correction would have allowed them to proceed without decreasing speed. Obviously I wasn't showing signals to indicate that I was constrained by draft but it should have been pretty obvious that I would need to turn when 30m from the beach.
With apologies to anyone I got in the way of ;-)