View from the bridge

[pugwash]

Just spent a fascinating morning skimming through the confidential MARS (Marine Accident Reporting Scheme) reports made by masters and deck officers about near misses at sea. They're eye-opening from every point of view and give some insights into the recent Tricolour collision and subsequent fiascos. Ships that don't give way because they're aiming for a waypoint. Ships that don't give way because the OOW refuses to wake his master. Bridges with no people. A VLCC that turned off all radars "so they'll be ready when needed." Bridge-wing peloruses permanently covered so they can't be used. Ships and yachts with incorrect lights. One Trinity House pilot says it's clear "certain mariners refuse to obey COLREGS, don't understand COLREGS or just don't know about them." Many of the reports refer to yachtsmen behaving in similar ways.

The most illuminating point is that a speeding container ship that won't give room to a 100,000-ton tanker is certainly not going to care a fig for my 30-footer.

Go to http://www.nautinst.org/ then Confidential Accident Reports then scroll down to the archive.

 

[dickh]

Yes they are good reading and very illuminating - I read them yesterday.

dickh
I'd rather be sailing... /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

 

[AndrewB]

Despite this ...

... in many years of crossing the Traffic Separation Scheme in the Dover Straights in a yacht, I have been impressed that virtually every ship does give way to me where required to do so. Be warned though that ships always interpret the CollRegs in a TSS as if the yacht is under power, regardless of whether it is sailing.

Mind you, some cut it much finer than is comfortable from the point of view of the yacht. And the catch is in the 'virtually'. Unfortunately there are a few rogues, and for yachts that makes every encounter a major anxiety. In my view it would be better if the rules were changed. Ships travelling along a TSS should automatically be the stand on vessel, in relation to yachts (and other vessels) crossing the lanes. Then we wouldn't have to worry whether or not the ship was intending to take evading action.

 

[Chris_Robb]

Re: Despite this ...

My experiance is very much the same - Solent to Cherbourg, except one scary incident with a small unladed Greek freighter.

We were happily going to cross her stern (under sail) - al-be-it fairly closely, when suddenly someone appeared on the bridge, went hard a starboard (turning away from us) - and seemed to go into a skid, as it did a 180 degree change of coarse coming straight back on us and narrowly missing us. Had to go and change afterwards!

Can ships like this get out of control - the stern seem to be skidding round like a car in a spin?

 

[Twister_Ken]

You obviously haven\'t tried...

... to park on top of the Tricolor

http://www.rubberductions.com/

 

[pugwash]

Re: Despite this ...

Andrew -- Have just heard from a researcher that in fact Channel ferries are pro-active in this. In other words, when outbound from Dover and facing a stream of vessels on the port bow they take steps to allow them to stand on (on the basis that sometimes they don't give way when they should). This action is apparently open to interpretation as illegal but the ferry captains argue that it avoids confrontational situations. is this your reading of the situation?

 

[pugwash]

Re: Despite this ...

Andrew -- Have just heard from a researcher that in fact Channel ferries are pro-active in this. In other words, when outbound from Dover and facing a stream of vessels on the port bow they take steps to allow them to stand on (on the basis that sometimes they don't give way when they should). This action is apparently open to interpretation as illegal but the ferry captains argue that it avoids confrontational situations. is this your reading of the situation?

 

[kimhollamby]

Re: Despite this ...

Something else to consider about ferries in Dover Strait - they often pinch as much as 15 degrees off the required 90 degrees to traffic flow through the TSS to allow for tide as well as (I suspect) to keep the required minimum 1nm clearance from other vessels in TSS; this with the tacit acceptance of the coastguards. Certainly worth remembering when in a small craft somewhere out in the middle and trying to sort out the traffic around you.

kim_hollamby@ipcmedia.com

 

[Chris_Robb]

Re: You obviously haven\'t tried...

My navigations not THAT good!

 

[AndrewB]

Yes, that is true.

The ferries do allow quite a bit of latitude in the right-angle rule, and that can add an extra level of complexity when crossing in a yacht. But they come a LOT closer than 1nm - specially to yachts!

In practice on a Dover Straights crossing there is little yachts can do to mind out the way of ferries - specially the high speed Cats. They are so fast and manoevrable, and alert to what is happening, that they will be the one to take evading action when going the same way. But to see one rushing straight up your backside is particularly unnerving specially if you are trying to avoid other traffic.

Don't rely on this within a mile of Dover, Calais or Boulogne though, where it is strictly necessary to keep out of the main ferry channel leading to the port, or you will get an earful from the respective port control.

I don't know the answer to Pugwash's question. If it is standard practice for ferries to give way as the stand-on vessel, then I hadn't heard it. The times I've been on the bridge of a ferry I've been struck by how few potential collision situations seem to arise, compared with how it seems from a yacht. The highly sophisticated radar equipment they carry, combined with their speed, probably allows them to have it all sussed miles ahead.

 

[Bergman]

Re: Yes, that is true.

Perhaps just a question of speed, dunno what speed the ferries do 15 - 18 knots I suppose.

Means only in each lane for a few minutes, can't have too many chances of collision in that time.

I agree with your suggestion anbout right of way. It would simplify things enormously.

Don't know how practical it would be but the thought occurs to me that "no overtaking" zones could be established at sensitive points where there is heavy crossing traffic.

 

[pugwash]

Re: Yes, that is true.

I don;t know about "standard practice" -- just that ferries try to avoid when they can being in the dubious position of a stand on vessel.

The researcher I mentioned came up with this fascinating stuff. In 24 hours, in 15 miles of the SW shipping lane only, in Dover Strait, he followed the radar traces of 257 vessels. These were involved in 175 "near miss" encounters (ie, within 8 cables) and of these 41 came within three cables. The vast majority of icnidents involved not crossing or passing, as you'd expect, but overtaking.

I imagine there's a real danger for yachts here. One large vessel overtaking another and forced to give way to a vessel crossing from starboar dmay not realize the inshore vessel alongside it is constrained by the yacht. This is apparently what lies behind the Tricolour collision.

Each one of these encounters, said the researcher from Cardiff University, is an accident waiting to happen.