What a dick head!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chrusty1
  • Start date Start date
[quote
No. I sail there every week and am damn sure what the rules are. Leisure-craft give way to merchant shipping, which includes ferries.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think you are wrong. Now that lw395 has quoted the Portsmouth Harbour bylaws that appear to also apply to Southampton it only reiterates the Col Reg and applies to vessels constrained by their draught in a channel.

There are many bigger ferries using Portsmouth (brittany etc)
that are constrained by their draught but that would not apply to Wightlink or Red Funnel and especially not where this photo appears to be taken so its back to Col Regs and we don't know the events that preceeded this photo.
 
[ QUOTE ]

I think you are wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

And you may well be right. But I'll stick to getting out of the way or all merchant traffic. Whether its a written rule or not, it is hard to have sympathy with those who wish to stand on in such circumstances.

As for the Ferry skipper, turning off his track to avoid this vessel would only have put him on a collision course with another, one would expect.
 
The Soton website is working now

Navigation in fairways

10. (1) The master of a small vessel, which is not confined to the fairway, shall not make use of the fairway so as to obstruct other vessels which can navigate only within the fairway.

(2) The master of a vessel crossing a fairway or turning shall not stop or slow down as to cause obstruction/damage to any other vessel.

(3) The master of a vessel shall not intentionally permit it to drift in any part of the fairway.

(4) The master of a vessel proceeding along the course of a fairway shall keep as near to the outer limit of the fairway which lies on the vessel’s starboard side as is safe and practicable.

Moving Prohibited Zone.

11.(1). In this byelaw -

‘’the Precautionary Area" means the main navigable channel which lies between an imaginary line drawn between Prince Consort and South Bramble Buoys and an imaginary line drawn between Black Jack and Hook Buoys;

‘’Moving Prohibited Zone’’ means an area extending 1000 metres ahead and 100 metres either side of any vessel of over 150 metres length overall while it is navigating within the Precautionary Area.

(2) The master of a small vessel shall ensure that the vessel does not enter a Moving Prohibited Zone.

(3) For the purpose of indicating the presence of the Moving Prohibited Zone the master of any vessel of over 150 metres length overall shall display on the vessel, where it can best be seen, by day, a black cylinder, and, by night, 3 all round red lights in a vertical line.

High speed craft to use authorised channels

12 The master of a high speed craft when underway shall make use only of such channels as are authorised by the harbour master.

Power driven vessel underway

13 The master of a power driven vessel underway shall either be on the bridge or control position of the vessel himself or ensure that there is on the bridge or control position a member of the crew who is capable of taking command of the vessel and, when a pilot is on board, is capable of understanding the pilot’s directions.

Hope that helps.
Full blurb at http://www.southamptonvts.co.uk/bylaws/part2.htm

Mind how you go.
 
[ QUOTE ]
But I'll stick to getting out of the way or all merchant traffic.

[/ QUOTE ]
A stance that the majority of pleasure craft take - and most of them do this in plenty of time so the merchant vessels can see what's going on...
however, it seems that (certainly with Wightlink portsmouth - fishbourne) the ferry captains have come to EXPECT pleasure vessels to keep clear - and thus "ignore" colregs when it suits them ...
Don't forget - colregs only kicks in for collision avoidance - in the solent this range could be quite short ....
 
[ QUOTE ]
But in the nicest possible way, thats akin to saying "if the colregs make life a little awkward for you, then its perfectly OK to ignore them...."

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah. I take your point. There is nothing worse than a Stand on vessel that doesn't stand on.

On perusal of the VTS website, it does appear that the by-law only applies to very very large vessels, although I generally take it to apply to ferries and have always been told that it does by others.
 
[quote
And you may well be right. But I'll stick to getting out of the way or all merchant traffic. Whether its a written rule or not, it is hard to have sympathy with those who wish to stand on in such circumstances.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry but got to continue to disagree with you as its so important that we all follow the same set of rules.

The Col Regs can be distilled into a few statements which if everyone obeys incidents can be avoided.

1. The boat with the most abilty to get out of the way should do so. Hence most motor boats have a greater ability than a small and slow sailing dinghy.

2. This obligation infers exceptions to boats unable to get out of the way eg constrained by their draught or fishing etc.

3. Ignoring both 1 & 2 everyone has an obligation to aviod a collision.

With these 3 statements the Col Regs have a clarity that sets out what we should all do and finally what to do if it all goes wrong.

If we get into Bigger v Smaller we will need to take a tape measure to each boat before right of way can be established and Commercial v Pleasure could also cause confusion. I agree that common sense dictates that a small dinghy should try to keep out of the way of bigger boats but without the Col Regs for guidance we could have collisions similar to the left/right shuffle that can occur between pedestrians on pavements.

Edited my speculation as there is now an eyewitness account. Can only think Ferry on that Saturday was under pressure to keep to schedule.
 
From LW395's latest, the next question would seem to be 'Was the Red Tunnel in a fairway?'. So far, we don't know where in Southampton Water/Solent/Cowes Roads this incident happened, although it looks to me as if it was in mid-Solent, with the ferry heading towards Soton (Isn't that the IOW shore in the background?). If that's the case, no fairway involved.
 
SWMBON and I witnessed this near miss.

We were sailing in from the East, aiming to follow the ferry in and head up to The Folly.

Have to say, IMHumbleO and Colregs notwithstanding, it was 50/50. The X-boat must have been deaf and/or blind and/or with unfeasibly large gonads to be in any way comfortable with where he was, however the ferry could have gone a few points to port (there was room) to go around the stern of the X-boat. There was no race fleet.

Ferry ended up giving 3 short blasts (after many many others) and seemed to almost stop dead in the water - bet it caused a spot of discombobulation amongst the grockles on board!!
 
What it comes down to is whether one accepts that the ferry is constrained in it's abuility to manouver. I do. End of.

A lot of this thread is just yachty bloody mindedness.
 
Under colregs, no such thing as a vessel constrained in its ability to maneouvre.

However, we do have the term a "vessel restricted in her ability to maneuver" . But a ferry is not such. The definition means a vessel which from the nature of her work is restricted in her ability to maneuver as required by the Rules and is therefore unable to keep out of the way of another vessel.

The term "vessel restricted in her ability to maneuver" shall include but not be limited to:

(i) A vessel engaged in laying, servicing, or picking up a navigational mark, submarine cable or pipeline;

(ii) A vessel engaged in dredging, surveying or underwater operations;

(iii) A vessel engaged in replenishment or transferring persons, provisions or cargo while underway;

(iv) A vessel engaged in the launching or recovery of aircraft;

(v) A vessel engaged in mineclearance operations;

(vi) A vessel engaged in a towing operation such as severely restricts the towing vessel and her tow in their ability to deviate from their course.

I submit, yerhonour, that a Red Tunnel is none of these and is actually quite handy. Nor is she likely to be constrained by draught, they are moderately shallow, often cutting corners near the Bramble.
 
Had the x been on that track for long?
Ferries are somewhat faster than x's, judging their exact path can be difficult. I would have normally expected the ferry to treat the x-boat as an obstruction and drive around it. The X is actually short of options, as tacking into the most logical path of the ferry does not appeal.

It is almost as if the ferry was looking for a confrontation.

Although the ferries do not technically have right of way, most of us do our best to let them get on with their work. There are times when it is not unreasonable for them to slow down a bit. In general the locals here in Portsmouth exist happily with the ferries, but there have been a few worrying exceptions. I think there is sometimes pressure to cut the journey time which erodes safety.
Normally the difficulty arises when there are more than two vessels involved, like the racing rules the colregs are all about 2 boat situations and it isn't always like that!

No way are the ferries RAM, they turn in their own length!
 
[ QUOTE ]
What it comes down to is whether one accepts that the ferry is constrained in it's abuility to manouver. I do. End of.

[/ QUOTE ] Erm - I don't ... the ferry is, by nature of it's design far more able to manouver in all directions, otherwise it would require tug boats at both ends ...

In contrast - the X Boat (and the majority of other sailing vessels) is limited to sailing forward well, backward with some difficulty and side to side a near impossibility. The X boat doesn't have an engine fitted - so is limited to it's sailing ability.

In a narrow channel or fairway the ferry obviously cannot (easily) give way so is given the stand-on right.
Outside those constraints in a 1on1 situation the ferry should give way to the sailing vessel (as per colregs) - however, the sailing vessel should make sure he's consistent and not alter course.

If, as many do, you wish to give the ferry "right of way" then make your course change long before the ferry has to instigate collision avoidance procedure.

As Chipete says - 50/50 .... and in my experience Xboat skippers give way to noone ... this should not have come as a shock to the ferry captain!!
 
I've been thinking about this thread for a while, and reached the following conclusion in my own mind (accepting the lack of detail on the case thus far).....

Mostly respondents seem to be broadly (in principle) agreeing that while the sailing boat was technically in the right, it wasn't sensible in its actions...

And that leads me to conclude that the real factor here boils down to one single word..... 'experience'..... is it possible that the defining factor that differentiates an 'appropriately educated' or 'technically competent' skipper from an 'experienced' or 'skilled' skipper is the ability to know when to quietly ignore colregs?.... i'm not advocating this course of action per se... but just recognising that experience gives you a finely tuned intuition about what to do and when, that can only be developed through time on the water, and no amount of classroom training will ever provide the same skill...

Am I wrong?
 
Can't see the problem.

It appears that the keel boat is the stand on vessel, and that the ferry was required to keep out of its way by taking appropriate action when the risk of collision existed - which it did (albeit maybe a tadge later than expected.). Rules obeyed. No collision. Nobody hurt.
 
I saw the incident from the comfort of the shore. In my opinion, whatever ColRegs apply is irrelevent - when does common sense prevail! The X boat was foolish to remain on his tack passing so closely infront of such a large vessel that is difficult to manouvre. The ferry was on approach to the mouth of the Medina river with not much room for manouvre on either side of the channel. The only option the ferry had was to slam engines in reverse and hope it slowed down enough to allow the X boat to pass in front. The ferry had given numerous blasts of it's horn to alert the X boat of the potential danger. There is a fine line between knowledge/arrogance/stupidity/death wish!!
 
[ QUOTE ]
such a large vessel that is difficult to manouvre. The ferry was on approach to the mouth of the Medina river with not much room for manouvre on either side of the channel. The only option the ferry had was to slam engines in reverse and hope it slowed down enough to allow the X boat to pass in front.

[/ QUOTE ]
WHEN will people understand the SLOWING DOWN IN PLENTY OF TIME is an option still ...

FFS - just because you can proceed at X knots doesn't mean that you have to all the time and you don't have to maintain that speed when carrying out colreg manouvers ... and that applies to both vessels under power AND sail.
 
For our eddification, Red Falcon draws 2.75 metres. Perhaps a little more if it's full of fat chavs from Basingstoke. Further, they are fitted with Voith Schneider propulsion systems which makes them extremely manoueverable, and they don't need to 'slam it into reverse'. Here's Wiki...

"The Voith Schneider propeller (VSP), also known as a cycloidal drive is a specialized marine propulsion system. It is highly maneuverable, being able to change the direction of its thrust almost instantaneously. It is widely used on tugs and ferries.
From a circular plate, rotating around a vertical axis, a circular array of vertical blades (in the shape of hydrofoils) protrude out of the bottom of the ship. Each blade can rotate itself around a vertical axis. The internal gear changes the angle of attack of the blades in sync with the rotation of the plate, so that each blade can provide thrust in any direction, very similar to the collective pitch control and cyclic in a helicopter.
Unlike a Z-drive (where a conventional propeller is tilted on a vertical rudder axis) changing the direction of thrust with a Voith-Schneider drive merely requires changing the pattern of orientation of the vertical blades. In a marine situation this provides for a drive which can be directed in any direction and thus does away with the need for a rudder. It is highly efficient and provides for an almost instantaneous change of direction. "
 
So what would you have done? Tacked?
Assume the x does not know that the ferry is not going to simply pass behind him until the hooting starts.
Most of the IoW ferries do not travel in a straight line, so predicting their exact path much in advance is futile. They avoid banks etc by varying degrees from time to time. They often pass quite close to other vessels, without risk as they are quite agile.
If the ferry was going to pass in front there would have been no issue, so I don't see what avoiding action is going to be very effective at that point? ('suggest sinking where you are, sir!')
My view of the photos is that the solent is relatively clear at that point.
The failure to display 'experience' seems to be with the ferry.
 
Not sure if this has been discussed yet, but the article talks about the ferry giving "warning blasts" of the horn as the situation developed...could they have been 3 blasts to signal his intention to slow/stop, hence the X boat standing on seemingly regardless??
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top