X channel shipping

[Sailfree]

I have only been sailing a few years but wonder if channel shipping density is increasing. Total tonnage must be increasing but this may be accounted for with bigger ships.

Is the Solent to Cherbourg more like crossing the M25 now or has it remained roughly the same.

At present from my few previous years experience I would not cross in Fog and I have radar yet it seems to me that old salts would consider me a wimp as they would have crossed in a 26' boat and no radar years ago - no problem.

 

[ex-Gladys]

The way the Dover-Calais ferries are going, it could be getting quieter!!!

 

[Robin]

It is not really busier but the ships are bigger, faster don't have foghorns and rarely give way anymore!

Most of us oldies will have crossed in small boats, with no radar, no GPS/Decca and no home comforts like roller reefing genoas, slab/in-mast mains and sprayhoods. That doesn't make you a wimp if you wouldn't, nor would we have done so given the choices available today!


Seriously though. We did the crossing over the years many times in fog but didn't leave in it or plan to go in it. We are quite capable of crossing in fog nowadays and will not turn back for it BUT prefer not to go knowingly if I think I will spend the whole trip staring at the radar, it is supposed to be fun. Having radar is one thing, having confidence in it is another and that confidence needs to be aquired by practice in good visibility. MARPA and the like seemingly make it easier, we don't have it but in my book I wouldn't trust it unless it had a fast acting stable compass input to it AND I had tested it in good vis enough times beforehand. It worries me that I know folks who have bought MARPA radar sets and believe they will operate them straight out of the box. Nowadays of course knowing where you are is no longer a concern like it used to be!


Robin

 

[summerwind]

I for one would certainly not cross without radar.

Last time across there were three lanes of big boys each side, all about 2 miles apart fore and aft and 2 miles between lanes.

Then there were the faster boys overtaking the slow ones and the odd ship heading in-shore to pick up or drop pilots etc. No place for setting the auto-pilot heading for St Malo, then going below for a sleep!

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

I'll happily cross without radar, but only in good vis....

I have to say, slightly in contradiction to Robin, I still do find decent seamanship, and biggish boats changing course....... but a number nowadays, that as he pointed out, assume might is right, and don't bother..... might be rosy tinted specs, but I am sure that this never happened when I first started crossing in the '80s....

One other comment.....

When I look back now at some of the longish channel crossings I have done in the past, with very poor visibility, no radar, no GPS, and just good old fashioned DR and EPs, I shudder.......

 

[RupertW]

I'm happy without radar too, but don't start in fog, and have once hung well back from shipping lanes until the fog cleared a bit.

I still occasionally see ships changing course but mostly I try to make it clear what I'm doing so they don't have to. I find the seamanship better than when I started - I have nasty memories of ships circling slowly at night, once near Dover and once near Dungeness, both without any lights and both only visible by blocking out part of the sky. It can't have been accidental as they weren't even showing any lights from the accomodation block (or whatever it's called).

Haven't seen anything like that for a long time, possibly because ship movements are tracked better now.

The one time I have been caught out by ships behaviour was mid-Atlantic where I naively thought that an overtaking ship would change course by a couple of degrees to miss us. As I didn't know which side he'd go, I left it until I was sure he wasn't going to move then turned very sharply (at my slow speed), hoping he wouldn't suddenly notice me and turn the same way. As one of my crew said to me as we bounced around in the wash, "If you can see the label on the captain's hat, you're too close"

 

[bigmart]

My first crossings, from Christchurch to Cherbourg/ Alderney were in a 22 footer with nothing but an RDF. Not even a VHF. The guy that owned the boat , that I went on used to do the same trip in a Leisure 17.

I wouldn't call you a whimp for not going in anything but ideal conditions but I do get annoyed at those who imply that you are somehow mentally deficient if you go in small boats.

My current boat is a 26 footer without Radar & I do cross now & again.

Just for your information, I do not carry the recommended 6 Liferafts, 2 LifeJackets for each member of Crew, 3 Epirbs & 5 SART's.

Provided you take the appropraite care all will be fine.

As for the super careful, fine but how do you think Britain discovered most of the rest of the world if we were so careful that we wouldn't leave home without all the technology available.

Martin

 

[Sybarite]

I would hope that you would carry at least one liferaft and one life jacket per member of the crew.

There are times when, even if you take all the care in the world, Sod's Law happens.

I don't have radar but I have done Ushant / Scilly 6 times and twice in fog. It was not pleasant going through the lanes near Ushant. I twice had close encounters with ships: ie less than 100metres, but they saw me before I saw them (even though I could hear them) because they sounded their fog horns.

John

 

[Robin]

[ QUOTE ]
I have to say, slightly in contradiction to Robin, I still do find decent seamanship, and biggish boats changing course....... but a number nowadays, that as he pointed out, assume might is right, and don't bother..... might be rosy tinted specs, but I am sure that this never happened when I first started crossing in the '80s....

[/ QUOTE ]

I would go along with that too really, however I do remember the days when ships sounded foghorns! Strangely perhaps too it was usually the bigger vessels that gave way when the rules gave us right of way and the little coasters, and for some reason the Fleet Auxilliary that rarely did. Maybe it doesn't help though to occasionally hear the shouted arguments on Ch16 between ships that apparently are interpreting the Colregs differently, even heard one where the French CG got involved offering one ship a radar trace recording in the event he submitted an official report!

I remember one epic weekend with the lads and only just able to see the bows of our boat when one of the crew broke wind, followed by a response from another, his first words for 30mls, " well at least we know where we are now, we are in in the same ferkin farmyard we went through going over". We found Poole Fairway despite nothing other than a Seafix RDF, hardest bit was getting in the harbour and finding our mooring.

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

[ QUOTE ]
I would go along with that too really, however I do remember the days when ships sounded foghorns!

[/ QUOTE ]I'm reasonably sure that I prefer them not too in very heavy fog....

I did one crossing in around '88 from Plymouth to Guernsey, and remember vividly being mid channel in less than 100' vis, with no radar, and all we could hear around us was the BoooooOOommmm of fog horns..... bloody terrifying!

 

[bigmart]

Sorry the disappoint you but the only boats that I have crossed in, that carry Liferafts, are Sail Training vessels. I have never crossed in a private Yacht that carried a liferaft.

I am firmly convinced that, the true idea of safety equipment, is to fill that boat, to the degree that there is no room for crew. Ergo No Crew No Risk.

Martin

 

[ex-Gladys]

I did an OYC trip as a kid when the fog was so thick that you couldn't see the bow from the cockpit. Engine off so that you could hear... everyone on deck, lifejacketed, listening intently. Effing scary

 

[bigmart]

I regularly sail with a Sail Training Organisation &, like you have had some interesteing experiences. Even with radar GPS & Chart Plotters it can be very frightening. Not that we tell the kids that.

I remember some years ago trying to enter Braye Harbour (Alderney) in thick Fog, You couldn't see the Bow of a 75 Footer. The Skipper breathed a huge Sigh of relief when it was all over

Martin

 

[Evadne]

Its when you don't hear the foghorns, but suddenly see the steaming lights. Above mast height. Now that's terrifying. Mind you, the omigodhasheseenme white flare did make him swear at me over the vhf!!

 

[Robin]

Radar,GPS & chart plotters! when I went with OYC as a yoof on Theodora, a Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter, she had no winches, a petrol/paraffin motor with a wind-the-wheel clutch whilst standing in the wet & oily bilges straddling the shaft. On our way back from Rotterdam to Dover, in a full gale, the 1st mate was about to take a short cut through the Goodwin Sands when the skipper (and owner) woke up, smelled the air and said where the hell did he think we were going! Who needs GPS!

In our own boat, we once went into Braye in thick fog by running on a constant RDF bearing on Alderney Aero beacon, we thought we had 5 mls to run on our DR when they turned on the foghorn on Quenard Light - it was a bit closer than we thought (yards not miles), it really is very loud... Going through Alderney Race too another time in fog and calling off RDF bearings that were changing faster than SWMBO could write them down... Wimps these newbies, wimps I say!

Of course now we have ALL the gear, 3 plotters (4 with Yeoman) radar, VHF, but it isn't like it used to be in the good old days. Yeah right!

 

[bigmart]

Sail training has changes over the last few years hasn't it. Lyme Bay has a lot to answer for.

Well I remember, back in the old days, in the 22 Footer. We hadjust taken 47 hours to cross from Cherbourg, in thick Fog. No radio & the RDF was too unreliable. By this time we were totally lost & we heard the fog horn of the Needles Light. The only way we could get a fix was to take bearings, with the handbearing Compass, on the sound of the Horn. All three crew members took a bearing & we averaged the result.

We got home so it couldn't have been all that bad.

I've changed my mind. This modern Tech Stuff is for whimps.

Oh for the old days. When Men were Men & the women wouldn't come anywhere near us. Much like now really.

Martin

 

[Evadne]

[ QUOTE ]
Oh for the old days. When Men were Men & the women wouldn't come anywhere near us. Much like now really.

[/ QUOTE ]

Reminds me of the story of (I think it was) ie Haslar, navigator on a channel race about 40 or 50 years ago. After drifting around for 48 hours in the fog he is called on deck by the skipper as the wind has got up. He sniffed the air and said "just off Cherbourg", and retired back to his pit. He turned out to be right, and claimed afterwards that the smell of coal dust and French prostitutes was unmistakeable. Ah, how times have changed.

 

[Robin]

Yep, 1962, sail training vessel, crew of 14 teenagers, ex-WD kapok lifevests (we threw one in once and watched it sink), no liferafts, homemade safety line (bowlines in a bit of rope) buoy spotting from the cross trees after climbing the ratlines on the rigging but without a harness or anything, taking down a genoa whilst sitting halfway out on a BIG bowsprit burying itself into the seas, no lifeline just feet on the net under the sprit and 'tight thighs'....

HSE? what the hell is that?. Wouldn't have missed it for the world, life changing.

Robin

 

[ashanta]

I think that people dont deliberately leave port in the fog to go across channel but once out there and your caught in it you can either go back if safe, stay where you are if safe or continue if safe or whatever option you feel is the safest out of the three for you and your crew.
The fog is common problem with X channel trips and you will get caught out in it if you cross just a few times a year.
I have only turned back once and the reason was I was approaching the shipping lanes, I was single handed and I didn't have radar at the time. I could hear Braye Radio attempting to guide boats into the harbour so I still had a very long way to go, so I turned around and went to Dartmouth.
As usual the weather was fantastic in the morning and contacting friends in Cherburg it was great there also. But better to be safe than sorry.

Regards.

Peter.

 

[Robin]

We had that too off Ushant in thick fog the first time we had used radar in anger about 15 years back having bought it just a few weeks before. Couldn't understand why there was apparently an island showing in the lanes. It turned out to be a tug towing a big barge but on a sheer astern so that on that radar it looked like a wide and deep single target. Lets get a bit closer I said so we can see which side to pass whatever it is on, then he piped up on VHF with an all ships keep away tug/tow message but gave a longitude east not west. No probs brain says (it's 3am) that's miles away, oh sh!t we wouldn't pick up VHF from that range - turn 180 degs! What she says, why? Oh sh!t there he is, BOW lights dead ahead... Spoke to him on VHF a little later when the heartbeat slowed, very apologetic he was too but he was then trying to call some other yachts that were closing and apparently had neither radar nor VHF. And no, not a single toot on a horn!