YM fog ?

Sandy said:
prv said:
I would think more yachts probably have a tricolour at the masthead than an anchor light. And while neither is properly correct if you're motoring, the tricolour at least shows which way you're going.
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Not according to a retired ships master in another thread.
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Which bit?

The relative prevalence of tricolours vs masthead anchor lights, the correct lights for motoring, or whether a tricolour indicates heading?

Pete
 
Uricanejack said:
The life jacket ither you feel the need to wear them all the time many people do. I don’t ussualy preferring the use of a harness to prevent a MOB in the first place. Personal choice. No right or wrong. As it happens my harness is also a LJ.
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Surely that means you do usually wear a lifejacket?

Uricanejack said:
If I had an auto pilot. Turn it off and hand steer. I don’t have one so mute point.
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I go the other way. A steady course improves the quality of radar plotting, and having George do it frees someone up to concentrate on looking out whether visually or by radar and/or AIS. If you have someone hand steer in fog then they're just going to have their head stuck in the compass (either that or weaving around the place with no visual references) and that's a waste of a body on a short-handed boat, to do something that a machine can do better anyway.

I suppose I lose the ability to instantly yank the wheel over as a bow looms out of the fog, but the extra time to hit "STDBY" first is minimal. And you're assuming you're not at serious risk of collision anyway.

Uricanejack said:
Fog signal. Bit of a joke it’s a little party trumpet.
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Remarkably common on otherwise well-equipped yachts. I set the VHF to "Fog" mode and it makes the required signals out of the loudhailer, but I seem to be in the minority from what I hear when it's foggy in the Solent.

Pete
 
"I do recall one time, coming around the Lizard when I motored with masthead tricolour because the reflected glare from the bow lights made it impossible to pick out crab pots which were all around. The cane on the top of a pot marker, hitting the hull, makes you jump lively in fog. "

You get canes on your pot markers!!!!! You lucky b****rs The best we get in the solent is a 5 litre oil container, normally a 1 litre container or as a spotted on Saturday, a 200mm bouy covered in seaweed just under the surface
 
Long long ago one November fog descended, quite thick, as I was motoring singlehanded in a near flat calm heading upchannel between the Holms in the Bristol Channel. 18 ft boat, Seagull 40+ 3 hp outboard. About 4 knots of tide in addition to an estimated 3.5 under power. Put up little octahedral reflector and got out gas foghorn. After three goes the diaphragm on my gas foghorn froze up completely with condensation and the horn stopped working. If I carried on under power, I could not hear anything except the Seagull and the Flat Holm foghorn, but if something popped up close having some way on would be good to take avoiding action.

Engine off I was making maybe half a knot at best, but could hear several foghorns.

Compromised by a sequence of about a minute engine on and then a minute engine off but with cord wound round flywheel ready. The Seagull always started instantly. An additional worry also became errors in DR with speed changes - this was long before GPS existed and the only instruments on board were a compass and leadline.

Twenty minutes later on turning off engine heard faint but deep donk, donk, donk..... getting steadily louder. Started engine again and just watched 360 degrees as best I could.

Never saw it, about 5 minutes later shut engine noise down again and ship noise fainter again. Very very glad to get into the shallows off Weston. Finding the river entrance buoy was another lesser problem. I've really hated fog ever since......
 
prv said:
I would certainly put my nav lights on - Colregs says so, if nothing else. I'm baffled at the suggestion that I display an anchor light if not anchored.
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I've not read the whole thread (and didn't pay much attention to the article). But is the reason that the "fog" might be low mist and a higher viewpoint could see the anchor light but not the vessel?

Mike.
 
One point I've not seen in scanning this thread, in fog, use your autopilot if possible.
Steering a steady course makes life a whole lot easier for someone tracking you on radar.

I'd guess the RYA method of following a contour line is the ideal way to send the other bloke with radar around the bend?

If the deck level nav lights are not penetrating fog, just throwing light back at you, I'd definitely switch to masthead tricolour.

I try (really quite hard) to avoid being out in fog, but I'd say more than half the times I've been caught, there's been enough breeze to sail.
 
Tricolours are the spawn of the devil and should be oulawed. They give false indications of heading and a little waiver of course gives conflicting information.

PW
 
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Sandy said:
'the tricolour at least shows which way you're going.'
Not according to a retired ships master in another thread.
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Hmm... can't say I saw any such statement in any other thread.... care to show us?

That aside you are required by Rule 20 (c) to exhibit the required lights 'from sunrise to sunset in restricted visibility'

An off-white boat with off-white sails doesn't show up that well in an off-white mist if she isn't showing lights.....
 
I can see why the tricolour at the masthead is a good idea. Fog is often quite shallow, so it's likely to be more visible to a ship than deck level lights. If the only light at the masthead is an anchor light, I might be tempted to put in on as IMO, it's more important to be seen than to be legal. Radar & AIS, if available are no-brainers.

My rules are to wear a lifejacket when you're more comfortable with it, or when I say so. This is definitely an I say so time, but don't clip on unless the sea's so rough as to make it more dangerous not to be clipped on.

Dress to abandon ship, everyone in the cockpit with grab bag, and liferaft ready to deploy - if we get run down, it at least gives everyone a chance. You don't want to be below when your boat is T boned by a coaster, which is probably the most likely beast to run you down. If it's a fast container ship that gets you, nothing you do will make much difference. Even if there's enough wind to sail, I'd be inclined to get the sails down and motor - an abrupt change of course to exit stage left is a lot easier under power and no canvas to hinder you.

In my one experience of mid-channel fog, we could hear the engines of an approaching ship over our engines with no problem. We could hear it getting closer but had no idea where it was.

That's for open waters. In the Solent or somewhere similar, if fog comes in suddenly, I'll hightail it for the 3m contour and either drop anchor and get the kettle on or pootle gently to the nearest port, thanking the gods of sailing for my chartplotter app.
 
Much of all this good advice becomes less important if one is operating with radar, or to a lesser extent with AIS. You would be very unlucky to be run down in open water with radar, or better still, both systems going. Of course, one should not be complacent, but although fog is disconcerting, with the ability to spot other vessels at several miles range the experience is not the terrifying one it can be without assistance. I have done passages in the North Sea and Channel in fog a few times. I can't quite say that they were enjoyable trips but they weren't especially alarming to myself or crew.

This does not mean that I think people should not go to sea without electronic aids, far from it, or that people should recklessly venture with them, just that they do radically change things.
 
Some folk seem to be getting very heated over the anchor light suggestion.

To me, it's eminently sensible to follow that advice. A masthead anchor light is usually the brightest and most visible of the nav lights; in some situations the masthead could be above the level of the fog. A masthead sticking out the fog may not be very obvious to ships but at least the anchor light gives us a better chance of being spotted in most light conditions. That counts in my book.
 
Stemar said:
I can see why the tricolour at the masthead is a good idea. Fog is often quite shallow, so it's likely to be more visible to a ship than deck level lights. If the only light at the masthead is an anchor light, I might be tempted to put in on as IMO, it's more important to be seen than to be legal. Radar & AIS, if available are no-brainers.

My rules are to wear a lifejacket when you're more comfortable with it, or when I say so. This is definitely an I say so time, but don't clip on unless the sea's so rough as to make it more dangerous not to be clipped on.

Dress to abandon ship, everyone in the cockpit with grab bag, and liferaft ready to deploy - if we get run down, it at least gives everyone a chance. You don't want to be below when your boat is T boned by a coaster, which is probably the most likely beast to run you down. If it's a fast container ship that gets you, nothing you do will make much difference. Even if there's enough wind to sail, I'd be inclined to get the sails down and motor - an abrupt change of course to exit stage left is a lot easier under power and no canvas to hinder you.

In my one experience of mid-channel fog, we could hear the engines of an approaching ship over our engines with no problem. We could hear it getting closer but had no idea where it was.

That's for open waters. In the Solent or somewhere similar, if fog comes in suddenly, I'll hightail it for the 3m contour and either drop anchor and get the kettle on or pootle gently to the nearest port, thanking the gods of sailing for my chartplotter app.
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There are no fast container ships now. My old ladies, capable of 24.5 knots at 166 tons a day, are poodling around at 12 or 13 at 56 tons a day. See the fuel price.

At risk of teaching Grandma, radar and AIS are only aids to safety if the observer interprets the data they provide correctly. The classic "radar assisted collision" can still happen where yachts are concerned. The first link here seems to me quite a reasonable explanation of why this is, and the second link is to a well known MAIB report:

https://www.playdeau.com/radar-assisted-collisions-and-marpa/

https://www.gov.uk/maib-reports/col...coast-of-england-resulting-in-wahkuna-sinking
 
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Minn said:
There are no fast container ships now....
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That is interesting. The thought had drifted through my mind since it became possible to conveniently see the details of ship traffic.

Looking at the Channel, ships steaming at anywhere near 20kts are very few. I would guess the average big ship is doing 12 to 14?
In the olden days we used to scare ourselves with thoughts of legions of 25kt ships, soon, surely to be doing 30, or more.
 
doug748 said:
Looking at the Channel, ships steaming at anywhere near 20kts are very few. I would guess the average big ship is doing 12 to 14?
In the olden days we used to scare ourselves with thoughts of legions of 25kt ships, soon, surely to be doing 30, or more.
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‘Slow Steaming’ was introduced during the credit crunch in response to falling trade, roofing bunker prices, and an oversupply of ships globally. A ship can save around 60% of fuel costs by pulling back from 28kts to 18kts, more if slower still.

By the time trade had recovered and fuel costs had fallen again, supply chains and logistics had adapted to the point that companies were using ships as an alternative to warehouse costs! This in part explains why different routes operate at different speeds.

And the trend looks here to stay, for today hull designs are being altered to optimise slower speeds and smaller cleaner engines are being fitted.
 
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I am also of the "autopilot on" camp - I want to be able to keep looking around not to have my eyes glued to a compass which is the only other option.

I quite like the idea of a masthead light sticking above the fog but more likely to use the tricolour in darkness and the anchor light in the day.

The other idea that is new to me in the advice is to unclip - I think this is really sound advice as the increased danger is not falling overboard - any more than it would be normally in calm weather but in being hit and being pulled down with the boat. Awkward but possible also I suppose to get off watch crew up and in lifejackets too but that wouldn't be popular, and certainly wouldn't be practical for long lasting fog.
 
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