Do you keep a Constant Lookout?

[zeehag]

i snooze in cockpit.
i live in cockpit when under way whether or not i am on or off watch.
i am always on watch as this is my boat and home.
it is my repsonsibility.
so what if someone else can hold the wheel or watch otto drive boat... it is not that persons responsibility to keep boat safe.
it is mine.

ZOMBIES DO NOT SWIM!!!!!!!!!

0400is miserable dead time. is when i do my 15 min snoozes... done this all the years i worked successfully in intensive care on 12 hours night shifts... fired ifcaught--i do it well, thankyou.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

All this worry about "big ships" running you down... With the advent of inexpensive AIS receivers (or better yet transceivers) that has become a very small risk for the voyager, whether far at sea or coastal. Yes, I know that some have reported encountering vessels which SHOULD have been broadcasting AIS that were not, but I have yet to experience this, and we spend quite a bit of time at sea. Big ships are the least of my watchkeeping worries these days.

But in coastal waters, commercial fishermen don't broadcast AIS, and often behave in ways that are inexplicable to yotties, with sudden course changes, etc, and very often are not keeping any sort of watch themselves. We have had some exciting moments with them over the years, despite being on active watch... thus they are on my worry list. And in some ways worse are the small "tinnies" with weekend anglers that litter the waters inside say 10-20 miles from the coast. Often unlit, they can simply disappear in the troughs between ocean swells, and be quite hard to spot. Running into them is unlikely to hurt your boat much, but will surely cause a lot of strife! So, a nearly constant watch is needed when in these areas. This does not mean literally constant, but a better look around on a few minutes apart schedule... not every fifteen or twenty minutes.

A final worry is (gasp) other cruising yachts. We have been around a few such collisions over the years, and they are often the result of folks on reciprocal courses using the same set of waypoints garnered from some cruising guide or other. And there are still a few folks who don't light their yacht at night. We have encountered such at sea, and have wished for a very loud airhorn or a cannon... something to shake their complacency rudely. They shame us all...

So, don't worry, be happy... but keep a reasonable watch depending upon your situation.

Jim

Yeah, the fishermen are a hard bunch to navigate with... strange lights, long nets, often grouped in a crowd in a several mile area... I ran into a bunch in the Straight of Juan De Fuca once in super thick fog... radar showed where the boats were but the nets were a night mare. After negotiating thru them for a half hour I looked at the compass and I had turned 180! "Screw this" I said and headed out across the straight to take my chances in the freighter zone!

[Grateful]

With regard to reading or doing other tasks on watch, I think that different people have different capabilities. In the middle of an open passage, I have no problem with reading a book at night on my watch. I just have a pretty good "internal alarm clock" that has me scan the horizon, sails, and instruments every 8 - 12 minutes. I don't even think about it - it just happens.

On a recent fast delivery trip, it became a running joke that one of our watch mates got caught out by a squall every night and was the only one of the three of us that did. (By about the third or fourth night in a row of getting hauled out of bed to get cold and wet to shorten sail that joke stopped being funny.)

I'm convinced that it was because she would get caught up in her book (or daydream or nap?) for 20 minutes at a time, which was just long enough for the small fast moving squalls that we were dealing with in the North Atlantic in November to get too close to dodge. Had she looked up a little more frequently she (we'd) have been fine.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Yeah, the fishermen are a hard bunch to navigate with... strange lights, long nets, often grouped in a crowd in a several mile area...

One night I was perplexed, I was truely perplexed, by some far off lights behaving as UFOs do. It was in that 2am to 4 am low Circadian Rhythm period and I couldnt see how one ship could grow wider and wider and then Reduce itself again. Truly mysterious, Scully!

Of course the AIS made it a bit obvious!

[s/v Beth]

They drive me bonkers. It seems they always become a problem at the souls midnight, 3am. (I always take the 12am-4am watch) and they turn on their AIS only when less than a mile away! I usually see them, if not radar picks them up, but they seem to always change their course and head to intercept me!
This last trip I had a big commerical ship that was fishing inside the 12 mile limit (poaching??) see me and pull up his net and head rapidly across my bow, crossing less than 100 yards away heading towards open water. Once I passed, he turned off his AIS, his lights and went back. I reported his behavior to the USCG, they were interested, but I think they would have been interested in anything at 400. They wanted some type of identification, but I had none. Even the AIS was just a number. Just rapid foreign language over the VHF.

[monte]

We sailed past a cruise ship the other night that wasn't broadcasting AIS. It was coming the opposite way but about 2M CPA so no problem. We've come across a couple of ships not broadcasting AIS. Yep they're supposed to but some are on the blink, not set up correctly or whatever so alarms aren't foolproof. We usually sail with AIS and radar set with alarms and usually see ships around the same time as it's noticed on the radar at about 10M in decent conditions. The radar guard zone and alarm is usually set around 6M. A vessel from dead astern isn't likely to show up on radar behind the mast so don't forget to look there
Fortunately on a cat a pretty good lookout can be kept from the galley or nav station or cockpit so you can cook and keep watch at the same time, but a step to the helm every 15 mins for a good horizon scan, instrument and trim check is the minimum we do.

[gjordan]

If I am not incorrect, fish boats are exempt from the AIS rule. They must have had a good lobbiest to keep their practice of lying over the radio, of where they are, or are not catching fish. Tuna seiners run (when fishing) with absolutely no lights showing, but are not a problem because the man in the crows nest is in charge, and the income of the whole crew depends on how sharp he is. The part that makes us yachties crazy is that they sweep a very bright light across the water every once in a while, in about a half a second. To us it looks like a strange form of lightning. They probably have the best watch of any commercial boat, since their income depends on the man in the crows nest. Just a foot note. _____Grant.

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by gjordan

If I am not incorrect, fish boats are exempt from the AIS rule. They must have had a good lobbiest to keep their practice of lying over the radio, of where they are, or are not catching fish. Tuna seiners run (when fishing) with absolutely no lights showing, but are not a problem because the man in the crows nest is in charge, and the income of the whole crew depends on how sharp he is. The part that makes us yachties crazy is that they sweep a very bright light across the water every once in a while, in about a half a second. To us it looks like a strange form of lightning. They probably have the best watch of any commercial boat, since their income depends on the man in the crows nest. Just a foot note. _____Grant.

It depends what country the fishing boats are in Grant.

In Australia, I presume it's in all our States and Territories, then fishing boats are commercial vessels and all commercial vessels do in fact have to transpond and receive AIS.

[Wanderlust]

Originally Posted by Rustic Charm

In Australia ........ all commercial vessels do in fact have to transpond and receive AIS.

When I first set up my IAS system and was testing it, I was wondering why a local fast ferry (100+ pasengers) did not appear on the display. I phoned them to ask why and they just said they didn't have one "Yep we know we are supposed to have one but we don't".

I'm sure there are many that fit into that category.

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by Wanderlust

When I first set up my IAS system and was testing it, I was wondering why a local fast ferry (100+ pasengers) did not appear on the display. I phoned them to ask why and they just said they didn't have one "Yep we know we are supposed to have one but we don't".

I'm sure there are many that fit into that category.

pretty appalling isn't it. do the authorities up there not inspect the vessels for survey?

[Wanderlust]

I thought it surprising as well. I naively imagined that the authorities would be keeping a close eye, but apparently not - at least until the next inspection.

Just for the record, when you said "up there" it was Central Coast NSW.

[markpierce]

To expect every ship/boat to display AIS or show up on radar is delusional.

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by Wanderlust

I thought it surprising as well. I naively imagined that the authorities would be keeping a close eye, but apparently not - at least until the next inspection.

Just for the record, when you said "up there" it was Central Coast NSW.

well, I'm in Tasmania, so anywhere is 'up there', or 'over there on the mainland'.

[IslandHopper]

Originally Posted by Rustic Charm

It depends what country the fishing boats are in Grant.

In Australia, I presume it's in all our States and Territories, then fishing boats are commercial vessels and all commercial vessels do in fact have to transpond and receive AIS.

Incorrect.....AIS is not mandatory for fishing vessels in Australia, the requirements are as below...

https://www.amsa.gov.au/forms-and-publications/Fact-Sheets/AISA_Fact.pdf

Class A has been mandated by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for vessels of 300 gross tonnage and upwards engaged on international voyages, cargo ships of 500 gross tonnage and upwards not engaged on international voyages, as well as passenger ships (more than 12 passengers), irrespective of size.

As a reference note the collision in the Great Barrier Reef between the Chemical Tanker Golden Tiffany and the fishing vessel Bandill K on the 29th April 2014.

LOCAL: Fishermen put profit before safety and reef environment — Lloyd's List Australia

Excerpt...

“It’s far easier to use AIS rather than to track lights or use your radar and do calculations, but it is not mandatory yet for fishing vessels to have AIS. It is important for them for their own safety that they see and are seen,” said the expert navigator.

Lookout
He then referred back to the volume of collisions in which one side or another failed to keep watch and asserted: “there is a solution – AIS”.

Simon Meyjes of the Reef Pilots agrees. He says that the concept of ‘see and be seen’, which does urge the keeping of a lookout, the running of lights, and the monitoring of radio and radar, does not stipulate the carriage of AIS.

And, even though AIS is not recommended as a collision avoidance device in-and-of-itself because it is not sufficiently reliable, its use does add one more means by which vessels can see and be seen.

“Particularly on a dark and stormy night when these small vessels will just disappear off the radar, AIS will help,” Mr Meyjes explains.

However, it is a view that is unlikely to find favour with the fishing industry.

We were told by three independent sources that commercial fishermen do not want to install AIS. And they each separately gave exactly the same reason.

“Commercially, they don’t want other people to know where they are fishing. We raise it continually with AMSA,” said Mr Meyjes of the Reef Pilots.

“At this stage, you can’t see trawlers – they say it is commercial-in-confidence… they don’t want their fishing mates knowing where they are,” said Phil Koloi, an incident response coordinator for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA).

“AIS? We have them on our boats to receive, not transmit. Why? Because fishermen are fishermen. If there are five or six boats in the area, then the not-so-successful fishermen will follow you around,” said one Queensland-based commercial fishing source on the basis of anonymity.

[Rustic Charm]

thanks for that. I'm a little surprised but good to have clarified.