Apparently AIS & RADAR not Adequate Substitute for Lookout

[Adelie]

List of Sponsors for Boris Herrmann:

Kuehne+Nagel: https://home.kuehne-nagel.com/
Sea-explorer: https://www.seaexplorer.com/
Yacht Club de Monaco: https://yacht-club-monaco.mc/en/home/

EFG Bank: https://mc.efgbank.com/
MSC-Mediterranean Shipping Co.: https://www.msc.com/
Hapag-Lloyd Shipping: https://www.hapag-lloyd.com/en/home.html
CMA-CGM Shipping: https://www.cma-cgm.com/
Quantum Sails: https://www.quantumsails.com/en/default
Musto Foul-weather gear: https://www.musto.com/
Peter Frisch Foul-weather gear retailer: https://www.frisch-homepage.de/
Solbian Solar panels: https://solbian.solar/en/
Marlow Ropes: https://www.marlowropes.com/
B&G Marine Insturments: https://www.bandg.com/
CNB Yacht Builders: https://www.rbk-yachting.de/
Great Circle-Squid Marine Weather Forecasting: https://www.squid-sailing.com/en/
Kanzlei-EFA (Eger • Dyers • Aicher - Tax Law): https://www.kanzlei-efa.de/
Fattoria La Vialla Famiglia Lo Franco (Family Farm): https://www.lavialla.it/uk/
Weather Dock - Marine Electronics: https://www.easyais.com/en/
The Shack Blue - Marine Media Content: https://shackblue.de/en/
Fuchs Wes services: https://fuchs.ws/
OneDay Coaching: https://www.oneday.ch/de/
SSI-Monaco; Space Systems International – Monaco (telecommunications ): https://www.ssi-monaco.com/
Sailectron - Marine Electronics: https://sailectron.com/
Lampe-Schwartze Group - Insurance: https://www.lampe-schwartze.de/en/
IQ MEDWORKS - Healthcare: https://www.iqmx.eu/en/iq-medworks/
Karbon Jewelry - https://karbon-creations.fr/collection/malizia/
Privilege Catamarans: https://www.hanseyachtsag.com/privilege/gb/
Vallon - Sports Eyewear: https://vallon.store/
Sports For Future - Sports NGO: https://sportsforfuture.de/
Schoen Yacht Charter: https://schoen-chartern.de/#Malizia
BOOTSPUNKT - Marine Chandlery: https://www.bootspunkt.de/
Glashütte Original - Watchmakers: https://www.glashuette-original.com/de/

[NorthCoastJoe]

He seems like an ass to me. He is racing so I put the burden on him.
Why should a large ship alter course for some jerk racing getting his jollies?

We have had to deal with racers getting too close for my GF comfort, and we were not racing. Stay the hell away from others if you are racing.
Some people just want to enjoy the day on the water.

Just because you are racing does not mean you own the water. Sorry my rant.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by MJH

I look at Rule 5 as a legal Best Practices measure.

Laws/rules are promulgated to underline accepted standards of behavior and we all agree that looking where you are going is fundamentally the best practice.

Like most laws/rules they are not always enforced at all times for many reasons...just asked the cops in your neighborhood or a prosecuting attorney.

But when bad things happen those laws/rules come into play in deciding who was at fault and has to pay the price of his/her behavior...word to the wise.

I sail solo a lot and even very long distances across an international border. The thought of a marine patrol stopping me and telling me I shouldn't be sailing solo because of Rule 5 is pure overreach.

~ ~ _/) ~ ~ MJH

Rule 5 is not best practice guidance, it is a legal requirement that only tends to be used to determine liability after the fact for recreational vessels. For commercial vessels there is considerable enforcement in practice. If there is injury or death, there is the potential for criminal liability.

If an official approached you vessel underway and found you sleeping, they could cite you if they wished, depends on the officer and the jurisdiction. Just because it is not normally enforced, doesn't mean that enforcing it is over-reach.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Pizzazz

It feels to me some people are overreacting and follow the rules to closely. Rules are meant to be broken...

Seriously, though, rules are made to make our lifes easier but they need to adapt to the progress of technology. AIS is a fantastic technology to prevent collisions at sea and beats a human any time (reliable, robust, calculates point of closest contact much better and faster than a human can do). AIS can fail but so can a human.

For me, the right way to go is to mandate AIS for any boat that is in international waters (>12nm). If you are a fishing or military vessel choosing not to transmit then by default you would be considered at fault. If you do not have AIS or it is broken then you should be required to either keep watch 24/7 and there should be at least two on board or head back yo port. Also, you can easily have a self testing AIS setup or a dual AIS setup that ensures that the probability of failure is very low.

This would be the way to go for autonomous vehicles plus remote control in critical situations. You can't stop progress because a few old timers want to enjoy sailing with a paper and compass, single handed, half asleep, etc. If they do, it is at their own risk. A similar, though not exactly comparable will be ABS brakes in autos. ABS brakes are superior and allow traffic to move much faster in slippery conditions. If you have an old car without ABS you are a danger to yourself and to everyone else on the highway because you cannot brake as effectively as the other cars. So such cars should not be insurable in my opinion (or should have restrictions to movement).

ex-SV Pizzazz

COLREGs are not meant to make our life easier, they are meant to make our interactions with each other more predictable despite distance and a lack of common language.

AIS will not be mandated within our lifetimes. There are too many poor nations out there with fishing vessels bringing home food for their populations from international waters. Many of these vessels have a hard enough time keeping nav lights running let alone VHF or AIS.

Next question is will a Solo sailor with as broken AIS be allowed to sail out of a Hurricane zone or will they be required to sit tight for the season?

[Montanan]

"The Coast Guard is aware that not every vessel maintains a lookout while at anchor, but also admonishes skippers and crews who sleep through the night. “This practice is dangerous, as well as well being a violation of basic seamanship law,” the Coast Guard states in a recent news release directed at Alaskan commercial fishermen. The Coast Guard may issue citations for violations of Rule 5, with potential fines up to $6,500.

Relying solely on radar guard-zone alarms or GPS anchor-watch alarms is not sufficient, says the Coast Guard, though this equipment should be used to augment lookout measures."

https://www.boatingsafetymag.com/boa...kout-stay-safe


Leading Cause of Florida Boating Accidents is Failure to Maintain Proper Lookout
January 11, 2019 https://www.spiveylaw.com/blog/leadi...roper-lookout/

Lt. Seth Wagner from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), Boating and Waterways Section, said, “For 2017, the leading contributor to boating accidents was the operator’s inattention or failure to maintain a proper lookout. It is critical for operators to be diligent in observing and being aware of what is going on around them.”

261 Florida boating accidents involved collisions, and 38 percent of all collisions were due to inattention or the operator failing to maintain a proper lookout.

A proper lookout is defined in Rule 5 of the regulations. The rule says, “Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper lookout by sight and hearing conditions so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and the risk of collision.”

BoatU.S. reported that in September 2015 an accident occurred caused by a U.S. Coast Guard-licensed captain who was delivering a 60-foot boat to a boat show in Norwalk, Connecticut. The captain’s boat ran over a small fishing boat, killing the occupant. At a trial held in the spring of 2016, the captain who hit the boat was found guilty of failing to keep a proper lookout. At the trial, the captain said he had not seen the 23-foot boat.

The nautical rules handbook says, “Responsibility for maintaining a proper lookout lies with the vessel's operator, not with a subordinate designated as ‘lookout.’ The vessel's operator which is master, watch officer, or person in charge is the lookout manager. If the operator can keep a lookout personally, then coordinating the collection and analysis of information is relatively straightforward. But if the operator, that is, the decision-maker, must rely on others to gather the information, then management of a proper lookout becomes more complicated. The operator must ensure that information on the vessel's surroundings is detected in a timely manner and promptly communicated so that he or she can correctly analyze the situation.”

According to Soundingsonline.com, the captain is to conduct a proper lookout by all available means. “All available means” includes, but is not limited to, radar, AIS (an automatic identification system which is a digital VHF radio-based transponder system that can prevent collisions), an automatic radar plotting aid, vessel traffic services, and good reliable binoculars. The captain has to assess the vessel’s needs, make sure everyone tasked with lookout duties has, and knows how to use, the equipment, and knows which information is expected to be delivered to the operator.

[JPA Cate]

I'm amazed to hear sailors down on Boris Hermann's case. Imagine, he was trusting his "early warning system"--he had three, any one of which, would have alerted him or automatically avoided the large steel fishing boat. He wakes up to horrible crashing noises, with the motion suddenly awry. He deals with his emergency. He's 90 miles from port, that he has been away from for 80 days. He tries to figure what on earth went wrong. Imagine both eyes, and the forward looking autopilot all malfunctioning at the same time! One would be horrified. Just because he did not think to mention remorse does not mean he did not feel it.

If it had happened to me, my first concern would be for my boat, too: it is the safety platform at sea. The broadcast I saw, he mentioned no one had been injured. Of course he still wanted to finish the race. All my life I've heard men praised for staying focused on their goals. Wouldn't you love to be so strong, young, brimming over with good health after almost 3 months eating freeze dried food, too?

These are all rather talented young people, please remember there were women competitors, too. Do you really want to tar all with the "arrogant" brush? Sure they're assertive, else how could they get the sponsorships together for the efforts? They have learned to become extremely efficient sailors, studied enough meteorology to predict which sides of the lows and highs will give them the best opportunities. They had to predict what materials to help them make what possible repairs while underway, and be able to do it. This is down to earth, dead practical skills, and I think they are admirable.

I think it is likely there will be a court case, and I don't know what the apportioning of responsibility will be. We have encountered non AIS, wooden (no good radar target) unlit fishing boats in our travels. They scare the heck out of me. They are hard to see, especially on dark nights. As sailors, we are supposed to keep clear of fishing boats that have a basket hoisted in their rigging, or show proper illumination. Much easier to see in daylight. Have seen many, obviously not fishing, steaming around about 8 kn. with the baskets still up.

Life has risks. I don't mind adding the very few singlehanders to my list of them. Isn't it my job to keep myself safe? I'm fallible. I might slip up.

Ann

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Snore

The “C” in COLREGS stands for convention.

Therefore, I do not believe any one country can unilaterally alter COLREGS.

No, the COL in COLREGS stands for Collision.
The full name is "The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea"

[CarlF]

I've actually been involved with an autonomous vessel company that worked with the CG on exactly this issue. After much back and forth with Washington the CG decided the drone should be lit as a hazard to navigation with a flashing yellow light. The CG ordered us not to refer to it as a "vessel" so that COLREGS would not apply.

It also broadcast AIS with a name of "Unmanned experimental drone"

But no one was too worried because our drone was 16ft long and weighed about 200lbs. Any ocean going boat would just run over it - or push it aside - without scratching their paint. And most likely not know they had done it.

[hzcruiser]

Hmm, not the best marketing for this new OSCAR system, either, I'm afraid.

He mentioned detection of many vessels hours earlier, also via radar. Rather odd why not even his radar started beeping once he was alongside the trawler?

[Karanga]

My latest whizz-bang halo radar is an aid, but I feel very uncomfortable relying on it for collision avoidance. In fact at times it is next to useless, not painting boats (fibreglass, aluminium, wood and steel) that I can clearly see with my old-fashioned eyeballs.
I wonder if Lidar might be a better tool (except in fog or rain). I note that there are apparently sensors that will work up to 10km away. It shouldn't be too difficult to pass any object painted, through image processing to even identify the size and type of vessel.
Or is there something fundamental that I am missing?
Tim

[aqfishing]

Originally Posted by Pizzazz

It feels to me some people are overreacting and follow the rules to closely. Rules are meant to be broken...

Seriously, though, rules are made to make our lifes easier but they need to adapt to the progress of technology. AIS is a fantastic technology to prevent collisions at sea and beats a human any time (reliable, robust, calculates point of closest contact much better and faster than a human can do). AIS can fail but so can a human.

For me, the right way to go is to mandate AIS for any boat that is in international waters (>12nm). If you are a fishing or military vessel choosing not to transmit then by default you would be considered at fault. If you do not have AIS or it is broken then you should be required to either keep watch 24/7 and there should be at least two on board or head back yo port. Also, you can easily have a self testing AIS setup or a dual AIS setup that ensures that the probability of failure is very low.

This would be the way to go for autonomous vehicles plus remote control in critical situations. You can't stop progress because a few old timers want to enjoy sailing with a paper and compass, single handed, half asleep, etc. If they do, it is at their own risk. A similar, though not exactly comparable will be ABS brakes in autos. ABS brakes are superior and allow traffic to move much faster in slippery conditions. If you have an old car without ABS you are a danger to yourself and to everyone else on the highway because you cannot brake as effectively as the other cars. So such cars should not be insurable in my opinion (or should have restrictions to movement).

ex-SV Pizzazz

A fisherman's perspective.
Firstly AIS is not a requirement in SA for my vessels.
I have started fitting to my vessels as it is a great safety tool, especially when fishing in busy shipping lanes far off the coast.
However, my competition uses it to locate my vessels. This is a problem in our industry. My skippers spend many hours and loads of diesel looking and when they find it and are seen in 1 spot too long, the lazy ones come along and want to share in their hard work. This means they have to share the shoal with other vessels instead of catching it all for themselves.

This means that sadly most of the time their ais is not broadcasting.

Pity you can’t limit who sees you to a preset range from your vessel, say 3 or 5nm, not every person who has an app. This could go a great way to helping fisherman embrace it.

Fisherman are a secretive bunch who jealousy guard their secrets!

[aqfishing]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

I'm amazed to hear sailors down on Boris Hermann's case. Imagine, he was trusting his "early warning system"--he had three, any one of which, would have alerted him or automatically avoided the large steel fishing boat. He wakes up to horrible crashing noises, with the motion suddenly awry. He deals with his emergency. He's 90 miles from port, that he has been away from for 80 days. He tries to figure what on earth went wrong. Imagine both eyes, and the forward looking autopilot all malfunctioning at the same time! One would be horrified. Just because he did not think to mention remorse does not mean he did not feel it.

If it had happened to me, my first concern would be for my boat, too: it is the safety platform at sea. The broadcast I saw, he mentioned no one had been injured. Of course he still wanted to finish the race. All my life I've heard men praised for staying focused on their goals. Wouldn't you love to be so strong, young, brimming over with good health after almost 3 months eating freeze dried food, too?

These are all rather talented young people, please remember there were women competitors, too. Do you really want to tar all with the "arrogant" brush? Sure they're assertive, else how could they get the sponsorships together for the efforts? They have learned to become extremely efficient sailors, studied enough meteorology to predict which sides of the lows and highs will give them the best opportunities. They had to predict what materials to help them make what possible repairs while underway, and be able to do it. This is down to earth, dead practical skills, and I think they are admirable.

I think it is likely there will be a court case, and I don't know what the apportioning of responsibility will be. We have encountered non AIS, wooden (no good radar target) unlit fishing boats in our travels. They scare the heck out of me. They are hard to see, especially on dark nights. As sailors, we are supposed to keep clear of fishing boats that have a basket hoisted in their rigging, or show proper illumination. Much easier to see in daylight. Have seen many, obviously not fishing, steaming around about 8 kn. with the baskets still up.

Life has risks. I don't mind adding the very few singlehanders to my list of them. Isn't it my job to keep myself safe? I'm fallible. I might slip up.

Ann

Well maybe he never set his equipment properly. I cannot imagine a radar with a proximity alarm missing a big steel wall!

[250224]

The YACHT magazin has some more infos (in german): https://www.yacht.de/regatta/vendee_...r/a127259.html

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by Pizzazz

A similar, though not exactly comparable will be ABS brakes in autos. ABS brakes are superior and allow traffic to move much faster in slippery conditions.

This would be a much better analogy if it wasn't completely wrong!
However it does illustrate how people can make false assumptions about the capabilities of technology when they really don't understand the technology itself. ABS does not allow you to go faster in slippery conditions. ABS does not actually allow you to stop faster in slippery conditions - in fact it can extend braking distance. It's purpose is to keep the wheels from locking so that control (ie. steering) can be maintained. Even then it can be defeated under certain conditions.

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by blu3534

+1

Covid seems to put stress on some forists and all they can do is abusive talk. Those legalese fundamentalists! Ha, many probably 120+ and wish back the gold old steam train epoch, can't see that technology changes some things. And yes, sometimes accidents happen.

There was no-one injured. Tesla is bringing modern transportation forward and there are (very few) casualities. We, as a society, accept this. How many thousand time less dangerous is traffic at sea than car traffic on the roads?

Has anyone noticed how incredibly silent the auto industry has been about autonomous cars the past year or so? - and it's not been because of the pandemic. It's because it's so INCREDIBLY difficult to do and reality has set in. The first 95% is easy: generally follow your GPS route; follow the lines; brake or steer around if someone is in front of you. But what about driving in snow: no lines and completely different (and variable) braking and steering algorithms; or coming around a curve on a highway and there's a cop standing at the side of the road waving for you to stop because there's an accident ahead; or those ethical decisions: do I choose to veer onto the sidewalk and run down a crowd (how do I even know it's a crowd from the radar return?) and risk killing a bunch of people or do I veer into a concrete wall, kill my owner/driver and destroy myself? Those are the tough ones.

About a year ago, FedEx did an experiment with a Tesla with all the latest bells and whistles (a maritime expression if there ever was one ). They ran some typical delivery routes around Greater Vancouver. The result: in the suburbs they were able to use the autonomous driving features about 50% of the time. The rest of the time they had to drive the car themselves. In downtown the autonomous capabilities were only good for 5% of the route.

I spent my career in IT starting in 1969. The holy grail being talked about then was Voice Recognition. In the sixties through eighties, when computers of one or two meg took up enormous rooms and literally TONS of air conditioning, a great many computer scientists at a great many universities struggled with it. When did we get it?: thirty years later when we could hold computers of hundreds of megs in our hands. I think it will be a while before autonomous cars are a viable reality for the masses. In the meantime we will have to be happy with semi-intelligent safety features like automatic braking when something gets in front of you, lane change warnings, and parallel parking assistance.

But I will concede that automating ships and even planes, is much, much easier. Heck, cross the ocean automatically and put a crew (only a couple of guys at that point) aboard with the pilot as you approach the destination, and take her in manually. I'm sure the harbour tug companies would be pleased to provide the necessary docking crews.