Sailing vessel and RORO ship on collision courses - what do you think of the outcome?

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by daletournier

Hey, I never called you or anyone else anything... chill mate. This "deep pocket " started with sweet F all.

Btw ,I started on a Wharram.

No worries mate.. I still got sweet F all..
Nice one on the Wharram.. which one.???

[crazyhorse]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

That pretty much negates your point about a ship needing miles to change course.

20,000 tonne tanker in a river.....it's not even trying!! That's what the tugs are for.

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by boatman61

No excuses at all.. I also put the cover on the cockpit CP at night because the glare spoils my night vision.. regardless of its so called 'night setting' which still has an effect on night vision.

Ships still collide with each other, cruise ships hit islands and navy vessels run down boats, hit each other or end up sitting on rocks..
Radar does not compensate for poor seamanship.
Radar is a tool.. you may choose a jigsaw where I may prefer a fret saw.. simple as that.

Of course radar does not compensate for poor seamanship, but it’s part of good seamanship in conditions that demand it, and if available it’s also required by the COLREGS (rules 5&7.....by all available means appropriate in the circumstances and conditions so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision.”) you claim to follow.

You seem to be laboring under the misconception that radar users don’t care about night vision. I agree that night mode is still usually too bright if that’s all you do is switch to night mode, but if you switch to night mode and then reduce the brightness several times as your eyes get acclimated to less ambient light, depending on your plotter, you might be able to see your CP if you want to and still have good night vision. The trick is to make the CP display no brighter than the things you can see on the horizon. Given the choice, I’d rather use my eyes but unfortunately there are conditions at sea where eyes are useless to see anything further away from you than your bow. If there’s enough moonlight or starlight to see after your eyes get adjusted to darkness, then I don’t advocate necessarily using radar if you don’t want to any more than I would on a sunny day, and I agree that blacked out is a very nice way to sail at night. But once you get away from land with city lights reflecting off the clouds, during an overcast night at sea it’s absolutely black and you can see nothing beyond your cockpit with your eyes, same as in thick fog except in thick fog you can’t even see the nav lights of other vessels. As you say, radar is a tool, one that allows us to see other vessels in pitch dark and the thickest fog so the difference in you and those who use radar in near zero viz conditions is that they still have the ability to see you and give way when appropriate, and you choose to not use that tool so you may be blissfully unaware of a crossing situation where you will be expected to give way, Your saws analogy doesn’t quite work because there is no other tool at all similar to radar that you can use to see in thick fog unless you have AIS and the other vessel does too.

Yes, it’s true that even with all the modern gadgets such as GPS and AIS and radar, ships still occasionally collide, but nothing like at the rate they collided before radar began being commonly used. So the fact that ship collisions haven’t been entirely eradicated is no justification for choosing to depend only on methods that were in place back when collisions were much more common. Cars still collide and people sometimes die, but that’s not a reason to revert to the days of no airbags or seatbelts or antiskid brakes. In seagoing vessels and automobiles, technology has given us devices that make it possible to operate at a much higher level of safety than was possible when either your I began driving or boating. Radar is one of these safety devices.

I have no doubt that as you say, you will continue to put miles under your keels, and in poor visibility conditions, whether you admit it or not, those who choose to use their radar will continue to be forced to give way to blissfully unaware you, no matter what the crossing geometry may be, so thanks to them, you’ll likely remain safe. I’m under no illusion that at this late date I’m going to persuade you to use radar when it’s available and you are in conditions of greatly reduced visibility or to avoid sailing in very low visibility conditions if you don’t have radar. All I can do is to point out how inconsiderate and dangerous it is so hopefully any new sailors reading this will understand what a great collision avoidance tool radar is and will opt to use it in conditions when their Mark 1 eyeballs and ears aren’t capable of giving them all the information they need in order to be safe.

[requiem]

Originally Posted by jtsailjt

I agree that night mode is still usually too bright if that’s all you do is switch to night mode, but if you switch to night mode and then reduce the brightness several times as your eyes get acclimated to less ambient light, depending on your plotter, you might be able to see your CP if you want to and still have good night vision. The trick is to make the CP display no brighter than the things you can see on the horizon.

Matching brightness is key, and if you've played with photography the concept will not be too foreign. I've had to cover ancillary displays when the brightness wouldn't dim sufficiently, and the best plotters are those that become unusable in daylight if you left them in night mode.

On a slight tangent I've noticed some tablet apps think inverting colors is sufficient for night, whilst others will do proper dimming. For example, here's a comparison between two:


A post on this forum a few years back also described a way to get decent dimming using an iPad's accessibility settings.

Since I don't like having tools I can't make use of, so having to shut off the radar would rather irk me. If I couldn't get them dark enough by software I'd be thinking of options such as placing a photographic lighting gel over them in a neutral but fairly dark gray.

[Jammer]

Stage lighting designer here.


You can get either Roscolux R-98 or Roscolux R-97 neutral density gel in a 20"x24" sheet for about $8 a sheet at any theatrical supply store or from Adorama or any number of other online suppliers. R-97 has 50% transmittivity for a very subtle darkening and R-98 has 25% which is fairly significant. You can use multiple layers if you need more than that. They let through very slightly more red (most people won't notice) but otherwise have no effect on color. Made from polyester, they can be cut to size with scissors. They are durable and waterproof, just tape them over the display.

[jtsailjt]

I’m not sure how low my new Raytheon MFD will go but it sounds like it would be useful to have onboard. My Raytheon instruments illumination goes pretty low so I’m hopeful I won’t need it. But running Navionics on my iPad is always too bright at night and I can find no night mode in the app itself. Will try to play with settings in accessibility as requiem suggests, but unless there’s a huge improvement, a few sheets of R-98 are in my future. Thanks for calling it to our attention because I’ve been a little frustrated by how bright that iPad is on its lowest brightness setting. Odd, because my iPhone can be made so dim as to appear black in daylight but the iPad is still too bright.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by jtsailjt

I’m not sure how low my new Raytheon MFD will go but it sounds like it would be useful to have onboard. My Raytheon instruments illumination goes pretty low so I’m hopeful I won’t need it. But running Navionics on my iPad is always too bright at night and I can find no night mode in the app itself. Will try to play with settings in accessibility as requiem suggests, but unless there’s a huge improvement, a few sheets of R-98 are in my future. Thanks for calling it to our attention because I’ve been a little frustrated by how bright that iPad is on its lowest brightness setting. Odd, because my iPhone can be made so dim as to appear black in daylight but the iPad is still too bright.

On a dark night with clouds and no moon, even the lowest setting on instruments and MFD is too bright. The previous owner made a canvas cover with suction mounts to stick over the instrument cluster - very simple to lift a corner and look every so often.

For phone and tablets the sheets sound great.

And remember to have a standing order that the dawn watch keeper is responsible for increasing the lighting of all the instruments. There’s nothing worse than to try to control the lighting when everything is black!

[Ralph71]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Yesterday we were broad reaching under gennaker and full main (145 TWA on starboard), heading towards our berth from a distant island. About 6 miles short of our destination we had a mid-sized RORO ship (180m long, roll on roll off car carrier) approaching from our windward (starboard) bow on a course that would cross ours at 90 degrees and with a 0.0nm closest point of approach (CPA) according to our AIS. Our boat speeds were roughly equal - 9.5kn for the ship and 9kn for us. Both of us were clearly visible and transmitting information over AIS, us class B and identified as sailing vessel and the RORO class A and commercial vessel.

We were outside of the harbour limits, there was no traffic separation scheme nor channel, and there was clear water all around with no obstructions within 3 miles.

We started watching the ship at about 5 miles distance from us. We determined that we were stand on as a sailing vessel and the RORO give way as a power vessel. The distance between us kept reducing with very little change in relative bearing, with the RORO just slightly bow forward of us. Note that our AIS continued to show 0.0 CPA.

At about 0.5nm separation, with no evident change of course or speed by the RORO, I called them on VHF 16 using their name (from AIS) and identifying ourselves as the sailboat on their port bow and our boat name. I asked what were their intentions for the crossing. A very relaxed voice replied that they were crossing our bow. I replied that we were currently on a collision course near their midpoint and that we would have to turn to starboard to take their stern. The relaxed voice came back and said to carry on, out.

We hardened up about 30 degrees and crossed their wake about 100 metres astern of them, then bore off back to our original course. Had we kept our original course and speed we would have hit them.

WTF?

——————
This is from ASA website. Fits nicely here..

“HERE LIES THE BODY OF MICHAEL O'DAY
HE DIED MAINTAINING HIS RIGHT OF WAY
HE WAS RIGHT, DEAD RIGHT, AS HE SAILED ALONG
BUT HE'S STILL AS DEAD AS IF HE WERE WRONG...”

[jmh2002]

Originally Posted by Ralph71

——————
This is from ASA website. Fits nicely here.”

As has been mentioned in this and the other similar threads, NO, it doesn't, for several different reasons.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Ralph71

——————
This is from ASA website. Fits nicely here..

“HERE LIES THE BODY OF MICHAEL O'DAY
HE DIED MAINTAINING HIS RIGHT OF WAY

ASA - Another organisation that should know better, perpetuating dangerous, misleading ideas!

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by StuM

ASA - Another organisation that should know better, perpetuating dangerous, misleading ideas!

Not just them - I did a Google search to try to confirm the quote came from the ASA website (couldn’t find it, so maybe) and found at least a dozen other organisations from all over the world using the same quote, sometimes with a different name. Only one noted that there actually isn’t a right of way, but the rest went with it.

Just shows, educational resources that try to dumb things down for the common person are doing more harm than good.

[Be Free]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Not just them - I did a Google search to try to confirm the quote came from the ASA website (couldn’t find it, so maybe) and found at least a dozen other organisations from all over the world using the same quote, sometimes with a different name. Only one noted that there actually isn’t a right of way, but the rest went with it.

Just shows, educational resources that try to dumb things down for the common person are doing more harm than good.

The American Sailing Association was founded in 1983. The quote comes from a JOKE that dates back to at least 1902. Can we please stop using it for collision avoidance.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Be Free

The quote comes from a JOKE that dates back to at least 1902. Can we please stop using it for collision avoidance.

Yes, PLEASE!