floatsam/semi submerged debris?

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"Let's face it, the Navy can't seem to see freighters in their close vicinity with multiple people "on watch"! :>)"

Oy there! Be nice! It isn't the USN's fault that there are no eight minute timers built to USN purchasing standards. Those poor seaman have to make do with plain three minute egg timers, and then keep rotating them, and then counting the rotations...all very distracting stuff.

The gods love the low-hanging fruit. You do the best you can, but when you are just being plain carefless...doesn't matter why, they go for you first.

This is why some eastern europeans keep their toddlers on a harness and leash, literally. They can't understand how Westerners allow the kids to be out of sight, even for a minute. Westerners can't understand why the toddlers are treated like dogs and leashed.

Yeah, the navy has personnel whose job/responsibility it is to keep a constant lookout, not on an egg timer schedule! But I can imagine how hard it is with the people that join up to establish a good work ethic. Must be frustrating as hell.
I agree on the toddler thing, it's absolutely amazing how fast they just relocate on land or sea.

[Group9]

Originally Posted by s/v Moondancer

After 10 years full time cruising our incidence in boats we know or were within 50 nm of at the time of the incident:

Hitting large object and sinking......1
Hitting whale ......2
Lost rudder ......3
Lost mast ......4
Hit reef and sank ......5
Robbed at gun or knife point ......5

Statistically you need to worry more about looking for reefs than half sunken containers.

Yep. A lot of things can happen.

[Group9]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

But isn't that the interesting point? We talking about hitting unseen objects at night, but how often are we sailing along and notice something barely floating that passes by. We usually don't see a thing until it's abeam or in our wake. And then it's too late. If we were going to hit it, we would have already done so. Sure, sometimes there are large floating objects that we can see well ahead of us, giving us plenty of time to turn and avoid them (such as that floating section of dock we saw after the 2011 tsunami), but usually we aren't going to see them until it's too late.

A collision at night will be harder to deal with than one during the daytime, and there are those rare large visible objects, so I suppose that might be enough reason to slow down at night, but I prefer to maintain speed when I can get it -- day or night. I sail with a crew, so perhaps a shorthanded boat may have different priorities.

But I am talking about sailing in the open ocean. When we sail in the inland waters of the PNW (Salish Sea), especially during winter or after king tides, there are a scary number of floating logs and deadheads. If we sail at night we go very slowly, and day or night when appropriate have someone standing watch well forward where the visibility is good, so they can guide the helmsman around the hazards.

I slow down at night, not to see things better, but to mitigate the damage if I do hit something. The times I have hit something, it was because I didn't see it. If I had, I would have steered around it! And, as hard as it is to see floating debris in the daytime, it's a hell of a lot harder at night!

And, the worst damage I ever had, I never saw the object we hit, just what it did to the keel after we hauled out.

[TreblePlink]

How many have avoided hitting something at night because you saw it on radar?

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by TreblePlink

How many have avoided hitting something at night because you saw it on radar?

Only ships, thunderstorms or waterspouts!
If the water was flat calm, I could see picking up a shipping container on radar, but it's seldom calm and the radar is adjusted to avoid picking up all the white caps.

[billknny]

Originally Posted by TreblePlink

How many have avoided hitting something at night because you saw it on radar?

I assume you mean something other than another boat...
ZERO

If you are talking about another boat, that is a more complex question. The number of times we have taken evasive action is significant, but we usually open up our CPA as soon as we see a contact, and do not wait to decide if it is a "real" threat or not.

Although in these days of AIS the number of "radar only" contacts we make are small, but definitely not zero. Especially when sailing within range of coastal fishing fleets.

[TreblePlink]

Originally Posted by billknny

I assume you mean something other than another boat...
ZERO

If you are talking about another boat, that is a more complex question. The number of times we have taken evasive action is significant, but we usually open up our CPA as soon as we see a contact, and do not wait to decide if it is a "real" threat or not.

Although in these days of AIS the number of "radar only" contacts we make are small, but definitely not zero. Especially when sailing within range of coastal fishing fleets.

I was curious about having seen non-boats (container or debris) on radar...

[billknny]

In really calm water, with a practiced hand at the tuning controls, I have seen things on my 3G radar as small as fishing pot floats. But that is with a VERY short range (<1/8 NM). Nice for moving around an anchorage when it is darker than the inside of a cow, but totally not helpful while sailing offshore.

In typical offshore conditions, I can almost always pick up something the size of a fiberglass center console fishing boat at 5 or 6 miles. Almost always. Some of those boats seem built to military stealth specifications.

[Bean Counter]

Originally Posted by ferrailleur

The more I read the more I fear that my dream cruiser on autopilot would be hit in the middle of the night by some debris lurking semi submerged way out in the open ocean..

Is there more occurrences of such collisions given the increase of world population??

Any thoughts?
Thanks

Logically it might seem the case with more people in the world there will be more partially submerged containers (for example), however weather routing is so much better now than 50 years ago, so maybe whilst there may be more containers being shipped, the number being lost over board is less but I don't know where these facts may be found..

With respect to whales, with less harvesting then likely more collisions.

[JPA Cate]

If the container were partly submerged, your radar would be unlikely to show it, because of the scatter it gets off the sea itself.

On night watches, on one moonless night, there was an unlit ship on our course. He was quite close when I picked out his shadowy appearance, the hole against the stars. If I had been reading a kindle, my eyes would not have been adequately light/dark adapted to have seen him, his "spoor" was so little contrast. About 1/2 mile past us, he turned across our stern, turned all his lights on, and I could hear a klaxon blaring.
He did not respond to being hailed on the VHF, so I guess he didn't require assistance.

Honestly, I wouldn't want someone to go mad for not reading, but, especially at night, preserving one's night vision is the essential to keeping watch. There is a thread about this subject, archived. I remember Mark J writing about how essential it is to look all the way around. Apparently, some people do not check astern, which is where inattentive people overtake from. Even a small sailboat shows up pretty far off--if you're keeping an attentive watch, not being distracted. Use your mind to keep you awake and paying attention.

Ann

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

If the container were partly submerged, your radar would be unlikely to show it, because of the scatter it gets off the sea itself.

On night watches, on one moonless night, there was an unlit ship on our course. He was quite close when I picked out his shadowy appearance, the hole against the stars. If I had been reading a kindle, my eyes would not have been adequately light/dark adapted to have seen him, his "spoor" was so little contrast. About 1/2 mile past us, he turned across our stern, turned all his lights on, and I could hear a klaxon blaring.
He did not respond to being hailed on the VHF, so I guess he didn't require assistance.

Honestly, I wouldn't want someone to go mad for not reading, but, especially at night, preserving one's night vision is the essential to keeping watch. There is a thread about this subject, archived. I remember Mark J writing about how essential it is to look all the way around. Apparently, some people do not check astern, which is where inattentive people overtake from. Even a small sailboat shows up pretty far off--if you're keeping an attentive watch, not being distracted. Use your mind to keep you awake and paying attention.

Ann

Thanks Ann for bringing a senior perspective to maintaining a lookout

We both have sailed pre-GPS and before yacht radar so we developed a lookout discipline that was far more demanding of the watch keeper.

Watching for dark holes, irregular wave shape on a starry night gave you a chance to dodge whatever caused it, and those sleeping down below sleep better knowing you were paying attention.

If the moon was fairly full on a clear night, you could see actually well and if the rising or falling moon happened to be close to your course, you altered at night to follow that wonderful moonbeam for a while.

I never ever heard the mindset, "Well, you won't see everything, so why bother?"....
That actually scares me!

As to Radar at 0.25nm range, manually tuned to pick up a lightly speckled Sea Clutter, I have caught a surprisingly large number of real targets of logs and tiny unlit fish agregation devices and often a tide line wirh concentrated debris can be determined by a change in the sea clutter pattern

Of course, I am talking a minimum of 4 crew on 2 person night watches of 4 hr shifts from 8pm to 6am , with one hour watch as protected night vision lookout, before switching with partner....and a new set of eyes/partner on watch every 2 hours.

6 crew is a perfect number for long multi day passages, if you can find and accommodate them

Obviously much tougher to do with two crew at night, but to resort to not even trying, reading kindle instead, smacks of a faith in a God...I just don't have.

[Don C L]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

If the container were partly submerged, your radar would be unlikely to show it, because of the scatter it gets off the sea itself.

On night watches, on one moonless night, there was an unlit ship on our course. He was quite close when I picked out his shadowy appearance, the hole against the stars. If I had been reading a kindle, my eyes would not have been adequately light/dark adapted to have seen him, his "spoor" was so little contrast. About 1/2 mile past us, he turned across our stern, turned all his lights on, and I could hear a klaxon blaring.
He did not respond to being hailed on the VHF, so I guess he didn't require assistance.

Honestly, I wouldn't want someone to go mad for not reading, but, especially at night, preserving one's night vision is the essential to keeping watch. There is a thread about this subject, archived. I remember Mark J writing about how essential it is to look all the way around. Apparently, some people do not check astern, which is where inattentive people overtake from. Even a small sailboat shows up pretty far off--if you're keeping an attentive watch, not being distracted. Use your mind to keep you awake and paying attention.

Ann

Ah this reminded me of the trip I was on in the Strait of Malacca. In the wee hours one of us looking into the black ahead said, "what the hell is that?" as the whole horizon of what little starlight there was on the overcast night went dark. We didn't have radar on that boat so we could only strain our eyes. Soon, as 3 or 4 massive, fast-moving and totally dark shapes sped by we realized they were some navy ships speeding past. They made no contact with us despite our radio calls. I presume they saw us first. On that same trip we were always looking around for dark fast boats coming up from behind too since we had heard the tales of pirates in the area. I hallucinated A LOT on those night watches!

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by TreblePlink

How many have avoided hitting something at night because you saw it on radar?

Radar does not avoid hitting anything. Radar informs the operator of a possible target to be investigated. It informs often earlier than other means, but not always. Sometimes you see lights before you see the target on a Radar.
If you are referring to partially sunk objects, I'd say it is really rare to spot them on Radar and certainly not something you can rely on.

[AA3JY]

Every once in awhile people ask if I’ve ever seen any containers floating out there. Here’s an article with pictures that I took several years back on a trip from the AVI to the Chesapeake Bay.

A legendary offshore danger - Ocean Navigator - March/April 2013

[TreblePlink]

From the looks of those, I would hope they would show up on radar.