NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Lights etc.
From: Dave Weilacher
Date: 2003 Oct 9, 16:46 -0400
From: Dave Weilacher
Date: 2003 Oct 9, 16:46 -0400
So... Here is the other perspective. I'm a 30 ft sloop, operated professionally (at least to the best of my ability). Under motor on the St. Johns River, Florida, passing the port of Jacksonville. I'm way out of the channel accross from the port. There are tugs working a barge off the dock. All is cool. I'm nowhere near nor heading toward them. One of the tug operators sounds 5 short blasts plus a bunch of extras. He gets on the radio and tells me to get the @#$% off the river because they are working there. On a sailing class, we were working our way under sail against both wind and current back to the marina. This required close attention to our tacks to make progress at all. A shrimp boat came in, not fishing (makes him a power boat). He came barreling up to us and proceeds to tell me about my oedipal relationship with my mother. We had no real choice at this point but to fall off. It took us another hour to reach the marina. The shrimper turns his boat in place and ties up right where he was. Not two minutes of courtesy and no real rights would have saved us an hour. ...but the story told to me by a charter boat captain. During the Kingfish tournament offshore at Mayport Florida, all boats are required to maintain no wake speed only. One of the fishing boats was in the way of the Mayport ferry (RAM). The Ferry was sounding the danger signal repeatedly and bearing down on the fishing boat. The charterboat captain yells at the skipper of the fishing boat to get out of the way. The fishing boat guy yells back that he can't, its a no wake zone. I guess my conclusion is that professionals tend to be culled out by circumstance, leaving generally competent but not necesarily nice or courteous people in place. Recreational boaters come in two herds. Those that attempt to act professionally and the bunch that believe if they actually have to learn something, it won't be any fun. -----Original Message----- From: "Royer, Doug"Sent: Oct 9, 2003 4:00 PM To: NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM Subject: Lights etc. George,now I know you are a crafty,cunning fellow.I will never play a game of American poker with you ever! No, I didn't take it as an attack on me personally but couldn't understand why you were so pugualistic and like a trout rose to the bait. Stephen stated in his post of his "all around white light"on his mast he uses while underway.I've been reading more of this practice in other papers and I am witnessing it more on small sail and power vessels when I am at sea.Did the rules change or am I misunderstanding something?I looked in my copy of the rules and the only "all around white light" on a mast alone and not used in combination with other lights is to be used while anchored or aground with running lights out, not while underway.Can someone explain?Apperently it's legal to do. Have any of you used,installed or seen in use the new LED running or signal lights?I can tell all of you now that these are very clear,color intense, bright units.These lights seem to stand out better than the incandecent lights of the same size,thus enableing opposing vessels to visualy discern the intent(at least the course)of another vessel at greater distance.I would be interested to hear if any of you have. Also,as Rino stated sometimes a small vessel isn't seen or picked up by radar.Do any of you carry a rechargable,handheld 1,000,000 candle power spotlight to draw attention to yourselves?There are small radar reflectors one can attach to the upper mast that increase the radar return of your vessel by a factor of 2. On the subject of collision avoidance.A week ago I was onboard(on the 2200-0400 wheel watch actually)my friends 250 GT tug towing a cripple into San Deigo from south of Ensenada,Mex.At this time of year the area from 32*24' N,118*0' W to 31*30' N,118*0' W is very congested from 0000 to 0300 hrs. and 1800 to 2100 hrs. because of the Tuna fleet and sportfishing yatchs(no sail boats involved) going to and from the grounds.To make a long story short it is always a mess.This night was more intense though. I'll give you my pos at 0030 as 31*49' N,117*36'W and that will be the center point.There was 3 cruise ships on north headings along with 2 merchies and us all within 12 nm of the point.There are 2 more cruise ships and another merchie on south headings at 22 nm from the point.The fleet and yachts are converging on this point at 28 nm on S. West headings.In totall there are over 170 vessels converging on this point.You can visualy see the cruise ships from a long way.I stopped the tug + tow because I'm RAM.The rest of the big ships start talking over VHF working channels,relaying manouvering schemes and manouvering.The tuna fleet(65 ft. to 100 ft in lenght,100 GT)with lisenced crew are also communicating with themselves and the big boats by VHF working channels and planning their manouvers.Most of the yacht drivers on the other hand are useing open channels and talking about fishing and not careing about what's ahead. To end the story my vessel at 1 point was surrounded by 18 yachts within a 1 nm radius.Most alot closer than that.I'm showing the lights for a tow > 200 m,barely underway and RAM to boot.The whole crew is up now with spots and flares if needed.I had 1 small boat(18-22 ft)go between the tug and tow under the tow cable while never heading the ch. 16 warnings!All the other close yachts turned from thier courses only when they were less than 1/8 nm from the tow or tug! This is one reason I have not that much patience or respect for most small boat drivers.Some have no idea what rules or lights mean nor do they seem to care if they do. Dave Weilacher .US Coast Guard licensed captain . #889968 .ASA instructor evaluator and celestial . navigation instructor #990800 .IBM AS400 RPG contract programmer