Just In Case You Think That Freighter On The Horizon Sees You

[JeanneP]

Somebody wasn't paying attention!

[Nausikaa]

For the sakes of those who would like more information:

The 2008-built 6,019 gross ton general cargo Marti Princess was involved in a collision close to the Dardanelles Straits in the early night of Saturday June, 27 2009 with the 1994-built 14,619 GT German flagged containership Renate Schulte.

No casualties were reported, however, as a precautionary measure, 13 crew members of the Marti Princess were evacuated upon request from the master of the ship.

Following the collision, water flooded the 2 cargo holds of the Marti Princess. The Marti Princess is reported to have been carrying 8,000 tonnes of bulk cement. By Tuesday evening, a salvage team was already on board the Maltese ship to assess the situation and carry out the necessary stability calculations.

No pollution was reported. At around 10.20h Wednesday morning, both vessels were successfully separated.

Currently, the Renate Schulte is just south of Cyprus heading westwards at 15 knots. The Marti Princess is in the Ionian Sea off Peloponnisos heading southwards at just under 13 knots, bound for Egypt. It looks like their courses will cross again!

And, no, I am not a nurd. I just happen to be sitting at work with very little to do (for once) at the moment and with all kinds of ship tracking resources available to me.

Aye // Stephen

[Francis]

I never cease to be amazed of the complete disregard freighters, and for that matter,fishing boats, have for Yachts, especially the kind with sails on. They have all the excuses, cannot stop , cannot divert, restricted by draught, trawling etc. I just wonder if"cannot be bothered" falls into any regulations. How often have you been in the situation where a overtaking freighter would not change its course a few degrees to avoid collision?

I suppose we just have to stay away from everybody else to stay afloat!!!

Fair Winds,

[Nausikaa]

Originally Posted by Francis' date='14 June 2010 - 03:50 PM

I never cease to be amazed of the complete disregard freighters, and for that matter,fishing boats, have for Yachts, especially the kind with sails on. They have all the excuses, cannot stop , cannot divert, restricted by draught, trawling etc. I just wonder if"cannot be bothered" falls into any regulations. How often have you been in the situation where a overtaking freighter would not change its course a few degrees to avoid collision?

I suppose we just have to stay away from everybody else to stay afloat!!!

Fair Winds,

My friend, you are opening a can of worms here.

My first reaction is to ask if you ever have read the COLREGS? If you have, and you absorbed what you read, you will know the following:

* a vessel which "cannot stop or divert" may either be not under command, restricted in her manueverability or hampered by her draught. In all cases you, as a yacht under sail and under command, are required to keep clear of her.

* a vessel may not hamper the safe passage of a vessel which is restricted by her draught - in this respect, a deep draught vessel in the middle of the North Sea has little room to maneuver and thus a yacht is required to keep clear of her. Do you know the day shape and lights carried by such a vessel?

* a vessel engaged in fishing is also a vessel you are required to give way to. Simple as that, and there is no difference made between trawling, seine netting, long-lining, potting etc.

* the rules do not permit anyone to change course just a "few degrees" to avoid colllision as the change of course shall be positive, i.e. so substantial as to be easily detectable to other vessels.

As for the complete disregard freighters have for yachts, I have, when crossing oceans and far from land, on numerous occasions asked yachts I have met if there is anything they need. On many of these occasions we have stopped the ship and given (note, given, not sold) fresh provisions and water as well as diesel to the yachts. On one occasion we were even asked for toilet paper, which was duly delivered.

Whilst on the subject of following the rules and regulations or even just exhibiting good seamanship, how many pleasure boats do not carry the correct lights at night? How many yachts under sail and motor carry the prescribed cone, apex downwards? How many pleasure boats keep the prescribed lookout? How many pleasure boats are sailing around with out-of-date and uncorrected charts or time expired flares?

I do not condone poor seamanship by anyone, yachtsman or professional seaman, but I would suggest that a bit of modesty would be in order and that yachtsmen should not get on their high horses before examining and correcting the multitude of sins they commit.

Aye // Stephen

[Francis]

Indeed, being responsible for your actions tend to be in short supply, at sea and onshore....

Fair Winds,

[redbopeep]

I don't know about freighters/commercial and large ship military traffic not going out of their way--we've had a few large ships hail us in near shore coastal waters to coordinate actions--typical discussion is that they want to know if we'll be continuing on our heading and if so, they'll be passing behind us by x-miles, thank you very much. One time we were about to tack and informed them of such, so they continued on course. We've found them very nice to deal with thus far. Cruise ships, another matter, but you just stay out of their way!

David and a friend hav been literally "chased" all around the Ensenada Mexico bay by a nutty huge dredger that they could not seem to get out of the way off. Also, in harbor, we've had horrible troubles with barges being towed--you see they often don't stay in the channel so just when you've made certain you're out of the channel but not going to end up on the shore, here comes the vessel towing the barge right out of the channel straight at you...with no other shipping traffic IN the channel! In one case, we simple sailed into the shipping channel for a bit, in another case, we tried to hail them, got no response and ended up having to start the motor to get out of their way (very light winds) which meant we went into the (empty) shipping channel for a bit.

We do have the day shape for motor sailing use and typically do use it... but must admit that we didn't use it on our recent trip up the coast of California as we were sailing and kept forgetting to put up the day shape when we started motoring for a bit. We do have a system for remembering to turn off the tricolor at the masthead and turn on the lower navigation lights and steaming light, thank goodness!

Regarding shipping traffic: Sadly, our economy must be really hurting. From Long Beach, the Santa Barbara Channel, San Francisco, etc...it was like a ghost place--no commercial traffic! The only commercial traffic we saw (and we were near or in shipping lanes at times) was small fishing vessels and then once in San Francisco Bay we saw the many high speed ferries. I don't know where the shipping is--but it's not here right now, that's for sure.

[Istioploos]

Originally Posted by Francis' date='14 June 2010 - 09:50 AM

I never cease to be amazed of the complete disregard freighters, and for that matter,fishing boats, have for Yachts, especially the kind with sails on. They have all the excuses, cannot stop , cannot divert, restricted by draught, trawling etc. I just wonder if"cannot be bothered" falls into any regulations. How often have you been in the situation where a overtaking freighter would not change its course a few degrees to avoid collision?

I suppose we just have to stay away from everybody else to stay afloat!!!

My experiences in are mixed. Very often when a freighter overtakes me (me being under sail) they do change their course, albeit slightly. I usually wait until they are about 1.5 nM and then change my course by 30-45°. During the past two years, after having installed a class B AIS transponder this is very easy. Cargo ships and passenger ships do often respond to a VHF hail and give their intentions.

Fishing boats, here in the E Med have no AIS and almost never respond to an VHF hail. I avoid them and never come closer to them than 2 nM since their course is unpredictable and I cannot assume that they have a lookout being busy fishing.

Fair winds

[redbopeep]

Now that we have an AIS receiver (built into our marine radio) we can manage to sidestep close calls more easily. We recently found this very useful when coming up near Mare Island and dodging the ferries that weren't quite onto their tracks yet. We also passed several anchored oil tankers and were able to note that one was weighing anchor and would cross our path based on the AIS input which went from 0 knots for that ship to 4 knots. We were able to luff up and stall so we'd fall behind that ship rather than be in his path (which we would have been). And, he was simply re-anchoring as it turns out, too.

[Aquaria]

Luckily nothing much happens when all are aware that the traffic is dence. A sharp lookout is kept on the commercial ships as well as on the yachts. We sail in waters (North Sea Baltic Sea, British channel) where you always see at least one commercial ship! As we were sailing, we were only one time actually chased by a dredger (going home) on a coast line where one does not expect such things: a rather small norwegian dredger close inshore at the swedish southeastern coast, coming up from behind, changing course at us every time we tried do get away - meanwile under engine. Finally he passed sooooo close that we could see the white in the eye of the man on the bridge who obviously had hell of a time together with the man on the helm doing this nonsence! Â*But it was the only time it happened.

But as soon as the man on watch does not expect another one out there, the problems arise and spectacular things happen, as we have seen Â*(spectacular pics!).

Out there, being seen is one thing.

Reacting the right way seems to be the bigger problem.

Sometimes.Â*

But what so ever, sailing between the Big (and sticking to the rules) can be fun and creates interesting and breathtaking scenery:

Â*



Uwe

SY Aquaria

[Boomerang]

Originally Posted by Nausikaa' date='14 June 2010 - 12:04 PM

My friend, you are opening a can of worms here.

My first reaction is to ask if you ever have read the COLREGS? If you have, and you absorbed what you read, you will know the following:

* a vessel which "cannot stop or divert" may either be not under command, restricted in her manueverability or hampered by her draught. In all cases you, as a yacht under sail and under command, are required to keep clear of her.

* a vessel may not hamper the safe passage of a vessel which is restricted by her draught - in this respect, a deep draught vessel in the middle of the North Sea has little room to maneuver and thus a yacht is required to keep clear of her. Do you know the day shape and lights carried by such a vessel?

* a vessel engaged in fishing is also a vessel you are required to give way to. Simple as that, and there is no difference made between trawling, seine netting, long-lining, potting etc.

* the rules do not permit anyone to change course just a "few degrees" to avoid colllision as the change of course shall be positive, i.e. so substantial as to be easily detectable to other vessels.

As for the complete disregard freighters have for yachts, I have, when crossing oceans and far from land, on numerous occasions asked yachts I have met if there is anything they need. On many of these occasions we have stopped the ship and given (note, given, not sold) fresh provisions and water as well as diesel to the yachts. On one occasion we were even asked for toilet paper, which was duly delivered.

Whilst on the subject of following the rules and regulations or even just exhibiting good seamanship, how many pleasure boats do not carry the correct lights at night? How many yachts under sail and motor carry the prescribed cone, apex downwards? How many pleasure boats keep the prescribed lookout? How many pleasure boats are sailing around with out-of-date and uncorrected charts or time expired flares?

I do not condone poor seamanship by anyone, yachtsman or professional seaman, but I would suggest that a bit of modesty would be in order and that yachtsmen should not get on their high horses before examining and correcting the multitude of sins they commit.

Aye // Stephen

Excellent post, Stephen.... Poor seamanship abounds, but the rules are there for a reason.....sadly, too many on the seas have little regard or knowledge of those rules......

C