What Small
Boat Operators Need to Know when sharing waterways with merchant
shipping
After
responding to an article on the internet on sail boats making
trans-oceanic crossings with a lone occupant, it became very
apparent to me that the recreational boating community was
very unaware of the dangers involved on not maintaining a proper
lookout, nor have sufficient respect for merchant shipping when
they think that they are visible to the ship when they
see it, when in fact a majority of the time they don't, putting
both the merchant ship and themselves at grave risk. I have
come up with many suggestions that most "Safe
Boating" classes either glean over or fail to
mention altogether. I hope that you find it useful, and
it will make your boating more safe for you as well as
merchant shipping.
Portions of this section
will be or have been featured in: Latitudes
& Atitudes - a
magazine for cruising sailors
Various newsletters of yacht clubs & boating associations
Instructional material for safe-boating classes
INTRODUCTION - Very important misconceptions of merchant shipping.
FALSE - Professionals will do anything to avoid
collision with you
FALSE - Ships can easily maneuver around you
FALSE - All ships meet or exceed international
safety standards
FALSE - All ships can speak English and can
converse with you
PART
I - Safety tips for
soloists who cannot maintain a proper 24-hr a day watch as required
by the rules
Pick the best lighting scheme for your
vessel
Ensure your navigation lights exceed
the distances prescribed by the rules
Use a large radar reflector or several
smaller ones
Use high contrast color schemes for
your vessel in comparison to your surroundings
If you have a radar know how to use
its advanced features
Show Not Under Command lighting
PART
II - Special
Characteristics of Merchant Vessels and what you need to know to
ensure your safety!
Typical Speeds of various Merchant
vessels while operating
Horsepower to weight ratio and how it
affects stopping distances
Turning diameters of various vessels
at typical operating speed
Harbor (Dockside) maneuvering.
Ships radars in high seas and various
weather conditions
Watchkeeping and lookouts aboard
vessels.
¤ Sleeping & fatigue while on watch
¤ Incompetent personnel
¤ Nobody is on the bridge!!!
¤ Single-man watches
PART
III - Tug Boats, Dredges,
VHF-Radio Etiquette, and other things you need to know
Tug boat tow cables can wreck your day
How to safely pass a Dredge
Escape danger by going out of the
buoyed channel
Lesser known Rules of the Road
Trolling is not fishing
Small boats (incl. Sail) vs. big ships
VHF Radio Etiquette
¤ How to establish communications and what not to do
¤ Radio Checks and other improper procedures
¤ GMDSS and how it affects you
PART
IV - Personal accounts of
near misses, collisions & other mishaps.
What a collision with a small boat
feels like to a ship
Slicing a large tree in two
Sailing with no lights on a moonless
and cloudy night
Anchored Center Channel on the
Columbia River
Colliding with a docked ship
Lost at sea without only a sextant
Broken engine with no communications
Rowing a boat in the Gulf Stream
I've fallen and I can't get up
High and dry on a Low Tide
If you wish to
use portions or all of these web pages for your publication. You
may use these pages as you see fit provided that
you are:
An
educational institution
A non-profit
organization
An individual
yacht club/squadron at a single location
with a membership of 1000 people or less.
A
safe-boating class instructor or
participant
If you wish to
publish portions or the entire contents of these pages
in a national or international publications (magazines,
news-papers, television productions, etc.) you
must contact me via e-mail.
In any event, if you
do use it please let me know via via e-mail and if you are going to be editing these pages
and are going to correct anything other than minor grammar, punctuation,
and spelling errors or omitting numbered/bulleted
sections. I would like to proof the text to make
sure the original meaning is still in-tact.
