What should I have done?

Cappy208: I agree it is not just a geographical issue. I take it one step forward and don't consider it necessarily a visibility issue either. I recently related a fairly common situation that I have encountered and used the prolonged blast such as: I am north bound running an easy distance off the bank of a river and meeting a south bound tow on one whistle. There is a boat working on gathering and arranging barges in a fleet that I am about to pass on the two whistle side. That fleet boat has not left the fleet yet, his stern is towards me and it is clear his attention is on the deck crew on the barges. Likewise his radio is probably on a working channel with his crew. We are within site of each other but I question whether he knows I am there and I would prefer he not flip a barge out ahead of me. I sound one prolonged to get the desired attention. The prolonged does not confuse the south bound tow. No collision was imminent so five would have done nothing except wake up three boat's off duty crews.

That might not be in strict conformance with the colregs but it works.

I think there has been some confusion on this thread concerning the original post where two boats are meeting with doubt and clear signs of the potential for collision (five or more blasts if whistle was working) and a later post of a ship entering a fairway full of sailboats that sounded the prolonged.

George: yes, I think we do agree exactly.

Haven't found many yachters who know what Securite' is never mind how to monitor a radio correctly. Most places have so screwed up the VHF radios with mandated monitoring of 16 OR 9 Or some other obscure channel you never know what channel the general public is on. Even in this thread mention of 16 being unresponsive, then 13 was mentioned How about 67? (or 9) Too many variables. I have three VHFs on my Bridge. How many radios does the typical yacht have? 1?

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16 and 9 are hardly obscure channels, did you really mean that? The general radio using public is always on 16. One thing I like about New England is that the hailing of marinas and the like is on 9, cutting out a lot of the hailing on 16 then switching. In reality a "clueless" boater can use 16 and almost inevitably get steered from there to the right channel, be it for a bridge, marina, dredge, tow, whatever.

Perhaps I have boated too much in areas where VHF use is very common.

I can recall vividly a very foggy day on Block Island Sound as we were transiting from LIS to Westport MA. A number of boats were issuing regular securites on 16 announcing position, speed and direction. And hailing boats that seemed not to have radar (!!!).

Go up or down the New River in Fort Lauderdale sometime. You soon learn that everyone monitors 16 and 9, with 9 being the bridge channel and also the working channel for boats ( a lot of big ones on there) announcing position and direction and arranging passes on the twisty turning waterway.

Here in NC, the radio is jumping almost all the time with both commercial and rec traffic. Likewise the waterways in the midwest and deep south.

So it behooves one to get the local knowledge, such as it is, rather than give up on a very important safety tool. Here in the US it is the reverse of what you relate in Europe, in most areas, almost no one uses or understands the whistle signals,as evidenced by this and other threads here.

cappy208 said:

Cross signals. You 'informed' all the readers here that 4 shorts is a meaningless signal. Incorrect. That signal is appropo in certain circumstances. Not this one.

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Well, if the signal was incorrect under the circumstances discribed then it's meaningless if used under those circumstances, yes? And thus it means......wait for it.....NOTHING in that context.

I don't mind having my posts criticized or corrected but geez, at least try to be intellectually honest when going about it.

Greetings,
Mr. JD. "What should I have done?" 185+ posts! Aren't you glad you asked?

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Mr. JD. "What should I have done?" 185+ posts! Aren't you glad you asked?

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LOL. Do I get an "Atta boy!" for is thread?

My summary for the situation:
1) Could have sounded 2 blasts of the horn done a clear 90 deg. turn to port and into the kelp bed or possibly into the sail boat who turned to starboard for the channel dog-leg at that point.
2) Could have sounded 1 blasts of the horn done a clear 90 deg. turn to Starboard and towards the reef or possibly into the sail boat who turned to starboard for the channel dog-leg at that point.
3) Could have stopped (which I did) and sounded 5 blasts. Probably the best manoeuvre.
4) at the same time as the above, attempted contact on 16.


I should emphasise that I was traveling with the tidal current, so also was the stand-on vessel from that perspective.

I wonder if admonishment of the sailboat on the VHF 16 is allowed? How would coast guard respond? I certainly don't want to be pissing them off.

Some observations and experiences: attempts to contact commercial vessels on 16 usually unsuccessful. BC Ferries broadcast "Securities" on 16 with the comment that they can be contacted on 16 and the VTS channel, but they almost never respond on 16. Coast Guard comes on to mention that they can be contacted on the VTS channel. When necessary I now contact commercial traffic directly on the VTS channel, usually with prompt response. We transceive AIS so commercial traffic can identify our position, course and speed. In all cases I am thanked for the contact.

In addition, don't always assume you know a ferry's course based on known routes: when returning home on the other day, a ferry came up on our stern and I contacted him on the VTS and he indicated he wished to pass on our port. Then when he was well ahead of us, he promptly did a 180 U turn and passed us again on our starboard side. This vessel was out on a maintenance run, testing systems.

WRT the stalling issue. I want to emphasize that after some 280 hours on the boat this summer, speeding up and slowing down countless times, the vessel had stalled only once previous to this encounter. I checked the pressure gauge on the dual Racor 900's and the pressure was near "0" and didn't change at all when I switched to the other filter and back again whilst at 1800 rpm. I don't think such an intermittent stall constitutes use of the vessel with a "Known Problem" as some people have accused. That said, I will look into it. My system is the Microcommander (9100?). This may be an idle speed issue or vacuum issue somewhere in the fuel delivery.

Thanks for everyone's interest and help!

Jim

The coast guards of the US and Canada tend to admonish people who broadcast "comments'" on VHF16. Things like "Slow down, you as$hole," generally bring a "Channel 16 is to be used only for..." response from the coast guard. As do boaters carrying on a conversation about things like where are you and where should we meet and how's the fishing.

However, since they have no way of knowing who the boater is unless the boater says so it's a bark with no accompanying bite.

Marin said:

The coast guards of the US and Canada tend to admonish people who broadcast "comments'" on VHF16. Things like "Slow down, you as$hole," generally bring a "Channel 16 is to be used only for..." response from the coast guard. As do boaters carrying on a conversation about things like where are you and where should we meet and how's the fishing.

However, since they have no way of knowing who the boater is unless the boater says so it's a bark with no accompanying bite.

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Yes, I use "decorum" with my VHF transmissions, particularly on One-Six. I have my ROC-M. I don't think that most of the Rec-boaters are compliant in Canada.

I've always thought it a bit pointless that you'll hear a boater--- most likely a sport fisherman--- cussing out someone for waking them. The typical, "Slow down you a$shole"-type comments we frequently hear during the summer.

They never get a response which isn't surprising, but what I and the friends we boat with find kind of silly is the cussors never say where they are, what boat they're cussing at, and so forth.

Granted, we think it's pretty inconsiderate of a powerboater to go plowing past one or more sportfishermen, particularly since so many of the powerboaters who do this are in big [insert brand here] plowing boats that throw up monster wakes.

At least you would think the cussor would say the location; "Hey, as$hole entering Obstruction Pass, slow down," but they never do.

Same thing with radio checks. I know they're not supposed to be conducted on VHF16, but when one does hear one on a working channel, most people answering respond with, "I hear you loud and clear."

Well, that's nice, but it doesn't actually tell the person asking for the test what they want to know. This doesn't happen very often up here, but when it does and we feel like responding we always include where we are. That way the boater asking for the test starts getting an idea of how far he's transmitting. A "loud and clear" response with no other information could be coming from a line-of-sight boat a quarter mile away.

Marin said:

I've always thought it a bit pointless that you'll hear a boater--- most likely a sport fisherman--- cussing out someone for waking them. The typical, "Slow down you a$shole"-type comments we frequently hear during the summer.

They never get a response which isn't surprising, but what I and the friends we boat with find kind of silly is the cussors never say where they are, what boat they're cussing at, and so forth.

Granted, we think it's pretty inconsiderate of a powerboater to go plowing past one or more sportfishermen, particularly since so many of the powerboaters who do this are in big [insert brand here] plowing boats that throw up monster wakes.

At least you would think the cussor would say the location; "Hey, as$hole entering Obstruction Pass, slow down," but they never do.

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Marin's point is well made. It makes me think of a time that we were starting through Mosquito Pass, going south to north. As we turned east to head for the pass, I noticed a large (50+) powerboat standing by the red can that marks the south end of Mosquito. When we were about 1/2 mile from the can, he accelerated towards us, throwing a very large wake. I kept thinking that he would speed up and get up on step and the wake would become less of a problem. He didn't and crossed our bow about 50 yards from us. I cut our speed and turned into the wake while saying the usual comments reserved for inconsiderate boater. The wake was large enough for us to take solid water back to the cockpit.
When I encounter someone like that, I usually look for a yacht club burgee or, at least, a name and hailing port. This boat had none of those things. But it did have an a$$hole in the cockpit filming our efforts to deal with his wake.
This was before Facebook and so his film never made it to the internet. But I sure wish there had been a name so I could have called him or the Coast Guard.

The couple of times I've complained to yacht-club officials via the Internet about their members' behavior operating boats (like not displaying lights nor sounding horn during fog), NO response was received, not even an acknowledgement. Seems like if you're not a member, other boaters do not exist ...

cappy208 said:

Cross signals. You 'informed' all the readers here that 4 shorts is a meaningless signal. Incorrect. That signal is appropo in certain circumstances....

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I can`t find a meaning for 4 sounds. It always bothered me, I knew what 1, 2, 3, and 5 mean, but not 4. What does it mean?

It means there is something lurking out there: a pilotboat in the fog?

Just get a 100 ton Capt. license. Best $1000 and 2 weeks (evenings) I ever spent. You'll be amazed how much you didnt know. Unless you already know it all, in which case you wouldn't dare take the course.

markpierce said:

It means there is something lurking out there: a pilotboat in the fog?

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I recall the prolonged signals of the lightship twelve miles out from the Golden Gate.

BruceK said:

I can`t find a meaning for 4 sounds. It always bothered me, I knew what 1, 2, 3, and 5 mean, but not 4. What does it mean?

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Rule 35


(k) A pilot vessel when engaged on pilotage duty may in addition to the signals prescribed in paragraphs (a), (b) or (g) of this Rule sound an identity signal consisting of four short blasts.