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Old 04-26-2016, 01:04 PM   #163
psneeld
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City: Ft Pierce
Vessel Name: Sold
Vessel Model: Was an Albin/PSN 40
Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 28,149
See....after 35 years of professional boating radio use...I rarely use it unless I absolutely have to or am called first. I find most boaters are just as bad driving as using the radio. Cant tell you how many boats arranged passes with me this trip and still went on the other side....or the ones that never called, or did the pass so bad it didn't matter.

Even in the narrow ICW....I rarely talk to the tug and tows as they see I am giving them the room they need and they don't bother calling me either.

Big ships...some of you don't get....you can do anything you want as they arent going to chang a thing They are sticking to the channel, on course and on speed. You can do whatever and unless you it looks like you are going to get run over...they never seem to call me or other boats I see.

Maybe if I was running a much faster boat it might be different...we will see this summer when I switched h commercial jobs. But I really doubt it...maybe my training and experience allows me to see what they are doing and avoid...and going faster y just means I am doing the chess pieces a bit further out...but I don't think it will change my mind.

I look at it this way...I just follow the rules, yet take corrective action in time to avoid close calls. If one does happen...I know I can stop my boat or turn away from danger in less than a couple hundred feet and avoid all but the most impossible situations....I did it for years TOWING boats let alone the luxury of only my own. So what the rest of the world does is of little concern to me till they violate the rules to the point of collision...and generally I have found the radio usually doesn't avoid or fix those situations....

Again...some boats, captains and places I see AIS as almost indespensible...but for much of the trawler in I do and where I do it....very little need for one.
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