twistedtree
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39 28.79N 075 34.46W
Just googling for Reedy Island Dyke will show that boats hit the dyke and sink on a pretty regular basis, including local rescue boats.
Nordhavn salvage
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39 28.79N 075 34.46W
Just googling for Reedy Island Dyke will show that boats hit the dyke and sink on a pretty regular basis, including local rescue boats.
Heron
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Learned that lesson as well in the middle of the Atlantic on the way to Bermuda on a 31' sailboat. Almost got run over by a cruise ship in the middle of the night, despite monitoring on radar, and Radio communications between us.
Night + lights = a perspective challenge
On a fairly flat open sea it can be difficult to visually judge distances even in the day time.
I ran across this issue years ago on the road. I grew up in NC and until 4 years ago had only lived there. In NC we have curves and hills. That gives perspective. You see a car that just came over the top of the hill and you recognize it's fairly close or one that rounded the curve. Generally if you see an approaching car, it's not safe to pass the one in front of you. Now, my first time ever driving in the Delta of Mississippi. No hills. Biggest hill in some of those areas is a speed bump in a shopping center. Long straight roads. I'd see a car approaching and my immediate reaction was not to pass the car in front of me, or the tractor as more often the case. Then the approaching car kept approaching and kept approaching and finally two or three minutes later got there. I realized soon that those cars were often 2 to 3 miles away when I saw them. Well, in NC you don't see cars from 2 or 3 miles.
Judging distances of lights at night is just something most of us have very little experience with and aren't good at. To some commercial captains, I'm sure it's second nature. Not to me.
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psneeld
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Practice and verification through AIS, RADAR, chartplotter, etc does sharpen those skills.
I have been doing it most of my adult life and people are amazed at my interpretation of distances and use of peripheral vision skills. Even night vision is enhanced by search skills over plain old retina rods and cones explanation.
Often my "seeing" things long before others is because I have experience in extrapolating the shadowing or loss of light from distant light sources that places objects in a field my field of view that are yet unseen.
People who have done this kind of operations at night are probably familiar with the basics...it only gets you stares of disbelief from others not a quainted with it....
I have been doing it most of my adult life and people are amazed at my interpretation of distances and use of peripheral vision skills. Even night vision is enhanced by search skills over plain old retina rods and cones explanation.
Often my "seeing" things long before others is because I have experience in extrapolating the shadowing or loss of light from distant light sources that places objects in a field my field of view that are yet unseen.
People who have done this kind of operations at night are probably familiar with the basics...it only gets you stares of disbelief from others not a quainted with it....
twistedtree
Guru
Practice and verification through AIS, RADAR, chartplotter, etc does sharpen those skills.
I have been doing it most of my adult life and people are amazed at my interpretation of distances and use of peripheral vision skills. Even night vision is enhanced by search skills over plain old retina rods and cones explanation.
Often my "seeing" things long before others is because I have experience in extrapolating the shadowing or loss of light from distant light sources that places objects in a field my field of view that are yet unseen.
People who have done this kind of operations at night are probably familiar with the basics...it only gets you stares of disbelief from others not a quainted with it....
No doubt practice hones these skills. The challenge for us recreational boaters, even those who are out a lot, is that it's still way less time than someone doing it all day every day.
Practice and verification through AIS, RADAR, chartplotter, etc does sharpen those skills.
I have been doing it most of my adult life and people are amazed at my interpretation of distances and use of peripheral vision skills. Even night vision is enhanced by search skills over plain old retina rods and cones explanation.
Often my "seeing" things long before others is because I have experience in extrapolating the shadowing or loss of light from distant light sources that places objects in a field my field of view that are yet unseen.
People who have done this kind of operations at night are probably familiar with the basics...it only gets you stares of disbelief from others not a quainted with it....
It may sound silly but we will actually observe visually and make our best estimates and then verify electronically and as we get closer to see whose guess was closest. Doing such any chance we get has made us a little better on top of telling us how unskilled at it we were initially.
As to seeing things before others, my wife always beats me there. She'll see something in the distance and it will take some time before she can point it out to me and get me to see it. We've had many "you don't see that?" "no" "right there" "I still don't see it" type conversations.
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psneeld
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A tip taught to me early in Search and Rescue is keep your eyes moving, don't stare in the direction someone is saying there is an object . There is a bit of an actual or mental blind spot right in front of your stare (maybe one of our eye docs can help me here)...so by darting your eyes back and forth, sometimes it is seen sooner.
Really is about practice. When living on Kodiak Island, my friends nicknamed me the Sockeye Ninja. I would walk to the river after dark and catch fish. They couldn't figure out what I could see or not. Finally I told them, I couldn't see the fish, but I could see a few light colored stones. When the stones disappeared, I cast just upstream of the stone They caught on quick.
Finding unlit buoys or noticing obstructions on waterways is the same sometimes, it is not the object you see, it is the datkness or shadow on the water that shouldn't be there that clues you in to where to look or shine the spotlight.
Really is about practice. When living on Kodiak Island, my friends nicknamed me the Sockeye Ninja. I would walk to the river after dark and catch fish. They couldn't figure out what I could see or not. Finally I told them, I couldn't see the fish, but I could see a few light colored stones. When the stones disappeared, I cast just upstream of the stone They caught on quick.
Finding unlit buoys or noticing obstructions on waterways is the same sometimes, it is not the object you see, it is the datkness or shadow on the water that shouldn't be there that clues you in to where to look or shine the spotlight.
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It is because of the whole rods and cones deal. The cones are in the center of your vision(back of the eye) and are good for clarity and color...but not light. Say they work well in good light. The rods are on the peripheral of your vision....or around the sides of your eye....and are good at picking up light in low light conditions. It is why you sometimes cannot see something at night if you look directly at it but if you look off to the side, you can see it.
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psneeld
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They still bother to put cockpit windows in commercial jets?
Wasn't sure.... as I know it is tough to see over the coffee cups.....
Please don't make fun of my 2 hour helo bladder, that's not fair.... :lol:
Wasn't sure.... as I know it is tough to see over the coffee cups.....
Please don't make fun of my 2 hour helo bladder, that's not fair.... :lol:
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High Wire
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psneeld
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For decades different boating publications called the Delaware River run as one of the most treacherous because of poorly marked shoals, dies and wing dams farther up from Philadelphia.
But it is hard to feel the same now in 2016 with GPS good to 3 foot accuracy and free nautical charts from the government.
But it is hard to feel the same now in 2016 with GPS good to 3 foot accuracy and free nautical charts from the government.
We haven't made that run yet, but we do want to sometime. I'm sure there's some beauty that we haven't seen and will if we do it. It's amazing how little the average coastal cruiser does see of the rivers and bays they pass by.
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psneeld
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Guided tours for cheap...
Guided tours for cheap...
Wifey B: We see water continues somewhere and we want to find out where...like the Ohio River, we want to take it to Three Rivers and then check the three out.
Today we took the Rib up the Manitowoc.
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You still have to know what you are looking at!!!
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Details..schmetails.....
There are no "inconsequential errors"!!! There are hundreds of errors with no short term consequences. But left unchecked, they erode skill, vigilance and lead to the progressive disease of sloppiness. This is not being nit picky. Today's unmanaged error may be tomorrow's tragedy!!!
I think this airline stuff is wearing off on me!!!!...
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psneeld
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Believe me...went through the early years of all that, helped pen the DoD and USCG risk management initiatives....most of it is totally lost on anyone that isn't in the business where it has become the mantra.There are no "inconsequential errors"!!! There are hundreds of errors with no short term consequences. But left unchecked, they erode skill, vigilance and lead to the progressive disease of sloppiness. This is not being nit picky. Today's unmanaged error may be tomorrow's tragedy!!!
I think this airline stuff is wearing off on me!!!!...
I talk about it with successful businessmen and they give me blank stares back much of the time...but my son just got out of the Nany as an HH60 aircrewman...and he can go toe to toe with me on all the high points of the last 20 years of aviation safety initiatives.
Lots of ways to skin the cat, but aviation seems to always lead the pack for honest error investigation and fleetwide implementation of programs to upgrade any kind of awareness, coordination, communication, standardization, etc...etc....
Plus I was only kidding....there were already some pointers right here just about reading charts and what kind are being used and whether or not tech is hindering some from getting all the info they need to safely navigate.
Funny how some on TF will go on and on about how licensing trades to work on a boats or house electrical systems or plumbing is so important...but they feel eminently qualified to run a boat without the slightest bit of formal training. Dang.....go figure...
The circle never ends.....
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cardude01
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Do yall think he hit the levee (or whatever it was) because he was relying only on electronic charts? Would paper charts have made a difference?
I don't have any paper charts to speak of, so that's why I'm wondering. If I have a question with something on my elec Garmin chart I'm usually able to get more info using Active Captain, but if I had to pull out a paper chart I would be pretty lost I think.
I don't have any paper charts to speak of, so that's why I'm wondering. If I have a question with something on my elec Garmin chart I'm usually able to get more info using Active Captain, but if I had to pull out a paper chart I would be pretty lost I think.
Capt.Bill11
Guru
I doudt paper would have helped.
Although, now that I think about it, they may have. In that when using paper and a GPS your head and eyes are more likely to be up and looking out at the real world in front of and around you then when using a plotter.
man n black
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And if the paper was current, and showed the dike, there would be a redundancy that hopefully the boat pilots brain would register and he might very well have been more cautious...
Interesting that the talk has turned a little bit towards aviation policies....As an air crewman on a rescue helicopter in the Rockies I would often pick up the region chart while we were flying and dead recon where we were using the map and landmarks.....amazing how much land you can commit to immediate knowledge that way..
Ch
Interesting that the talk has turned a little bit towards aviation policies....As an air crewman on a rescue helicopter in the Rockies I would often pick up the region chart while we were flying and dead recon where we were using the map and landmarks.....amazing how much land you can commit to immediate knowledge that way..
Ch
High Wire
Guru
My opinion: The fact that NOAA uses dual parallel dashed lines similar to dredged channel lines to mark these submerged dikes has to lead to some confusion to those new to the area. Not great human factors. We do not know what chart media was in use yet.
caltexflanc
Guru
There are warning markers all along that dike and they are well charted too, both electronically and paper. To me the advantage of the nice big paper chart book by the helm is for advance-of-cruise review and getting the big picture. In my opinion, there is no excuse for hitting that thing, and we are as capable of spacing out and screwing up as anyone.
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psneeld
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Please correct me if I am wrong as I rarely use vector charts seriously...
But isn't that the issue beep ween the 2 types of charts for the most part?
Too often detail is lost on vector charts if not zoomed in enough where most of the time the raster has the detail but may be an awkward chart to use on a small screen?
If not I am sorry to mislead anyone, but that was true in the earlier years and why I stick with raster charts. I might be behind now, bUT the raster charts are what I am most comfortable with.
So in answering the paper chart vs electronic chart question....maybe.
And maybe if raster charts were used and not vector, maybe the dike would have been more apparent.
But all a guess.....
But isn't that the issue beep ween the 2 types of charts for the most part?
Too often detail is lost on vector charts if not zoomed in enough where most of the time the raster has the detail but may be an awkward chart to use on a small screen?
If not I am sorry to mislead anyone, but that was true in the earlier years and why I stick with raster charts. I might be behind now, bUT the raster charts are what I am most comfortable with.
So in answering the paper chart vs electronic chart question....maybe.
And maybe if raster charts were used and not vector, maybe the dike would have been more apparent.
But all a guess.....
Capt.Bill11
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Yes the detail issue at different zoom levels still exists.
I constantly remind any of my crew that is taking a turn at watch about it.
caltexflanc
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No, a dredged channel is marked differently, with longer dashed lines (and shading on the vector). And in this case a quite noticeable decrease in depth on either side of the dike. I really don't know how much more the USCG ATONs or NOAA could do make this thing stand out. If someone confused this with a dredged channel they should be banned from piloting a boat ASAP.
On MacEnc, I can toggle between the ENC vector and the raster views seamlessly and see no difference in level of detail at any given zoom.
If anything, for me at least, the dike and it's warning buoys and markers are slightly easier to make out on the vector chart. Ditto on the Navionics Gold chart I had on my Furuno system.
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Wifey B: People is humans. Humans is flawed. Flawed humans f up. Ain't no chart, no system, no marking, no anything gonna change that. 
They be a reason they call them things "Accidents", cause they not intentional. They are unfortunate incidents. Generally they involve human error. Yeah a few have faulty car brakes or acceleration or crazy things and sometimes the plane crashes cause of defects, but not most of the time. Good drivers, bad drivers have accidents. The bad drivers normally have more, but they'd have even more if not for the good.
People can have a bazillion charts of paper, computer, even wood and stone, but still screw up. For future we try to figure it all out and how to not do it next time. People run into things they knew were there, they've been by dozens of times.
There's not a person here who has never made a mistake behind the wheel of a car or at a boat helm. Best protection is two people. Planes have co-pilots but still screw up. We do keep two of us watching in the boat, especially when entering areas or in crowded areas or new areas. A second set of eyes and second brain reduces the chance of human error dramatically. Other way of reducing odds of screw up is sobriety and plenty of sleep so they have energy and focus.
Oh, and we're shocked when robotic car wrecks? Duh.....who designed it? You got it. Humans.
They be a reason they call them things "Accidents", cause they not intentional. They are unfortunate incidents. Generally they involve human error. Yeah a few have faulty car brakes or acceleration or crazy things and sometimes the plane crashes cause of defects, but not most of the time. Good drivers, bad drivers have accidents. The bad drivers normally have more, but they'd have even more if not for the good.
People can have a bazillion charts of paper, computer, even wood and stone, but still screw up. For future we try to figure it all out and how to not do it next time. People run into things they knew were there, they've been by dozens of times.
There's not a person here who has never made a mistake behind the wheel of a car or at a boat helm. Best protection is two people. Planes have co-pilots but still screw up. We do keep two of us watching in the boat, especially when entering areas or in crowded areas or new areas. A second set of eyes and second brain reduces the chance of human error dramatically. Other way of reducing odds of screw up is sobriety and plenty of sleep so they have energy and focus.
Oh, and we're shocked when robotic car wrecks? Duh.....who designed it? You got it. Humans.
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psneeld
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I think if you had extensive training like Baker and a few others have had in human factors and accidents...you might think a bit differently.Wifey B: People is humans. Humans is flawed. Flawed humans f up. Ain't no chart, no system, no marking, no anything gonna change that.
They be a reason they call them things "Accidents", cause they not intentional. They are unfortunate incidents. Generally they involve human error. Yeah a few have faulty car brakes or acceleration or crazy things and sometimes the plane crashes cause of defects, but not most of the time. Good drivers, bad drivers have accidents. The bad drivers normally have more, but they'd have even more if not for the good.
People can have a bazillion charts of paper, computer, even wood and stone, but still screw up. For future we try to figure it all out and how to not do it next time. People run into things they knew were there, they've been by dozens of times.
There's not a person here who has never made a mistake behind the wheel of a car or at a boat helm. Best protection is two people. Planes have co-pilots but still screw up. We do keep two of us watching in the boat, especially when entering areas or in crowded areas or new areas. A second set of eyes and second brain reduces the chance of human error dramatically. Other way of reducing odds of screw up is sobriety and plenty of sleep so they have energy and focus.
Oh, and we're shocked when robotic car wrecks? Duh.....who designed it? You got it. Humans.
When I was leaving USCG safety....the military was about to condemn the word accident as it was archaic in situation where injury, loss or damage was unacceptable.
Zero accidents is the goal, probably not attainable, but the recent study of human factors in "accidents" over the last 30 years has made great advances in reducing them.
A great example was (at least in the early years) was vector charts. Cheap, easy to use...but the downside was zooming out and losing important detail. Without a mechanism to overcome that, a helmsman might miss something that had been on paper nautical charts for decades. Training, awareness, double checking, secondary automation, etc are all tools to help.
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Obviously, you aren't. Your view of this could even be dangerous. There has to be somewhere in your mind where you could piece together a chain of events that could lead to you making the same mistake. Or at the very least, when the facts do come out on this one, you can understand how it could have happened and why it happened. I would be immediately leery of anyone that said "that could never happen to me.".
Just add fatigue and night time and you have a good start on this one.
I have an acquaintance that landed an airplane and when he cleared the runway, he (purposely) ran right off into the grass/mud. Why in the hell would he do that??? Because it was night time and all of the lights lined up to look like a taxiway. His brain played a trick on him. Add in some fatigue...some time compression...and poor lighting combined with poor visibility and you have your recipe.
So saying "there is no excuse" is a bit shortsighted....and even dangerous because you are saying it is impossible for you to make a similar mistake under similar circumstances...circumstances we are merely speculating about.
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