And meanwhile in the Chesapeake...

Hmmm, regardless of the sailboat having an engine on, unless that photo is flipped...

menzies said:

Hmmm, regardless of the sailboat having an engine on, unless that photo is flipped...

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Pic is correct. More have been posted locally.

This should buff out.

My exoerience with many charter guys and some rec guy using planer boards in the Chesapeake is they think they can do whatever they want.

But this guy had to have been going faster than trolling.....

Then again..... on a busy sailing day near Annapolis, sailors think they can tack whenever they feel like it.

Agree with the the above observations by psn. Sailboters tend to use the right of way privilege to excess and fishermen with planer boards tend to think they're entitled. The speed at which it looks like this happened seems about right for Spanish mackerel fishing. It doesn't look like either one had an adequate watch posted but if I were to guess, the fishing boat wasn't paying attention and the sailboat watched the whole thing happen without taking corrective action.

Reported 10 to 12 knot breeze and flying a jib and main I doubt the J 105 had his motor on. If that is true it may be difficult for the power boater operator to not show negligence. Avoid all accidents is the primary objective.

Depends on the sailboats actions and whether there were other boats around.

Can't see the powerboater escaping more than 50 percent, but can see the sailor taking a big chunk.

Then again ....I am just generalizing on habit patterns... As there is little info from just that article to make sound judgements on.

Ouch !!!
From the pic apparent wind would make the stbd side of the sail boat the high side.
Can't imagine what it took to get the power boat up and ocer the rail.

Regardless....
Gross negligence to allow that to happen. Avoid any potential for accidents !!
No reason whatsoever to be that close to another boat on open water.
Fishing rods are stowed but could have been after the fact. I think he was going faster than trolling speed.
Notice most of the power boaters have life jackets on, sailors don't.....

Solly said:

Notice most of the power boaters have life jackets on, sailors don't.....

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Almost certainly, PFDs would be donned after the fact. I may have seen somebody wearing a PFD on a local charter when they're going out to fish... back in the last century maybe.... maybe once. It'd be very uncommon.

We have 9 fishing charters here in our marina these days, I don't remember seeing anyone on those with a PFD on as they leave or reenter the marina.

The charter probably wouldn't have been trolling with planer boards, possibly not even trolling at all. Most of the locals are bottom-fishing, drifting or anchoring, jigging or live-lining, this time of year... for rockfish, croaker, and/or perch.

-Chris

The picture may not be representative of the wind at the time of collision, or if the sailboat tacked right in front of the powerboater it could have been more level.

With multiple boats rounding Thomas Point light from the channel, lots of boats get close to one another ..it's both a major waypoint and arrival departure to a channel.

We don't know when the rods were stowed.

I just heard -- from at least a third-hand source, possibly with some speculation -- that the skipper or mate of the fishing charter was (or may have been) driving from the cockpit controls. Which could in turn mean reduced/little/no visibility forward through the pilothouse and over the bow.

Very unsubstantiated.

-Chris

Not sounding good, but the same for the sailboat if she just tacked. The sails may have been a contributing factor with their visibility.

I hear from some sailors that reduced visibility with sails up is one reason they don't sail parts of the ICW, more than inconvenience.

Still - there is a lot of open water in the picture. Somebody wasn't watching what they were doing, and probably both of them. I'm surprised that no one was killed.

Islanddreamer said:

Still - there is a lot of open water in the picture. Somebody wasn't watching what they were doing, and probably both of them. I'm surprised that no one was killed.

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I doubt that the sailboat tacked in front of the boat, unless it was a last ditch effort to get out of the way.

It is true that it is hard to see to leeward in a sailboat, but sailors have reflexive behavior that always has them checking inder the sails and definitely when tacking. It is the same type of automatic move a Cessna pilot makes where they lift the wing in the direction of a turn before the turn to check behind the blind spot there.

Also keep in mind the relative speeds of the two boats. It can be hard for a slow boat to avoid a fast boat.

Still, psn could be right and the sailboat could have cut right in front of the fishing boat.

How do you think the conversation went after the introductory pleasantries?

Not to drift a little this reminds me a whale flipped a fishing boat off the Jersey shore the other day.

Islanddreamer said:

Still - there is a lot of open water in the picture.

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It looks open, but from a little local guesswork (and we couldn't actually see them from here) it gets pretty shallow around there, probably 225-degrees worth of shoal (from their boats) depending on which way they were heading.

-Chris

Glad everyone is OK. The rest can be fixed or rebought.
However that photo is perfect for a caption competition. I'll start:

Yacht Path owners start from the ground up again!

To get that far over the sailboat, that powerboat had to be moving on plane (some news reports said 25 knots). In that amount of wind, the sailboat would have been moving maybe 6 knots. Unless his motor was on, it is a very far stretch to put any of this on the sailboat, no matter how he was maneuvering. Very unlikely his motor was on with both the main and jib set.

PS, sailboats don't tack because they want to on a whim, they tack because the have to. At 6 knots a tack cannot surprise a 25 knot powerboat unless the guy is asleep below. A good tack takes about 10 seconds to complete, average speed about 4 knots, traveling about 65 feet. In the same time a powerboat traveling 25 knots will go 415 ft. The powerboat would need to be on a course near a grazing pass to end up in a T bone, even if the sailboat took the worst possible maneuver. No excuse for that. Doesn't matter in the colregs whether the poles were stowed or in use.

I don't think anyone thinks a tack should be the cause of a collision .....but under the Navrules a poorly timed tack under certain conditions could very well be construed as not following the rules and therefore putting that skipper partly to blame.

I have enough sailing and sail racing experience to understand the difference between good sailors and the vast majority I know that have sailboats. Anything is possible with some of them behind the wheel/tiller.

DDW said:

To get that far over the sailboat, that powerboat had to be moving on plane (some news reports said 25 knots).

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I'm not trying to be argumentative but I would think 25 knots would've put him back in the water on the other side of the sailboat. I'll bet it was under 8 knots. Remember, his engines were probably pushing him the whole time up onto the boat.

Nothing but comment suggests, as yet, the sailboat tacked on top of the powerboat in its water.
Operating in the vicinity of a sailboat you can often anticipate what it will do,it`s usually obvious when it will tack or gybe,and you can operate accordingly.
The news report suggests no inappropriate sailboat operation. So far it looks like a simple "failure to keep and proper lookout/failure to yield right of way/failure to take avoiding action" on the part of the powerboat.

Suggesting otherwise is mere speculation. Let`s see what time reveals.

An 8 knot collision would not put him on top of the sailboat. Had to be faster than that. 8 knot collisions result in some crunching and sliding off. But the speed is actually irrelevant to the colregs.

The only way a poorly timed tack would put the sailboat at fault is under under rule 8, and it would be a quite an unusual situation at that. The only way you can tack on a powerboat and hit it is if the powerboat was passing very, very close, and the helmsman was not paying attention. This is almost certainly a rule 18 situation, "A power driven vessel will keep out of the way of: (iv) a sailling vessel." It isn't ambiguous.

Now, if the sailboat was motoring there are a whole different set of rules.

I have seen plenty of poorly timed or foolish tacks and there are plenty more rules that MIGHT apply ......but we don't have enough info

Which is really my main point.

No one here knows what did or didn't happen, no matter how far fetched or outside someone's experiences on the water.

menzies said:

Hmmm, regardless of the sailboat having an engine on, unless that photo is flipped...

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Just for the sake of clarity, the sailboat’s engine can be on to charge the batteries or chill the cold plate, and she will still have rights if the engine is not being used for propulsion. Think transmission in neutral. You may not understand how or why a sailboat does what it does, but your ignorance doesn’t change your burden to give way.

Also, more fishermen should learn the difference between “trolling” and “trawling”. And if you think planar boards constitute the latter(they don’t) you owe us all some day shapes that advertise your ignorance. Know the rules.

In this case, there is simply no way to imagine a realistic scenario where the sailboat is at fault or could have avoided the collision. Charter boat captain is gonna have to go back to his land job.

Maybe if sailboats actually used steaming cones, there wouldn't be so much ignorance in BOTH. camps.

Looking at the picture I could build a scenario we’re the sail boat would have some fault. I can not build a scenario where the power boat is blameless. Odds are the power boat is going to be given 90-100% of the blame. This of course is total speculation as my sum total of data is a picture.

dhays said:

I doubt that the sailboat tacked in front of the boat, unless it was a last ditch effort to get out of the way. ....

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Happened to me. Without apparent reason, a sailboat tacked in front in unrestricted waters east of Angel Island. Caused me to take violent turn to avoid.

One advantage of a slow trawler: you'll probably have more time to evaluate and avoid collision.