OK everyone ... review your rules of the road - and then the big astrix by everything; the law of gross tonnage.
What an a55hat. I don't know about you, but I would love to have the audio from both ships.
Hat tip Sid via gGaptain.
2 hours ago
20 comments:
I don't remember section/number in the COLREGS, but a sailing vessel (or smaller vessel) cannot impede the navigation of a larger vessel in a narrow channel. I can't tell from the video where exactly they are, and I couldn't make out the ball-diamond-ball dayshape either, but it looks like inland waters, possibly a channel. I'm just making a reasonable assumption that the tanker was either in restricted maneuvering, or constrained by draft.
Of course, if this is inland waters of the UK, I'm not sure what their specific rules may be, outside of IALA A. However, I doubt it's very different from the COLREGS.
Even if, by some magic loophole, you were in the right.... law of gross tonnage, asshat! The other vessel is a thousand times your size. The laws of physics are not on your side.
but... but... I was under sail! boo hoo. Dip$h!t
For us racing sailors, this incident adds a new dimension to the concept of "spinnaker takedown."
Who'da thunk that an anchor could be used as an alternative to a sail bag or a sleeve sock to capture the spinnaker?
Anyway, where I sail on the Columbia River system in the Northwest, there is considerable barge traffic.
A barge and tug moving at full speed has little maneauverability, and requires at least a mile to come to a complete stop with full reverse power.
We stay away well from them -- even if it means we place further down in the race results.
I bet the guy on the yacht has some smelly shorts....
Top SWO!
The Solent is a narrow and crowded place to navigate on normal days and during race week becomes a complete cluster-pluck.
The professional mariners refer to the sailor set as "Wafi's".
I have seen that waterway and dc is very right. I know some Brits are avid/fanatic sailors but the Law of Gross Tonnage applies, as well as a few Rules of the Road- LOL
I had a similar thing happen to me in San Diego Harbor as a LTJG. I was driving an LST (1184) the newer bow horn model, very large. Sailboat did the same thing and sank in the harbor. Admiralty Court and Navy Board of Inquiry exonerated myself (OOD) and all others. Admiralty Court Judge even chewed the sailboat skipper royally for not underwstanding the complete rule, to wit: A sailing vessel has the right of way EXCEPT if the other powered vessel is in a restricted maneuvering situation. In other words if the powered vessel will run aground trying to not get hit, the sail boat is at fault and needs to get out of the way. I would have loved to see the guys face if he had to pay for getting the tanker unstuck and repaired.
I agree with others the Law of Gross Tonnage applies here. This was like arguing with a 18 wheeler with a volkswagen beetle.
Oh thats a safe to assume
This from Sailing Anarchy...
Spoke to someone on the Cowes river taxi who said they were a mostly royal navy crew and that the skipper is a naval lieutenant. Wonder what this will do to his career?!
More here.
Seems the pilot boat (seen @ :18) was ahead and talking to them, and tuurned off once the collision was imminent in order to comup up astern to assist.
Bottom line is, ain't no excuse for that.
Big orange ship in the channel = stay the hell away...Spinnaker troubles or no.
Might also add that the Knutsen was executing a shrp right turn to go up another branch of the channel...
Still no excuse.
i used to listen to the emergency radio channel out here in los angeles and the knowledge of the handling characteristics of vlcc's and other monsters is abysmal. that goes for coastguard and civilians both.
one sunday i heard a captain on one of the larger monsters comming into long beach call and ask for assistance for a sailboat about 100 yards ahead of him. after a few minutes of palaver the coast guard wants him to "stop and render assistance". they couldn't understand that he was 1000' long with two tugs on the bows and one on the stern and was trying to negotiate a turning basin to come to a berth.
aaaargh.
C
Anybody who has ever spent any time in the third world quickly learns the First Law, The biggest one has the right of way.
or operated in the vicinity of aircraft carriers...
Ball. Diamond. Ball. PERIOD.
Nothing in COLREGS or even IALA-A about sailing races altering newtonian physics (law of gross tonnage, momentum addendum).
The ship was under Brit "inland rules"...If you note, she wasn't flying shapes as she was in a channel. Therev alot of discussion in the pertinent rules in that YBW link below.
I had two close calls as OOD on a MCH. On a MCH you're often "in the thick of the white plague" and those skippers don't seem to recall anything but "I'm sailing so I have the right of way". Can't read the signals and thus are ignorant of what's going on (such as a blocked shaft or actual minehunting in progress with live ordnance below). But the worst was a motor-boater who actually drove thruogh the 75yard "gate" between us and the surfaced-for-retrieval ROV (which luckily didn't carry any ordnance).
My first trip in a sailboat featured an enthusiastic captain and three total amateurs (me included). The highlight of the trip was passing by a tanker, spinnaker still set, at a distance of about eight feet. Our captain was shaking his fist at the tanker and screaming, "I have the right of way!." Did I mention this was my last trip in a sailboat?
Rule 9, as I recall. I used to broadcast it on b to b in SD when I had my DDG.
A small Hobie Cat-type in San Diego Bay tried to cut the stern of my LST too close and got himself tangled in the stern anchor. He was lucky we were at bare steerageway.
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