Hi Martin, that's what I'm trying to say about armchair navigators and shoreside pundits. It's no good picking what suits your article writers from the collision regs. They have been carefully honed, if you like, over many years, to cover every possible occurrence. They are written in a language to remove all ambiguity. In distant times we learned them word for word parrot fashion. We practised them ad infinitum until they were second nature to us. But times, ships and manning levels have changed. And therefore, rightly so, the regs have changed but education hasn't. In keeping with the tradition that it is always the master who bears the responsibilityfor whatever happens there is a rule in the collision regs that says if one vessel is directed by these rules to keep out of the way the other shall maintain her course and speed. It goes on to say "when from any cause the latter vessel finds herself so close that collision cannot be avoided by the action of the give way vessel alone, she also shall take such action as will best avert collision." All that is all well and good in the open sea. But bring in a third or fourth vessel and restrict sea room and things become a lot more complicated. Add a pilot station and VTS from three countries, can you see where I'm going with this? In the " old" days when entering or leaving port or in areas of high traffic situations, we would go on standby, change the engine from heavy oil to gas oil so it could be manoeuvred, put a man on the wheel, a cadet on the telegraph, a seaman on lookout, the officer of the watch doing the navigation, a cadet keeping the movement book and the old man giving the orders. The mate and the carpenter on the fo'c'sle standing by the anchors.
Some ships today don't have that many crew aboard, we had 67 crew on my first trip.
The coast guard dont run VTS thank god, but are not the guy at the front. Usually it's just me and if I'm lucky a helmsman. I'm dealing with pilots, port control and VTS not to mention my tow, if I've got one, and making sure I'm in the right place at the right time. Everyone on different vhf channels and watching channel 16. Can't hear myself think most of the time.
If you can find an image of the chart in the area where the accident occurred you may see what I'm trying to get across.
Jerry.