"Shen44" wrote in message ...
Seems this one went belly-up .... thanks AOL.

OK Neal, here's a scenario with some questions ....

You're proceeding in the Mother of all Pea-soup fogs (can't see your bow),
sounding one prolong followed by two short blast and hear a fog signal,
someplace forward of your beam (can't exactly tell where, because sound in fog
can be distorted) of one prolong followed by two short.
What is it? Where is it? What's it doing?What must you do? Are we on collision
course? How do you know the answers to any of these questions?

I can tell it is NOT a motor boat. I can tell is either a sailboat, a NUC, a RAM,
or one of the other vessels that sounds a one prolong/two short blast signal.

Where is it? It is somewhere on a line between me and the sound signal it
produces.
What's it doing? Can't be told because it can be doing any number of things.
What must I do? I must determine if a risk of collision exists before I do
anything else. If I determine a risk of collision exists then I must act to avoid
a collision which might mean I can make a course change or it might mean
holding to my present course and speed of three or four knots until further
information becomes available.
Are we on a collision course. We might be but that will take some time
to determine. If the signal stays on the same bearing and appears to be
getting louder then we are on a collision course

How do I know the answer to these questions? The answers are known
when sufficient information becomes available to answer them and not
before.

As for a pea soup fog so think that I cannot see to my bow which is
all of twenty feet away when I'm at the tiller, there exists no fog so
thick. It is a myth. It is perhaps correct to say a fog is so thick that
a ship that has the bow hundreds of feet or hundreds of yards
from the helm may not be able to see to the bow but don't attempt
to say the same thing about a small vessel such as mine.

In the thickest fog that ever occurred upon the seven seas I could
see and avoid a collision with any ship or sailboat my size, provided
that is, if the ship were, indeed, proceeding at a safe speed which
they rarely are. Another small sailboat could be going along at three
or four knots like me and even if we were headed right at each
other the combined speed would only be eight knots. Eight
knots is not a problem as far as taking action to avoid a collision.
I only wish shipping would slow down to eight knots.

BTW, it's me....EG...now, now .... maybe I bought back that 26' Contessa I
used to own....then again....maybe not. At any rate, I ain'ts got no stinkin
radar, and the wind's a nice steady 12k from the SE (not that the direction
really matters)

Tell me, Neal ....whatcha gonna do....and why?

Oh ... yeah.....when you give me your answers I'll let you know what I'm on
..... Pull a "Neal" here...BTW, never saw the trap you set.

Know how to tell your real close to a big ship in fog? .... When you hear the
echo of your fog signal bouncing off it's side......

Shen