"Peter Wiley" wrote in message
. ..
In article , DSK
wrote:

Peter Wiley wrote:

..... My point is that if you *insist* that ships must travel
sufficiently slowly to have the ability to take evasive action/stop on
a visual sighting, you are in effect stating that commercial traffic
must cease whenever visibility is so poor as to be less than the
distance needed to stop/manoeuvre.

Which is going to happen more often than you think. For example, night
time... or
taking a big tow of barges around a bend in the ICW or the
Mississippi...

Furthermore, this has been going on for a *very* long time, probably all
the
way
back to Hanseatic cogs....

Yeah but technology has moved on since those days.

The guy in the kayak cannot expect ships to slow beyond the point
where
they
lose the ability to steer. I guess that for most big ships that
this is
about 4-5 kts????

Even at 4-5 knots if you're in fog with 50m visibility there's no hope
of manoeuvering fast enough to miss an idiot in a kayak. 50m is half
of
a ship length for my icebreaker.

And attempting to maneuver might suck the idiot into the prop, too. Best
chance
would probably be to ring up 'All Stop' and coast over him, with luck he
could
surf clear on the bow wave....

Wouldn't work with my ship. CP prop, you'd need to declutch fast and
the engines/gearboxes don't like that.....

The kayak is taking a chance when he crosses the TSS. However, that
does
not mean that the ships in the TSS should carry on as if there was
no
risk.

They don't. They monitor their radars and radios. It's small vessels
with no radio, no radar and poor/no reflectivity that are at risk -
AND
THEY HAVE AN OBLIGATION NOT TO IMPEDE THE COMMERCIAL VESSEL. In my
opinion the commercial vessel should keep a lookout as required and
proceed as if other vessels were also obeying the Colregs.

Right. And this is the point that Rick seems to be overlooking. The
kayaker is
bound to 1- not impede commercial traffic and 2- not create a hazardous
condition
and by playing around in shipping lanes in fog, he is doing both. Too
bad he
can't
get run over twice!

Either Donal & Rick are genuinely incapable of understanding that
rights are balanced by responsibilities,

All rights are balanced by responsibilities.


Have you forgotton where I came in on this?

25 kts in thick fog, in a busy waterway, with no lookout other than
radar???????


Please, Peter, try to be sensible!


Regards


Donal
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