Joe wrote:
otnmbrd wrote in message news:

Not always true on the river. I'm going to assume by middle of the
channel you may be meaning the physical middle between the banks.


No, around head of passes you have channel markers for the shipping
traffic.
In fact a great portion of the lower miss has defined shipping
channels.

In

many areas, the deepest part will be on the outside bank of a bend or
turn, and in some areas (straight runs become a function of the bends)
it will favor one side or the other.


Agreeded, but with the Port of New Orelans being one of the busiest in
the world a well defined dredge in places and marked channel is in
place.

Not disagreeing with any of this. However, at times, for deep draft
ships, the preferred side of the channel, may be the left side, rather
than the middle or right side.
This being the case would explain the request for stbd to stbd passage,
which in fog, for someone not regularly familiar with the channel, could
have led to last minute confusion with what they perceived to be
happening on radar and a turn, which actually, caused the
collision......pure conjecture on my part.


Bet it's going to prove to be a Stbd side T-bone, and they will blame
the smaller vessel.

If it does, then the Zim will have some s'plainin to do, considering the
stbd to stbd agreement.


Not if the smaller boat realized he wasent over far enough and made a
sharp port turn in front of him.

This is true, G I'm leaning towards portside damage.



Why?

To continue above ... I'm guessing the "supply boat", for whatever
reason,... confusion, misread, etc. may have tried to correct what he
thought of was an error by coming right to get to the more "normal" port
to port..... again, pure conjecture which can easily become wrong when
they get more information.


And I agree that annoying lights from the terminal could be a
very

confusing factor in fog. That confusion could of been avoided by
focusing on radar alone.

Might be confusing to someone new to the area, but sole concentration to
the radar is not necessarily going to solve that problem, so, I'd
disagree with your second sentence.


If the fog is so thick you can not see anything but glare then the
smartest thing to do is keep your head buried in the radar. Or get out
of the channel and drop the hook.

BG We'll have to agree to disagree on this issue.


IT's the classic fog strike, Everyone says I saw the running lights
than BAM!
To do a visual lookout going any faster than 2 knots is a waste of
time if you have a good radar. Now its advised to look up every once
and a while incase it thins but to stare in a fog cloud full of
blinding yellow bug lights is a PITA and useless and confusing.

G We're getting closer. The differences are mainly in operating
parameters.

otn