Richard Ferguson wrote in
:

It is amazing to watch them manouver a string of barges into a lock,
there is a lot of skill involved, but they do it very slowly and
carefully.

I was at a conference a couple of months ago in New Orleans that was held in
a hotel with a panoramic view of the Mississippi river right where there was
a big bend in the river. From the lobby on the 11th floor I could watch the
barges come down the river and watching them navigate the bend was quite
interesting. They would go across river and let the current turn the barges
so some of the larger strings (I counted 12 barges on one) would take up a
good portion of the river.

I have always been told not to expect to be seen in a small boat by
freighters, barges, and other large boats. I would think that would
apply double at night. A houseboat is not a small boat to me, but it
is small compared to a string of barges a 1/4 mile long. I am not sure
how many miles it takes to stop a string of barges, not to speak of the
issues of upstream vs. downstream travel. The Ohio river is very busy
in terms of recreation and commercial traffic.

When I see barges on the Ohio River at night, the tug has an extremely
powerful searchlight up top, so it should be visible from miles away,
unless there is fog. A houseboat probably just has normal navigation
lights, so not nearly as visible. If all the lights are on in the
houseboat, that makes the houseboat more visible, but probably kills
the vision of the skipper. So for the houseboat, there is no good
answer on the lights, other than to have your own powerful spotlight.

It's also worth noting that the use of sight is not the only signalling
device. In low visibility conditions the use of sound becomes more
important. The use of light as a signalling device is only useful if the
light can be seen and that assumes that the operator of other boats are
actually watching for lights. A very loud horn can get the attention of
boat operators that might not be paying attention to visual clues.


One other note is that human beings, even sober ones with good
intentions, are not at their best at 4 AM, so errors are more likely,
both on the part of the houseboat and the barge/tug.

richard



Oci-One Kanubi wrote:

Is this news?

Garrison Hilliard wrote:

By Ryan Clark
Enquirer staff writer

DAYTON, Ky. - All along the river here, where gawkers mixed with
passersby, everyone wanted to know what happened. Why did the boat go
out so early in the morning?


What difference does it make why they went out? What might matter is
the condition of the pilot (inebbriated? drugged up?)


Why couldn't they signal the oncoming barge?


Maybe they did.


Why couldn't the barge see the small houseboat?


Maybe it did.


The quiet marinas lining
Northern Kentucky were mobbed after a man was killed, another escaped
and two others are missing after a barge hit their 36-foot houseboat
overnight.

[snip]

"It's just so dangerous," he said. "... People need to know that there
are times when it's hard to see you out there."


It's *always* difficult for a large vessel to see a small one.

I don't live near one of those commercial arteries, but I am dam' sure
those barges (especially when they are rafted up) are pigs when it
come to emergency evasive maneuvers, and I am sure that if I put on
the river -- day *or* night -- I would regard it as *my*
responsibility to stay out of their way.

This pathetic article didn't give a word of description of the barge
itself, which might have helped in understanding how the incident
occured. I thought the job of the reporter was to give us answers,
not questions. *My* question is: why did he bother to turn in the
article before he gathered a description of the barge and interviewed
the survivor? Of *course* "everyone wanted to know what happened",
and it is the reporter's job to tell them!

Thanks for posting this, Garrison. I'm starting to take an interest
in the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri rivers, and what goes on on
'em. I wish the reporter had actually reported something substantive.


-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty --

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