Capt. JG wrote:

"JimC" wrote in message
t...


Capt. JG wrote:

Wow... so a friend and I moved my boat from its old home to the new
location yesterday. Wednesday was nice and sunny, but Thursday started
with light fog that turned into a steady rain. The visibility was very
good for distances of up to about two miles, but then dropped off pretty
quickly due to the fog and rain.

Some other background info...

We were in the deep mostly commercial channel that connects the two
marinas, in the center outbound lane, so about 1/3 the distance across
from right to left. There are many big ships moored on the commercial
docks, some being loaded or refitted, others that will probably never
sail again. There are multiple small channels off the main channel. The
main channel is fairly busy with commercial traffic, mostly tugs pushing
or pulling barges, not including hosting several large marinas, the
biggest of which has 500+ craft. The main channel is also fairly narrow
especially at the main turn.

Most power boats (non-commercial) with relatively shallow drafts and big
engines tend to go on the wrong side of the inbound lane (not saying it's
right, but that's what they do) to avoid the slower outboat sailboats. (I
suppose this is better than them screaming by with large wakes.) The
turning area (where the channel makes a sharp turn and where the truly
big ships berth) is perhaps 100 yards wide, although the big ships would
certainly not be near the edges.

Anyway, we headed out of the marina, crossed the inland turn part of the
channel, and were in the middle of the outbound lane, just past the turn.
There's a huge, rusting liberty ship side-tied right at the corner and
past that a very small side channel. As we made a fairly deep turn to
start out the main channel, I noticed that there was a tug on side-tie to
a barge heading in, approximately 1 mile ahead of us. This thing was
huge. It looked huge even that far away, and was proceeding quite slowly
inbound. I felt we had plenty of time to make the deep turn, then get
back in line on my side of the channel, which is what we did. We were
doing about 5 kts. Sails down, just engine.

I finished the turn, then started to come back to "center" on my side.
The liberty ship was being passed on my starboard, so that would mean I
had a bit more room on the inside of the channel in case the incoming
tug/barge needed the room... not sure if he was going to turn behind us
to the left or side-tie the barge ahead of us.

Just as I passed the liberty ship and was nearly across the side channel
just past her bow, a push tug came lumbering out of the side channel
right for us! We're talking 100 maybe 120 feet off our starboard side
just stern of the shrouds and really moving. At this point the incoming
tub/barge is a lot closer, perhaps 1000 yards, but even worse, another
tug is in front of them (not related to them) coming down toward us with
the intention it looked like of going into yet another one of the small
channels, thus was coming down the outbound lane. He was slightly more to
the center of the channel, perhaps 300 yards ahead and moving pretty
well. Since I didn't see them previously, must have come out of another
side channel. (They do this a lot.)

The guy in the enclosed bridge (way high up from our perspective) wasn't
even looking in our direction. No way to turn away without getting in the
way of the oncoming traffic. Obviously, I couldn't hold my course and
speed. Over his engines, I'm sure he couldn't have heard a horn, and
there was no time to hail him. My friend was waving, but he wasn't
looking. So, I figured the only thing to do was to try and throttle up,
hoping I could stay ahead of him long enough for him to see us. At this
point the oncoming tub that I hadn't see before saw us and started to
back, sensing that this was not a good situation.

We were unable to out-run the push barge, but I did slow the rate of his
approach a bit. 10-15 seconds into it, the driver suddenly snapped his
head in our direction (he was practically directly astern of us, so I'm
still not sure what he was looking at while he was driving), then
throttled way, way down, and the situation was resolved. I think the
other tug must have hailed him or he saw us out of the corner of his eye.
He finally acknowledged my friend's wave, but he looked pretty harassed
at that point. I normally would have said "something" to him directly,
but it was really starting to rain, and we just wanted to get done with
it. I can't imagine the damage had he hit us with one of those huge
vertical bumpers.


Close call. I don't know the full circumstances, but this might be an
example of a situation in which the Mac, with its large engine and shallow
draft, could outmaneuver the oncoming traffic.

Jim



What would the shallow draft have to do with it?

Because if you have a 1.5-ft draft (with the dagger board pulled up),
you don't have to worry so much about staying in a channel (between the
red and green markers, or whatever). - You can temporarily pull over a
few feet outside the channel to a shallower portion of the waterway out
of the way of larger vessels with deeper drafts. As I said, I don't know
the exact layout of the situation you were in, so it may or may not have
been a factor in your situation. (Once more, it may or may not have been
a factor in your situation.) - But in some cases, larger boats are
limited to a marked channel or to sections of a waterway deep enough for
their deeper draft, whereas a shallow-draft boat can maneuver through
shallower sections and thereby skirt around or otherwise avoid
deep-draft boats heading down a channel. Or, it can simply edge along
slowly for a few minutes outside the channel until the other boats are
gone. - Not the safest thing to do, but if it gets you out of the way
of a large, fast boat that doesn't see you, it may be better than
getting run over.

Jim