On 27 Apr, 11:49, wrote:
On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 05:54:22 -0400, "Roger Long" wrote:
"Capt. JG" wrote

The sailboat clearly was in the wrong. The only quibble is that perhaps
the tow/barge could have acted sooner.

I am surprised that neither David Taylor, you, nor Bob spotted the elephant
in the room. The "sailboat" was proceeding against the tide.
The New London buoy was evidently out of commission at the time but the mid
sound buoy shows:

YYYY MM DD hh mm WD WSPD GST WVHT DPD APD MWD BAR ATMP WTMP
DEWP VIS TIDE

2007 09 09 13 15 280 4.1 5.7 0.40 4.00 99.00 999 1018.3 22.6 21.5
20.2 99.0 99.00

Possibly, a high performance boat could have made it through the bridge
against that current on a broad reach but winds were probably lighter down
in the wind shadow and he certainly would have had a problem when he hit the
wind shadow of the bridge just upstream. If this goes to court, I think the
operator will have to fight a strong presumption that he was actually a
powerboat at the time.

The article certainly should have clarified this out and done something to
help dispel the widely held misconception that guys who operate boats with
big sticks on them always have the right of way.

The article states that the sailboat was under power at the time, and the
wealthy, snobbish, asshole captain of the tug tried the radio repeatedly and
blasted his horn, while waving his arms frantically. What a buffoon. He
apparently thought it was more important to avoid the collision than to insist
it was the other guys fault, and he shouldn't HAVE TO use his radio and other
signals to try and clarify the situation. :')

Rule 9 (a) is surprisingly limited in regard to the common sense idea that
traffic moving with the current has right of way in a narrow channel. It's
always true on the Great Lake and Western Rivers but otherwise only on
waters specified by the Secretary. Whether that bit of water is "specified
by the secretary" I don't know. Why 9 (a) doesn't apply to all waters, and
what is different about Eastern Rivers is a mystery.

where a vessel has reduced manoeuvrability i.e towing or trawling
they have right of way, other boats are duty bound to avoid them. The
primary duty of any skipper is to preserve the life of himself and his
crew If the other guy is a lot bigger and he hits you it is going to
hurt the barge tow was alert to the problem and took what steps he
could to avoid collision the sail boat was lucky that there was not a
"Bow Bell and Marchioness" incident.