ubject: Vessel detectors - radar visibility of your own vessel
From: "Armond Perretta"
Date: 08/25/2003 02:52 Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

Shen44 wrote:
From: "Armond Perretta"
Shen44 wrote:

Again .... never approach closer than two miles at sea, and if you
miss the ship and it's close aboard or within that distance,
figure it's up to you to avoid .... worry about some rule later.

Always a sound approach, but consider this. I have a 4 to 4.5 knot
sailboat. Offshore the commercial traffic I encounter (neglecting
for the moment commercial fishermen) typically maintains 16 to 24
knots. Even should I pick up a target at 8 miles on radar (or
otherwise), there is in a practical sense very little I can do to
_insure_ a CPA of 2 miles or better. I am speaking only from the
perspective of quite a bit of offshore cruising in a small sailing
boat, which is not to say I don't realize that "big boat always
wins."

Oh, fiddle faddle.

Which part is "fiddle" and which part is "faddle"?

Both. You're trying to make more of this than there is. I said it before, I'll
say it again .... The 2mi. figure is one you strive for, but don't always
achieve, and I would disagree, that even at your speed, that for MOST
situations you couldn't attain this or something approaching it.

When push comes, etc., the little boat gets out of the way or else. It
matters very little whether a ship missed you by 100 meters or 100 miles,
although I do in fact have a preference.

Nonetheless, what you suggest is not always (and in fact not even in the
majority of cases) possible.

Disagree

In addition one will _always_ have a difficult
time explaining maneuvering that is not allowed in the COLREGS should it
come to that (no matter what the General Prudential Rule states).

If you don't have a collision, what and to whom do you have to explain
anything? If you start your maneuver early enough and monitor it's
effectiveness, why should you ever need to worry about a close situation?

Placing the entire onus on the small boat is just as much an error as
placing the entire onus on the big boat.

The idea of what I'm talking about, is not placing the "onus" on the small
boat, as such. It's telling the "small boater"...Hey! You can have some
problems with large ships .... some of them your doing, some of them the
ships..... so, from experience and having been on both sides of the coin, I
reccommend ..... Now .... it may not always be technically legal and/or
convenient, but for the most part it might keep you out of trouble, more often
than not.

Shen