On Tue, 04 Apr 2006 17:32:19 GMT, "Roger Long"
wrote:

Boston Harbor used to (and probably still is) be full of hot shots who
like to port tack five feet from your transom. The stand on vessel
has an equal duty to maintain a steady and predictable course and this
was the one time my judgement about the conflicting duty to avoid a
collision despite right of way came up short. By the time I realized
that he wasn't going to do the hot shot transom pass, it was too late
to take any action. I did learn something though, if you don't see
the helmsman's sunglasses bobbing up and down under the Genoa, assume
they don't see you.

Thanks to level racing to the mark, I've developed a pretty good (but
certainly not infalliable) sense of boats-as-vectors. I won't hesitate
if I have the right-of-way to yell "HOLD YOUR COURSE" if I'm getting
close or shaving a transom. I used to use air horns as per COLREGS but
hardly anyone seems to know that. You can tell what sort of fellow
sailor you are dealing with in the last 50 metres. The panicky type
need immediate reassurance, and the racers (current or ex) watch your
boat for about four seconds and then resume SOP and don't even turn to
look at you. I had one fellow murmur "Nice one" as I cut his wash,
because we both knew I'd called it (for once) properly and had
executed a close maneuver in a crowded lane.

I find most collisions happen at the start, frequently in front of the
RC. No one knows quite why G.


Little things are important. Flaking each lazy sheet down with one
hand while you steer with the other even though it's only 100 yard
tacks up the Peaks Island channel is the kind of thing that is more
relevant to the prudence question in my mind than whether you turn on
the engine.

Good habits count, certainly, and keeping a clear field is doubly
important when single-handing.

R.