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COLREGS - The final word on pecking order in restricted visibility.
Simple Simon wrote:
At any rate, the worst case scenario of pea soup thick fog is but one case of restricted visibility and the majority of the other cases definitely allow in-sight situations in or near an area of restricted visibility. In sight situations are ruled by the in sight rules which specify give-way and stand-on status for vessels in sight of one another. Jeff, Otnmbrd, Shen44 and Rick have up till now maintained there is NEVER a stand-on vessel in or near an area of restricted visibility while I have maintained there IS a stand-on and give-way vessel in or near an area of restricted visibility. I'm right and they're wrong - that's the bottom line. Correct, if you replace IS with CAN BE. The in sight rules don't just suddenly become invalid just because visibility becomes restricted. The definitions are clear: "in sight" and "restricted visibility" are not 100% mutually exclusive. That's why the "in sight" rules apply not when visibility is not restricted, but when one vessel can be observed visually from the other. I maintain that my sailboat even in a thick fog is going at a safe speed by virtue of the fact that the hull speed is less than seven knots max. That's crap. There is no way you can seriously claim that 7 knots is a safe speed in thick fog. You should surrender your master's licence immediately and take up golf. Many fogs have little or no wind so I may well be going even slower. Even if the winds are brisk in a fog and I'm going hull speed I'm still going at a safe speed. Wrong. In effect, I'm standing on and I'm doing it completely legally. Even wronger. In thick fog you would not be under in-sight rules and so could not possibly be legally standing-on. If I hear the fog signal of a motor vessel I know right away if and when we come in sight of each other I am the stand-on vessel and the motor vessel is the give way vessel. Nice try, and I admit there is some logic in this approach, but it is nevertheless a flagrant violation of 19b, 19c, and 19e, the point being that sound signals do not allow either you or the motor boat to determine what your likely relative positions are going to be once your range closes sufficiently for you to be able to see each other. The whole point of 19 is that it recognises that there might not be enough time for whichever vessel would become the give-way vessel, once the in-sight rules kick in, to take effective action to avoid collision. |