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On 5 Sep 2003 06:34:13 -0700, (Richard
Malcolm) wrote:
I find such good info here that before I open up Chapmans, I thought I
would ask if someone wants to explain something to me. To give you a
little background, I have travelled in my boat from Boston, Maine,
cape cod, to NYC, ICW, hudson River, erie canal, many of the canals,
lake chaplian, St Lawence Seaway to Montreal, so I have some basic
understanding of bouys, etc.
My quick question is something like this: if I am crusing about 5-15
miles off shore and see a red bouy, even before I look at the chart,
what should I be thinking? Which side do I want to pass it on? Is
there a slogan like the "right on red when returning" that I should be
thinking? thanks for your time.
just so you know, I would check the chart first, before I proceeded.
===============================================
Lots of good answers for the most part, starting with "check your
chart".

This reminds me of an amusing story however from early in my sailing
days back in the 70s. It seems hard to believe now, but we had very
little in the way of electronic nav aids then, and it was common to
sail all day on dead reckoning without knowing precisely where you
were. Therefore, any offshore buoy sighting was a welcome thing and a
chance to reset your DR plot from a precisely known location. So
after sailing west all day without a position fix from Marthas
Vineyard toward Block Island, we suddenly spotted a large red sea buoy
in the distance. Inspection of the DR plot showed no buoys within 5
or 6 miles of our estimated position so this was a cause for some
concern. We shifted course to bring us close enough to see the
markings on the buoy and the only things visible were the letters
"AC". More scrambling around with the chart and DR plot followed, and
no trace of a buoy labeled AC could be found anywhere. We proceeded on
and eventually picked up Block Island more or less where it was
supposed to be and finally had a confirmed position again.

Later that year in the fall we drove out to Newport, RI for the
America's cup elimination trials, chartered a skippered power boat for
the weekend, and headed out to watch the races. The starting mark
turned out to be a large red buoy labeled "AC".

Moral of the story is that you really do need to read the "Notices to
Mariners" once in a while. I don't know too many people who do that
however and I'm as guilty as anyone else.

A bit of trivia for the sailors in the group: the skipper of the
defending boat that year was a guy named Ted Turner, and his tactician
was some fellow from the west coast named Dennis Conner. It was 1974
and for the first time the defending boat was NOT built of wood.

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