NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Interaction with big vessels. was: A few questions for the pros
From: Carl Herzog
Date: 2005 Jun 17, 16:24 -0400
From: Carl Herzog
Date: 2005 Jun 17, 16:24 -0400
George wrote: > Some things are a bit different in European waters, it seems to me, from > what Carl describes. I'm sure they are. I should have noted that my obeservations were meant to reflect the general conditions in U.S. coastal and inland waters. And the conditions are by no means "idyllic". > To start with, the discussions and mutual agreements, over VHF, that Carl > describes as occurring in US waters (and perhaps especially US inland > waters, which have special rules of their own) are deprecated in many > other > parts of the world. > > You can see the logic of this, in areas where a great mix of > nationalities > and languages is common on the various bridges. Discussion and > agreement, > in broken English, is a likely recipe for disaster. I don't have any experience in Europe, but George's assertions do also apply to the Caribbean. It can be very difficult to raise someone on the radio. George wrote: > Of course, until recently, the difficulty has been that of > identification: > being certain that the vessel you are talking to on VHF is indeed the > same > vessel that you have identified as a target on the horizon, or on the > radar > screen. That uncertainty will have been recently resolved, for many > vessels, by the advent of AIS (Automatic Identification of Ships). Yes. AIS is reducing radio chatter in U.S. waters. George also asserts that most recreational sailors crossing the English Channel have a higher level of seamanship education than I've credited to U.S. boaters. He's probably right. Yachting education and regulations seem to be a lot better developed in Great Britain.There is no equivalent to the RYA in the U.S. Carl