Boats on the sea. What's involved?

[Sabcat]

The whole thing is a tragic mess.

 

 

As a underpaid Cadet I owned a plastic Sextant which I used for practice. The ship had 1 or two nice bronze Sextants and when I qualified I got my own! Sits mainly in my study at home these days!

 

I'm not saying that navigating with nothing but a sextant couldn't be done I just don't believe for a second that anyone has ever set off across the Atlantic or Pacific and taken nothing in the way of navigation equipment except for a plastic bit of tat they got online for £50.

[Galeomma]

 

 

Should is the right word...again you need a little bit of training to know how to work a VHF correctly.

 

I love the fact that in this country this is no mandatory certificates (well for small pleasure boats anyway) and we are not over subscribed to procedures, however, as various other posters have put, if anyone is thinking of going to sea I would recommend as very minimum doing the RYA Day Skipper course as this will teach you a lot of basics so you can enjoy yourself with out getting yourself or anyone else in danger. Also importantly you can learn your own limitations.

 

 

As a underpaid Cadet I owned a plastic Sextant which I used for practice. The ship had 1 or two nice bronze Sextants and when I qualified I got my own! Sits mainly in my study at home these days!

I remember a good few years ago we were at anchor at Labuan, the Old Man on our ship had all the deck officers take sigtings with a sextant and plot the ships position. All I can say is thank god we had GPS. The positions they got were miles out!

 

Our ships still carry sextants and the deck officers still are meant to be able to use them.

[starman]

The whole thing is a tragic mess.

 

 

I'm not saying that navigating with nothing but a sextant couldn't be done I just don't believe for a second that anyone has ever set off across the Atlantic or Pacific and taken nothing in the way of navigation equipment except for a plastic bit of tat they got online for £50.

This guy apparently did (not that I'd follow his example)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shrimpy-Record-Round-world-Voyage/dp/1852604484#productDescription_secondary_view_pageState_1421426322293

[boathunter]

The sea is dangerous and being from a long line of offshore fishermen I know very well I'm not interested. They did it because that was their living, but people die doing this even when they've done nothing else all their lives.

 

I did take one trip with a friend when he bought a large cat near Cork and wanted to sail it home to East Anglia. After a week of waitng for a break in the weather he and others decided to set off in a force 8 across the Irish sea on a boat none of them had sailed before. I came home on a plane. Somehow they made it to Devon where I joined them later for the next leg.

 

The skipper, who previously I'd judged as sensible and cautious decided to dismantle the hydraulic steering gear as we passed through the shipping lanes out of Southampton. Ball bearings shot out and were lost. By the time it was back together we'd got lucky and not collided with anything, but it was over an hour. When we got to Dover and tried to get in the West entrance, the tide there causes a mahoosive hole in the water just at the entrance, it was really frightening as we disappeared into the hole and prayed we'd come out of the other side in the right place to miss the harbour wall only to find a large passenger ferry heading straight at us. Having dodged that and tied up I gratefully got off and took the train home.

 

Another good friend and lake sailor/racer decided to up the thrill factor and crew on a racing yacht on the sea. First time out the keel snapped off and he drowned.

 

I'm all for thrills and I do like sailing on the sea which can be very exciting, but it's not just yourself you have to worry about, you need to have complete trust in your crew/skipper and the boat itself. A twunt of a skipper can get you killed. A penny pinching boatyard can get you killed. There is no comparison to canals where the boats aren't even boats (as I know them) and the water is more akin to a childs rowing lake.

[Dharl]

The whole thing is a tragic mess.

 

 

I'm not saying that navigating with nothing but a sextant couldn't be done I just don't believe for a second that anyone has ever set off across the Atlantic or Pacific and taken nothing in the way of navigation equipment except for a plastic bit of tat they got online for £50.

 

 

Chris Columbus and a few others managed it well...they didn't even have the internet to help them! Of course I did have a nice Casio Calculator to help with the logarithms!

 

Still use the ships sextant to work out the position, the cadets still have to learn it to get their 2nd Mates tickets so like to help teach them. The Chief Mate who job it is is normally too busy on the minimum manner that ships are run on these days.

 

 

They have been talking about removing celestial navigation it from the syllabus!

[Ray T]

 

They have been talking about removing celestial navigation it from the syllabus!

 

Technology can fail.

 

A few years ago we were coming back from Alderney on a charter Yacht. About half way across the channel the GPS decided to stop working. I was glad I had kept the practice of dead reckoning in my memory banks as well as an updated ships log.

 

On arrival at the Needles we found the cause of the failure. In its infinite wisdon the charter company had fitted the GPS receiver on the push pit. One of the crew had sat on the receiver and pushed it upside down. On reverting the receiver to it correct position all was well again.

 

Silly mistake but it shows what can happen.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Ray T

[rasputin]

The sea is dangerous and being from a long line of offshore fishermen I know very well I'm not interested. They did it because that was their living, but people die doing this even when they've done nothing else all their lives.

 

I did take one trip with a friend when he bought a large cat near Cork and wanted to sail it home to East Anglia. After a week of waitng for a break in the weather he and others decided to set off in a force 8 across the Irish sea on a boat none of them had sailed before. I came home on a plane. Somehow they made it to Devon where I joined them later for the next leg.

 

The skipper, who previously I'd judged as sensible and cautious decided to dismantle the hydraulic steering gear as we passed through the shipping lanes out of Southampton. Ball bearings shot out and were lost. By the time it was back together we'd got lucky and not collided with anything, but it was over an hour. When we got to Dover and tried to get in the West entrance, the tide there causes a mahoosive hole in the water just at the entrance, it was really frightening as we disappeared into the hole and prayed we'd come out of the other side in the right place to miss the harbour wall only to find a large passenger ferry heading straight at us. Having dodged that and tied up I gratefully got off and took the train home.

 

Another good friend and lake sailor/racer decided to up the thrill factor and crew on a racing yacht on the sea. First time out the keel snapped off and he drowned.

 

I'm all for thrills and I do like sailing on the sea which can be very exciting, but it's not just yourself you have to worry about, you need to have complete trust in your crew/skipper and the boat itself. A twunt of a skipper can get you killed. A penny pinching boatyard can get you killed. There is no comparison to canals where the boats aren't even boats (as I know them) and the water is more akin to a childs rowing lake.

 

 

Of the 53 deaths in 2007, 26 were on coastal waters and 13 were from accidents on rivers and canals.

[John Williamson 1955]

I remember this incident with it being not far from us and those killed being relatively local.

 

One thing I don't understand is that the report refers to the Lifeboat Station's attempts to hail 'Last Call' on VHF Channel 16 but the report refers later to boats maintaining a listening watch on Channel 11 whilst in and around Whitby harbour.

 

So even if they had had a compatible and working set would they have been able to hear the lifeboat station hailing them anyway?? - or am I missing something??

Channel 16 is the general calling channel for all vessels, all flags, all over the world, and all vessels should be keeping a listening watch on that at all times, only changing channels after contacting another station or if local rules decree this, so if a call on channel 11 failed, then the harbourmaster would call on 16 as a matter of routine. If they were on Channel 11 as instructed in the local notes, they would have heard the harbourmaster calling on that channel, and they should have called on that anyway before leaving their berth for permission to proceed. Most boats now have radios that have a dual watch facility, or two radios, so switching to channel 11 would still leave channel 16 open for reception.

 

It would seem that in this case, either the radio was turned off or being ignored by the crew.

[rasputin]

Yes you can go out to sea with no qualifications or boat certificates and long may it last.

 

In case you are worrying about safety, after some of the above posters.

 

" In terms of number of events or

occasions the boating activities were carried out, the highest

fatal accident rates were for canal boats (6.6 per million

events)"

Taken from here:-http://czasopisma.viamedica.pl/imh/article/viewFile/IMH.2013.0006/26308

[John Williamson 1955]

 

 

Chris Columbus and a few others managed it well...they didn't even have the internet to help them!

Errm... Point of order. Columbus was looking for Asia, and thought he'd found it when he got to America.

[Ray T]

 

Yes you can go out to sea with no qualifications or boat certificates and long may it last.

 

In case you are worrying about safety, after some of the above posters.

 

" In terms of number of events or

occasions the boating activities were carried out, the highest

fatal accident rates were for canal boats (6.6 per million

events)"

Taken from here:-http://czasopisma.viamedica.pl/imh/article/viewFile/IMH.2013.0006/26308

 

 

And your experience at sea is............?

 

if you have experience, instruction etc the chances of you becoming a statistic is far less. The two examples given are people who set out to sea with minimal knowledge and experience. Both were doomed to failure as they were not prepared for the journey's they under took.

 

The stats you have provided do not say what percentage set out to sea with zilch experience.

 

In the case quoted where The Humber lifeboat was launched the deaths could have been avoided, but the people seemed ignorant of the dangers.

They also caused the lifeboat to attend to them where, in those conditions it could have been needed elsewhere.

 

Falling overboard in the middle of the English Channel can be, and often is far more serious than falling in the cut.

 

In yachting, of 23 fatalities, all but 4 were caused by drowning

or immersion, the others through injuries or myocardial

infarction (2 each). The main causal factors were bad weather

(11 cases), inexperience or perception of risk (7), no harnesses

or personal flotation devices worn, navigational error and

alcohol (3 each), and structural deficiencies in the boats (2).

Of 13 fatalities from canal boats, 7 occurred during

autumn or winter, all among people who were using the

canal boats as residential homes. Six of the 7 were known

to be alcohol-related, 3 after the deceased had returned

from public houses ashore. Two were killed in galley fires,

2 fell into canals and 3 were asphyxiated by fumes, 2 of

these from engine fumes when attempting to charge the

canal boat battery. Two other people who were living in

houseboats similarly died when falling into the river after

drinking ashore and after a galley fire.

Of 6 canal boat fatalities during spring and summer,

3 were also using boats as homes when they died through

a galley fire, asphyxiation by stove fumes and a fall

overboard. The others were using canal boats for holidays

when they fell overboard (2) and were involved in a collision.

The fatality rate from canal barges that were being

used for holidays rather than as residential homes was

relatively low (3.7 per million participants and 1.5 per

million holidays).

Edited January 16, 2015 by Ray T

[Sabcat]

The might well be safer from a per million events perspective because there's less people - although they exist - who'd venture out there with no clue. That doesn't mean the sea is a safer place to be though.

 

 

I've done a bit of reading about this and it amazes me how accessible it is - accessible in a sensible way, not a suicidally reckless way.

[Loafer]

You don't need to have done any courses to avoid that sort of catastrophe. Even on the first day of my first course, I wouldn't have gone out in those conditions!

 

ETA: 'What WERE they thinking?'

Edited January 16, 2015 by Loafer

[Naughty Cal]

You don't need to have done any courses to avoid that sort of catastrophe. Even on the first day of my first course, I wouldn't have gone out in those conditions!

 

ETA: 'What WERE they thinking?'

As I said earlier from the moorings they wouldnt have had a clue how bad it was. They didn't check the weather or walk to the pierheads to check conditions.

 

We were caught out in the same manner last summer, thankfully not as bad as they were though.

 

We had checked the weather, chatted with the harbour master, walked to the pierheads and decided to it looked choppy but not too bad and decided to head out. The wind on the moorings was non existent, it was warm and sunny so we cast off and set sail.

 

Cruising through the harbour gave no indication how choppy it was beyond the pierheads and it was only as we rounded the last bend to line up to sea that we realised. By which point it was too late to turn around and head back to shelter so we were committed to heading out before we could turn back again.

 

The entry to Whitby can be fairly nasty even in what would otherwise benign conditions.

 

These guys were not so lucky.

 

We found it really very sobering as their boat was not that dissimilar to ours and we see time and again people buying them without the first clue. Luckily for most they are in the relative safety of the inland waterways.

[rasputin]

 

 

And your experience at sea is............?

 

if you have experience, instruction etc the chances of you becoming a statistic is far less. The two examples given are people who set out to sea with minimal knowledge and experience. Both were doomed to failure as they were not prepared for the journey's they under took.

 

The stats you have provided do not say what percentage set out to sea with zilch experience.

 

In the case quoted where The Humber lifeboat was launched the deaths could have been avoided, but the people seemed ignorant of the dangers.

They also caused the lifeboat to attend to them where, in those conditions it could have been needed elsewhere.

 

Falling overboard in the middle of the English Channel can be, and often is far more serious than falling in the cut.

 

 

I have been sailing on the sea since I was 10, I have owned a sailing boat on the sea for 14 years, ( the latest one is a 23' catamaran) the first few years I sailed with no qualifications, just common sense. After that I took a Day Skipper course at night school, not because I felt unsafe but because I wanted something to do at night school and I stumbled upon the course. Why?

 

 

I am not sure what your trying to say with the rest of your quote,

 

But more deaths per million happen on the canal, than at sea, so which is more dangerous?

The might well be safer from a per million events perspective because there's less people - although they exist - who'd venture out there with no clue. That doesn't mean the sea is a safer place to be though.

 

 

I've done a bit of reading about this and it amazes me how accessible it is - accessible in a sensible way, not a suicidally reckless way.

It does mean it is safer.

 

The risk maybe perceived as being higher so people take more care, so that makes it safer.

[Naughty Cal]

We certainly take much more safety precautions on a sea trip then we do on a pootle down river.

[Ray T]

Rasputin, it is just you made assertions and I was unsure of your knowledge / experience, but now I know, thank you.

 

With the rest of the post it read to me that there were more fatalities at sea in yachts than narrow boats on the cut than the "per million events" suggested, that is all.

 

Which to me suggests there was more risk at sea.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Ray T

[rasputin]

There may be greater risk at sea but it is dealt with greater personal care, not greater regulation.

 

It is interesting that a pastime that is regulated, (canal boating) is less safe than one which is not regulated, (sea boating).

 

I do realise these are sweeping statements.

[howardang]

There may be greater risk at sea but it is dealt with greater personal care, not greater regulation.

 

It is interesting that a pastime that is regulated, (canal boating) is less safe than one which is not regulated, (sea boating).

 

I do realise these are sweeping statements.

I think it is going too far to suggest that canal boating is regulated. It is not compulsory to have any personal qualifications which is exactly the same as recreational sea going.

 

Howard

[rasputin]

I was thinking that the BSS was regulation.

[Guest]

I was thinking that the BSS was regulation.

That is nothing to do with crew capabilities or competence.

[Sabcat]

It's more that the water is regulated and the boats are by extension.

[rasputin]

That is nothing to do with crew capabilities or competence.

But it is a lot to do with safety.

Edited January 16, 2015 by rasputin

[Guest]

But it a lot to do with safety.

Of course. That is not actually the issue being discussed here though is it.

 

'Last call' could have been the 'safest' boat on the planet but it still would have perished in the hands of an incompetent crew.

[rasputin]

The OP asked if you needed a licence, you do on the canal but not the sea, a regulation.

 

post three (I think) said that someone couldn't leave France without a sextant, BSS covers equipment..

 

The Report on Last Call stated that there was the wrong VHF and the wrong lifejackets.

 

Yes the Skipper and crew made some V bad decisions, what has that got to do with the OP?