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Passing Sailing Boats on the Severn


Alway Swilby

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3 hours ago, LadyG said:

Ball, diamond, ball surely? [red, white, red at night]

I went for "not under command", because see he's somewhat out of control rather than restricted in his ability to manoeuvre, but it's probably debateable. As has been said though, firstly we don't carry day shapes or the requisite lighting and secondly hardly anyone would know what they were!  At least they'd be applicable on the Severn.  :)

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16 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

No - 2 balls (not under control) is probably more apt.

I thought two balls is "not under command", what do I know.

Ball diamond ball is "restricted in ability to manoeuvre"

It's academic:  best to maintain course and use short bursts with a loud horn, or just shout at them, they can turn on a sixpence. 

Edited by LadyG
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Just now, Alan de Enfield said:

Correct - if there is no one commanding the vessel then its not under control (same thing, different words)

When im sailing my dinghy, its usually not under control either,but I'm not hoisting my balls up the mast. 

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13 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

When im sailing my dinghy, its usually not under control either,but I'm not hoisting my balls up the mast. 

When sailing, very few of us had the balls to hoist them up the mast. In my case I only had one.?

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9 hours ago, David Mack said:

That really doesn't help. They are much more manouevrable than you are, so better to stick to a steady course and speed, then they can predict where you are going to be and take appropriate avoiding action.

the first and possibly the only sensible reply to the OP on this thread.   :clapping:

9 hours ago, David Mack said:

That really doesn't help. They are much more manouevrable than you are, so better to stick to a steady course and speed, then they can predict where you are going to be and take appropriate avoiding action.

the first and possibly the only sensible reply to the OP on this thread.   :clapping:

 

they are 'racing' and will race around a large slowly moving boat, treating it as just another obstacle.  

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I do not agree that the NB is not under command if the master of the vessel is on board and is capable of taking action eg anchoring, or safely moving to one side of the river. 

To my mind, the commander is at risk of rendering vessel insurance void if there is a tragic incident by indicating the boat is not under his command, I may be wrong, but that is my opinion.  

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From my experiences on the Fens, I'd agree with the "keep a steady course and speed" approach, so other boats can go around you. 

With rowing boats, it's really important to keep an eye out behind you, otherwise this can happen. I keep a lung-powered airhorn to hand, and regularly use it to attract the attention of scullers and other coxless boats..

 

rowing_crunch.jpg.2a1a51a4f17abebabe179c506075c617.jpg

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8 minutes ago, Scholar Gypsy said:

From my experiences on the Fens, I'd agree with the "keep a steady course and speed" approach, so other boats can go around you. 

With rowing boats, it's really important to keep an eye out behind you, otherwise this can happen. I keep a lung-powered airhorn to hand, and regularly use it to attract the attention of scullers and other coxless boats..

 

rowing_crunch.jpg.2a1a51a4f17abebabe179c506075c617.jpg

had that on the thames with a single rower.

I was heading upstream and was watching him slowly gaining on me.
he seemed to want to stay mid channel so I stayed close in to the edge
then when he was about 20 feet from me he turned towards me and promptly went straight into the back of me
I saw it coming and he was not responding to shouts so I aligned the boat so he hit the fender
after the collision he removed his headphones! and claimed he hadn't seen our boat at all.

I can only assume that in the 5 minutes leading up to him hitting us he was wearing headphones (so couldn't hear anything) and had not looked in the direction he was travelling

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four or 5 years ago on the Lea we had a similar incident: we were heading up stream and spotted a 'boat' (sorry not sure of the exact technical term) coming downstream towards us, seemingly oblivious of their surroundings. It did not respond to horn signal so I came to an effective standstill and watched as it came (with two rowers aboard) straight across our bow. I tried to position so that we would pass on the inside of it.

It struck a glancing blow such that its blades caught and over-turned the boat, tipping its contents into the water. One of them had some difficulty in getting out of the water and both were (a) apologetic and (b) grateful for the assistance. To be (slightly) fair, there were very few powered boats on the move at the time.

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2 hours ago, LadyG said:

I do not agree that the NB is not under command if the master of the vessel is on board and is capable of taking action eg anchoring, or safely moving to one side of the river. 

To my mind, the commander is at risk of rendering vessel insurance void if there is a tragic incident by indicating the boat is not under his command, I may be wrong, but that is my opinion.  

"Not under command" is clearly defined in the International collision regulations, and has been for many years,  as follows:- The term “vessel not under command” means a vessel which through some exceptional
circumstance is unable to manoeuvre as required by these Rules and is therefore unable to keep out of the way of another vessel. 

Howard

 

 

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The club that you passed was Avon Sailing Club.

You probably noticed that is was on the Severn. To find Severn Sailing Club, you need to look on the Avon.

When you meet sailing dinghies with a narrowboat, it's best to ignore the colregs and take a pragmatic approach.

Firstly, if they are racing, collisions with narrowboats do nothing to improve speed, and can damage the dinghy.

Secondly, a sailing dinghy is several levels of magnitude more manoeuvrable than a narrrowboat. By zig-zagging around, you are actually making it harder for the dinghy sailors, not easier.

By far the best approach is to move over as far as possible to the right, and just motor though slowly at a constant speed.

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As an RYA sailing intstructor (lapsed) I feel I known the Colregs reasonably well and the 'restricted in ability to manoeuvre' argument strikes me as the correct one except for two problems, firstly there is nowhere on a narrow boat to display the correct signals and secondly no one on the river/canal would have the slightest clue what they meant even if they could see them.  I've had this issue - normally on the Thames where some twat/twats in a rowy thingys ignore every rule, even being on the correct side of the river but I work on the basis that I'm fifteen solid tons of steel and they aren't.  Photo to illustrate:

image.jpeg.1e8cd3c5dedb194d8e3489ef2121b94f.jpeg

 

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2 hours ago, howardang said:

"Not under command" is clearly defined in the International collision regulations, and has been for many years,  as follows:- The term “vessel not under command” means a vessel which through some exceptional
circumstance is unable to manoeuvre as required by these Rules and is therefore unable to keep out of the way of another vessel. 

Howard

 

 

Yes, exacly, it is not an exceptional circumstance to be sailing down a navigable river with a working engine. If a flash flood occurs with no warning whatsoever, then you could argue that is exceptional, but I think it is a sticky wicket argument.

An exceptional circumstance is something like no steering or a runaway engine, an incident which has not yet been resolved.

I do not recall ever seeing a vessel in a busy channel with two black balls vertical, but have seen many ball/diamond/ball [red over white over red], big ships in narrow channels often show these lights at night, and any sensible wavy rag sailor will keep well out of their way.

josephine

Edited by LadyG
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50 minutes ago, larryjc said:

I've had this issue - normally on the Thames where some twat/twats in a rowy thingys ignore every rule, even being on the correct side of the river....

image.jpeg.1e8cd3c5dedb194d8e3489ef2121b94f.jpeg

 

You don't change sides when you go in reverse though....

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2 hours ago, LadyG said:

Yes, exacly, it is not an exceptional circumstance to be sailing down a navigable river with a working engine. If a flash flood occurs with no warning whatsoever, then you could argue that is exceptional, but I think it is a sticky wicket argument.

An exceptional circumstance is something like no steering or a runaway engine, an incident which has not yet been resolved.

I do not recall ever seeing a vessel in a busy channel with two black balls vertical, but have seen many ball/diamond/ball [red over white over red], big ships in narrow channels often show these lights at night, and any sensible wavy rag sailor will keep well out of their way.

josephine

LadyG, The two black balls was a joke. No one on an nb carries 2 black balls (or even one?). Sailing yachts usually have one (for anchoring) but I knew no one who had 2. It was a wind up!

Obviously in this case, a NB should keep a constant course and only respond as per colregs if things are going wrong. You are very likely to find that the racing rules for the dinghies for that club will stipulate that they should not hinder the progress of vessels going up and down. That's what our local sailing club rules said and it would be irresponsible for a sailing club to allow boats with sail only to race in front of slow NB's who obviously cannot give way to sail. When racing we had to give way to 'on passage' vessels.

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54 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

LadyG, The two black balls was a joke. No one on an nb carries 2 black balls (or even one?). Sailing yachts usually have one (for anchoring) but I knew no one who had 2. It was a wind up!

Obviously in this case, a NB should keep a constant course and only respond as per colregs if things are going wrong. You are very likely to find that the racing rules for the dinghies for that club will stipulate that they should not hinder the progress of vessels going up and down. That's what our local sailing club rules said and it would be irresponsible for a sailing club to allow boats with sail only to race in front of slow NB's who obviously cannot give way to sail. When racing we had to give way to 'on passage' vessels.

Yes, I know, but I was just clarifing the  scenario.

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3 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

LadyG, The two black balls was a joke. No one on an nb carries 2 black balls (or even one?). Sailing yachts usually have one (for anchoring) but I knew no one who had 2. It was a wind up!

Obviously in this case, a NB should keep a constant course and only respond as per colregs if things are going wrong. You are very likely to find that the racing rules for the dinghies for that club will stipulate that they should not hinder the progress of vessels going up and down. That's what our local sailing club rules said and it would be irresponsible for a sailing club to allow boats with sail only to race in front of slow NB's who obviously cannot give way to sail. When racing we had to give way to 'on passage' vessels.

Gamebird has one, albeit a far bit smaller than as defined in colregs. I made it up when planning a trip which involved anchoring for a couple of days.

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6 hours ago, larryjc said:

As an RYA sailing intstructor (lapsed) I feel I known the Colregs reasonably well and the 'restricted in ability to manoeuvre' argument strikes me as the correct one except for two problems, firstly there is nowhere on a narrow boat to display the correct signals and secondly no one on the river/canal would have the slightest clue what they meant even if they could see them.  I've had this issue - normally on the Thames where some twat/twats in a rowy thingys ignore every rule, even being on the correct side of the river but I work on the basis that I'm fifteen solid tons of steel and they aren't.  Photo to illustrate:

image.jpeg.1e8cd3c5dedb194d8e3489ef2121b94f.jpeg

 

We've had the same problem on the Gloucester and Sharpness. Surprising how quickly rowers can respond to one of them shouting oars in. Also had a couple of close shaves where the rowers ignored the traffic lights at one of the swing bridges, I proceeded on a green light only to be met by the rowers coming straight through a red light.

 

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8 hours ago, LadyG said:

Yes, exacly, it is not an exceptional circumstance to be sailing down a navigable river with a working engine.

It's fairly exceptional. If you have a working engine and you're on an inland waterway you'll generally use the engine rather than hoist the sails. Unless you have a replica Severn trow, I guess, but I think the good rowers of the Avon Sailing Club would get the hell out of your way if you start bearing down on them in a Severn trow.

(I've never understood why the Avon Sailing Club is on the Severn while the Severn Sailing Club is on the Avon.)

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36 minutes ago, Richard Fairhurst said:

It's fairly exceptional. If you have a working engine and you're on an inland waterway you'll generally use the engine rather than hoist the sails. Unless you have a replica Severn trow, I guess, but I think the good rowers of the Avon Sailing Club would get the hell out of your way if you start bearing down on them in a Severn trow.

 

Come oop North, Richard, and you may see one or three!?

See the source image

 

Howard

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