Correction: I said below that the sailboat was not found to be at fault. That has not been decided yet. The decision reported here was made by the Washington State Department of Transportation. They looked only at what their ferry captain and crew did. The Coast Guard will look at both boats' actions, and probably assign fault to both, since the sailor acknowledged paying too much attention to his radar at the time.
Some time ago I put up a
short-term entry about how I was booted off of Cruisers and Sailing Forum
because I said things others didn’t agree with. Those other posters got rude and snarky,
Over and over since then it’s
turned out that the things I said that were sneered at – turned out to be true.
When the incident linked a little below (second link), that of a Washington State Ferry sinking a sailboat, was first reported, I
suggested that the ferry captain might be at fault. Well, there are
several professional ship’s captains on that forum, all of whom took my comment personally. I was told what excellent watches all commercial ships always keep.
Well, maybe not, because then
there’s the example below. I could be wrong, but I don’t believe this
particular freighter kept an adequate watch:
(I hope there were no live-aboards in that marina, and no pets aboard ...)
Then I had the temerity to
say that no matter what the COLREGS say, sailboats would be smart to steer
clear of big freighters and cruise ships. Then EVERYONE got in an uproar. It
was yet another deliberately provoking poke at commercial captains (in their view), and it gave
horrible advice to sailors (in their view). Nothing
but chaos would follow (in their view).
Well, now the Washington
ferry/sailboat collision has been investigated, and the ferry captain and crew
have been found to be at fault. They must all go through retraining on keeping
a good watch. I didn't see any mention of attributing any blame to the sailboat, which almost always happens -- almost always, both boats are found to be at fault to one degree or another.
The powers that be on The Forum seemed to
think I said the things I said in order to be confrontational, but the truth is
that we are all responsible for our responses to what we perceive as
provocations. We’re also responsible for our perceptions.
Your common sense, and that still small
voice in the pit of your stomach hollering “Don’t do that!!!” are your FRIENDS. Meanwhile, strangers can give you really bad advice for all sorts of reasons. The more invested they are in being "the one who is right," the further they may go and the harder they may work to convince you that their misinformation is the best sailing advice you'll ever be given.
As for the sailor in the Washington collision,
thankfully, he survived. He also apparently had the right of way, but his boat is at the bottom
of the channel, and he didn’t have to survive that collision. He was very
lucky.
Here’s a video of a collision
I’ve put up before, one where the sailboat was at fault. I’m going to point out
something I didn’t mention the last time I put this video up: pay close attention to
the sails on the sailboat (it has a shocking pink spinnaker). You’ll see that they lose their shape. In all
likelihood, that sailboat slowed down as it crossed the freighter’s path. Maybe
the freighter blocked the wind, but an experienced racer would have spotted
that coming. More likely, the freighter distorted wind flow in some way the
helmsman on the sailboat didn’t anticipate. (This can happen under bridges, also.) Either way, the result was
devastating for the sailboat. You can hear three of the five warning horn
blasts the freighter gave:
Give way to freighters. Just
stay out of their way. Do it early, and make it as obvious as possible (in
other words, make a big turn, not a small course correction). They move fast,
and you’ll soon be on your intended course again.
Whether the stone hits the
pitcher or the pitcher hits the stone, it’s going to be bad for the pitcher.
Don’t play “chicken” with freighters.
For the poor, unfortunate fellow who just doesn't "get" what I meant by "rude and snarky," that would include, dredging up months old differences of opinion from another board and attempting to get it going again here. Not gonna happen. If you don't have something positive to contribute, don't post here. (And that means old, distorted disagreements, no matter how important you think your opinion of it still is months later on a different forum).
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