Rules of the Road for Vessel Navigation

A story of danger at while underway.

BACKGROUND

I’d like to state rather clearly, that this isn't a letter to anyone in particular, especially to the Skipper of the large white motor yacht named “Flying Colors”. 

This letter is a special request to anyone who boats anywhere, whether you are the captain of an approximately 60 foot, significantly well powered, Motor Yacht, or the captain of a vintage 1973, 22 foot, blue Catalina sailboat, with a white top, and a 5 hp outboard, named "WINDSOCKET," to understand and know that there are basic internationally accepted and understood navigational “rules of the road” that all vessel captains are bound to adhere to.

The “Rules of the Road” are published under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, by the United States Coast Guard.  An updated copy can be found by “navigating” any computer, or smart phone to the following link:

http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=navRulesContent .  

The US Coast Guard also has a very good Frequently Asked Questions Page with can be found at:
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=navRulesFAQ#0.3_7

The Navigation Rules are much like the rules of the road on the highway. They establish a consistent way to navigate safely and avoid collisions when two boats are crossing paths, are on course to meet head-on, or when one boat wishes to overtake another. Also found at:
http://www.uscgboating.org/regulations/navigation_rules.aspx

Washington State also requires that any pleasure boat captain on Washington State navigable waters obtain a Safe Boating Certificate.  The course is on line, and can be found at:
http://www.boat-ed.com/wa/index.htm

THE STORY

My wife Sue and I were on a week long sailing trip on the Puget Sound.  We had planned on sailing down Hood Canal to Union or where ever we ended up. We departed Port Orchard on Monday, August 27th, 2012 for Port Ludlow Marina.  We had a pleasant  but choppy motor sail in breezy but warm conditions.  We were in our 22 foot Catalina, “WINDSOCKET” that we had owned and sailed since the spring of 2000. We are very comfortable in our small boat, and especially enjoy going where the big boats can’t go.

After spending the night in Port Ludlow, Sue and I departed the marina and headed for Pleasant Harbor Marina, Tuesday, August 28, at about 0900 hrs, in order to capitalize on the southward movement of the flooding tide.  We had gorgeous blue skies, unlimited visibility, and very smooth water.  As we reached a point roughly about two  miles north north west of Hood Head’s Point Hannon, at the very mouth of Hood Canal, I noticed a large motor yacht exiting Port Ludlow just east of Tala Point just outside Port Ludlow.

Having no radar, I made mental note of where the motor yacht was and I watched her in order to “guess” her speed and course.  I noticed that she changed heading to follow in our general direction.  I was satisfied that this larger motor yacht was well astern to us, yet on a similar course, and I assumed that the motor yacht captain could, or would at least soon, see our sailboat in the near perfect conditions. My wife Susan had also noted the vessel and mentioned it to me casually.

I was attempting to steer as close to Hood Head, in attempt to make the shortest distance possible between our position and the west rise of the Hood Canal Bridge, and to allow the deeper drafted motor yacht to do the same as he would at some point over take us.  I felt that by cutting the corner  as close as possible keeping Hood Head to my starboard, favoring the shallower water, the deeper vessel would overtake us to our port side.  We’ve learned to think this way over the years of traveling in a smaller boat.  

As a matter of note, I feel it is pertinent to mention that the WINDSOCKET has only a basic hand held, chartless, Garmin Etrex GPS, no radar, and no auto pilot, but we do have a fixed Marine VHF, and a hand held VHF radio that is always on when underway. It’s pure, old fashioned, Popeye styled, hands on the tiller, and eyes on the water navigation for the entire journey.

At about 1000 hrs, I noticed that the large motor yacht was closing in on us, and would soon overtake us. As I am a believer in the unofficial physical law of tonnage, being that this vessel was enormous when compared to our vessel, I attempted to move further west toward Hood Head in an attempt to get out of his way even though, according to the rules of the road, we were the “stand on”vessel in an overtaking situation and had the responsibility, and supposed expectation to the overtaking vessel, not to change our course.

A short time after that things got a bit dicey as the larger motor yacht passed us at no less than 50 feet to our starboard, at cruising speed, which I can only guess was approximately 15 knots.  The vessel’s wake was quick to hit us, and at over 4-5 feet in height left Sue and I in a precarious situation.  I was at the tiller and decided to quarter the vessel’s wake.  As WINDSOCKET rode the first wave up and slammed into the following wave, submerging her bow, Sue and I held on for dear life, quite literally.  Fortunately our boat is well built and well maintained for her age, and we both wear auto auto inflating PFD ‘s while under way. 

We did a quick assessment of each other, and then a check of the boat for damage.  We never learned the vessel’s name until we got to Pleasant Harbor and saw that the larger vessel was at anchor. I also had innocently placed a camera on the bow pulpit of the WINDSOCKET in order to record our journey.  This following picture was snapped as the motor yacht “FLYING COLORS” over took us and continued down the Hood Canal.  This picture has not been altered in any way, but it was taken by the automatically timed bow camera, after we had made a course correction that put directly in the larger vessel’s wake.


Please remember that his is only my side of the story, as I saw it when it happened. I do not know what the view was from the flying bridge of the larger motor yacht.  No doubt the view from 30 feet above the water, the same height as my mast, must have seemed less ominous than Sue and I had experienced. 




The once overtaking, now passing vessel was very large, and comfortable, well appointed, well built, luxury yacht. As such I would imagine she would have many modern electronic navigation systems, such as radar, GPS chart plotter, auto pilot, remote helms, communication systems, such as a VHF radio system, and audible warning systems, such as a ships whistle.

To make light of the situation, Sue and I sat in WINDSOCKET’s cockpit and I decided to list a few easily overlooked issues that I felt may have been actually honest and/or innocent errors that could have been made by any chuckle head, including myself, who has piloted any yacht, at any time, anywhere in the world.  In doing so, I had hoped to level the playing field by removing the question of personal wealth and thus, privilege and self worth, from the equation. 
 
Innocent Errors - My Emotional Dump

1.  Loss of common sense, which tends to escape even the smartest of us at times.

2.  Lapse of judgment, which also tends to screw with the best of us.

3.  Big vessel captain or crew didn’t, or couldn’t, actually see my little yacht on the big wide Hood Canal.

4.  Didn’t know how to turn off the auto-pilot when the little boat was identified as something other than flotsam or jetsam.

5.  Large vessel engine was stuck in drive while at cruising RPM.  This will eventually happen to all of us!  And it is my opinion that the bigger the boat, the more maintenance has to be farmed out, making skipper/owners of larger vessels more financiers than engineers, especially when shit breaks. This poses big lack of resources issues when underway. 

6.  Vessel captain was otherwise occupied doing, or getting (… you fill in the blank…), and thus he and the other two ladies on the bridge missed seeing the little 22 foot boat.  I’ll cut this particular guy a load of slack here, because every skipper (male and female) have all secretly dreamed of getting our “wild thing” on while at the helm. 

7.  Dozed off???  We’ve all done it! And you know it!

8.  Now this particular captain is probably a really nice guy.  But somehow I got the feeling, after meeting him, that he could be any one of the uber-wealthy, eye rolling, nose thumbing, self centered, service expecting, baby boomer, Mercedes SL driving, yacht club burgee jacket wearing commodore wannabe, uppity douche bags, that have actually lost touch with reality, and actually believes that this world revolves around himself.  In which case, nothing I could have done at the time, nor in retrospect, would have changed the outcome of what had actually happened.

Now that I'm over the emotional trauma of the event, Sue and I decided to do a root cause analysis of the event in an effort to learn more about boating. Here is our result:

My Errors

In all honesty, I committed four errors in judgment that I’ll own. 

1.  Rule 5 - Lookout:  I did not check the overtaking motor yacht’s progress toward my vessel more frequently than I should have and corrected my course as appropriately due to the unofficial and unwritten “law of tonnage” in an effort to protect our vessel.

2.  Rule 7(c) - Risk of Collision:    I assumed that the vessels captain understood basic seamanship (in how damaging his wake could be), navigation (understanding that I was making course adjustments to proceed past Hood Head to my starboard), rules of the road (larger vessel passes outboard the smaller vessel and the hazard due to the deeper water), and just plain common courtesy.

3.  Rule 34(h) - Maneuvering and Warning Signs:    I  did not attempt to radio the captain of the overtaking vessel to inquire of his intentions.

4.  My personal rule: I chose to go boating on one of the three days I KNOW are the worst days to boat on.  These three days are in my opinion are the most dangerous days to boat on due to excessive speed, boating under the influence of alcohol, and lack of consideration for other boaters.


~Memorial day, When recreational boaters use their boats for the first time of the year  
~July 4th, When boaters are hurrying to parties and fireworks displays and may be drinking,  

~Labor Day, When boaters can be mad at paying for their boats all year long and not using them.  

Errors (In my judgment) the FLYING COLORS captain committed

Rule 2 - Responsibility:  The captain did not show due regard with respect to our smaller vessel and the ensuing danger he placed us in with his wake his vessel was producing at the speed he was travelling, and at the distance at which he overtook us.

Rule 5 - Lookout:  The captain if the larger vessel did not keep a proper lookout in order to properly see us, recognize us, and avoid our smaller vessel.

Rule 6 - Safe Speed:  The separation between the two vessels was minimal at best, which required the larger vessel to reduce speed to a safe speed that would not jeopardize the stand on vessel.

Rule 8 - Action to Avoid Collision:  The captain of the larger overtaking vessel had minimal distance between Hood Head to starboard and our smaller vessel.  This reduced his maneuverability and increased our risk of damage as he passed between our smaller vessel and Hood Head.

Rule 16 - Action by Give-Way Vessel:  The larger vessel was the give-way vessel which obligated him to give way, or move to a safe distance in order to pass my smaller vessel which was obligated to stay our course as the stand-on vessel.

Rule 34(a)(c) - Maneuvering and Warning Signals:  The larger overtaking vessel was required to signal his intent to pass me on my starboard with one short blast on his horn or whistle, or two short blasts if he intended to pass us on our port side.  He also should have tried to reach us on our VHF radio. 

CONCLUSION

After Sue and I looked back at this as a learning opportunity, it was painfully obvious that we who take to the waterways in smaller vessels, cannot depend on the captains of other vessels to know, or do, what is expected of them in by the rules of the road. In essence, when dealing with pleasure craft of any size, only we aboard our vessel control the safety and ultimate fate of our vessel. 

Only by learning our vessel by inspecting our boat, and performing our own maintenance, learning how to sail, learning how to properly navigate and abide by the rules of the road, obtaining the required Washington Safe Boating certificate, and depending on our past experiences in dealing with negligent, or ignorant vessel captains, can we operate a safe vessel.  

As always, plan we must and assume the worst situation and adjust our boat’s condition accordingly.  We cannot depend on other pleasure boat captains to show due regard toward our vessel, nor to perform due diligence in maintaining and operating their vessel.

Campy Out!!