Quote:
| Originally Posted by alloyed2sea |
Only two things get small boats run over: Curiosity, and stupidity on behalf of those in the small boat. I almost ran over a 40' sailboat out on Lake Huron in the middle of a cloudless day because nobody was at the helm. They were down below decks for over a half an hour, and wouldn't reply on the radio, and with nobody at the helm the boat vered suddenly and changed its tack heading right for us. I blew the ships whistle over, and over again until finally I had to go hard over to try to slip in behind them, and that's when somebody finally popped up on the deck, and looked right up at the bow of our ship in absolute fright and put his sail boat hard over, but right back in front of us. And now we were only a hundred a fifty feet from them. The only thing I could do was go hard over the other way, and pray. We missed that boat by less than 6 feet, and thankfully the blunt bow's wake pushed them to the side away from us.
Now all Merchant Mariners know that we share the waters with recreational craft, and are constantly on the look out for ships, boats, buoys, and anything a float that might hamper our economical passageway over these waters even along the lines of passage clearly marked on every chart as belonging to us. We do our best to steer clear of everything just because we know that there are too many curious, and foolhardy lubbers behind the controls of pleasure craft, and building in numbers every year. Our problem isn't that we think we own the water ways, its that so many small boats think that they do. And while it is true that a sailboat has the right of way in most cases it is not true when they are sailing under the power of their engines, nor at all in a controled shallow waterway such as a river. But then most boaters haven't a real clue about the rules of the road for the ocean, or the Great Lakes, and its tributaries as they have never read them like we have to. Every Merchant Marine Vessel must carry a copy of the US Coast Guard Rules of the Road aboard them, and keep it in their Pilot House for quick, and easy reading by any memeber of the crew. Every deck officer has to know them and every AB quickly learns them as well for proper lookout watch standing. And yet at least once every year of my career on the Great Lakes I've had a small boat stop right in front of my vessel, and dare me to run it over by putting his boat in front of me, then dropping the anchor, or run out of gas, or lose his engine for whatever reason in the tightest part of the channel that my vessel happens to be on at that time.
Where common sense would dictate that somebody in a small boat in a restricted channel should stay out of the way of 15000-45,000 gross tons of steel, and cargo you'd think that this wouldn't happen as often as it does. And I can assure you that every Pilot on the Great Lakes has this happen to them at least once a year, and more often if they told the truth about it. So that now most professional seaman think that most of those aboard pleasure craft are either 1. Retarded. 2. Stupid. 3. Morbidly curious to the point of life threatening where they draw close to us for a closer look. Or 4. Are definately suicidal. Notice that I wrote MOST, and that because those are the ones who are always getting into trouble, and making the news, or obituary columns every year.
I recently wrote, and had published online, and ondemand, a small Illustrated book just for this reason. My concern over the growing cost of life due to an overwhelming uneducated boating public, especially in first time boat owners, and those who think they know enough, but only know enough to be dangerous to themselves, and their unwary passengers, mostly family, and friends at that. And some have just been lucky long enough to think that they don't even need to read that much. And it isn't much more than a panthlet in thickness. But can be carried aboard any sized boat for quick reference, or studied over the time when their boat is out of the water. It can be found along with my other books here:
http://booksurge.com/search.php3
I recomend purchasing the electronic version as it is in color, and you can print out the very usefull lists that I've incorporated in it, and laminate them for use by all hands on your own boat. However owning a copy that you can keep in your boat library is very nice indeed as well.
As for the other things that you requested, my brother thinks that I should start a whole new thread here just for sea stories, so I may do that.
Capt John S. Keller
Great Lakes Pilot
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