Lights and day shapes - pop quiz round 2 -

[BOAT]

In the example photo posted, is there enough room between the barge and rocks to pass? That’s what the diamonds indicate, correct?

Ray

Just barely, I can squeeze through and not cross the 50 foot limit he has posted but I doubt a bigger boat could.

[Tomfoolery]

In the example photo posted, is there enough room between the barge and rocks to pass? That’s what the diamonds indicate, correct?

Ray

That's true, and I just assumed it was a very long lens used for the shot. But it resembles the river I was talking about (Genesee River mouth), with not much room past the dredge on either side and large blasted rock (probably too large to be called rip-rap) walls to damp the waves.

[Tomfoolery]

Not a lot of takers, but here's another one anyway.

Boating at night, engine off, no sails, nobody actually at the helm - just drifting. A common thing to do around sunset and a little later where I am, by the way.

Q; What light(s) should you display?

[NiceAft]

Every d•nm light on the boat. I want to be seen, no matter what the regs state what minimums are. Running lights, anchor light, any lights on your spreaders (if you have them), etc.

Ray

[DaveC426913]

What do the day shapes mean?

Well,
K is the 11th letter of the alphabet, E is the 5th, while P is the 21st. Together they spell KEEP.
C and L and E and A and R spell CLEAR...
Then comes OF...

Do I have to spell it out for y'all?

[DaveC426913]

Every d•nm light on the boat. I want to be seen, no matter what the regs state what minimums are. Running lights, anchor light, any lights on your spreaders (if you have them), etc.

Ray

Well, not so good an idea.

There's see and there's interpret.

If an approaching tanker sees your anchor light on, they may think you are not moving, when in fact you are closing/crossing - until it's too late to avoid a situation.

[BOAT]

Every d•nm light on the boat. I want to be seen, no matter what the regs state what minimums are. Running lights, anchor light, any lights on your spreaders (if you have them), etc.

Ray

Well, not so good an idea.

There's see and there's interpret.

If an approaching tanker sees your anchor light on, they may think you are not moving, when in fact you are closing/crossing - until it's too late to avoid a situation.

This is a big deal in Long Beach/Los Angeles harbor. My mom and dad used to go night sailing inside the Los Angeles break water, (San Pedro Bay).
Look at a nautical chart to understand why this is a nice place to go night sailing: it's a very large area protected from swells with many brightly lighted and decorated little islands that have free anchorage all around them. (The islands were created to drill for oil back in the 1960's).

Mom and dad would sail around as old retired people enjoying the calm bay sightseeing the islands and then late at night they would anchor off one of the islands and go to bed.

They always anchored close to the island and in an area where the island had a lot of lights on so they could be seen because big oil tankers come in an out of the breakwater all night long and they have run over small boats anchored in the bay - they do it ALL THE TIME. The worst ones are the CARGO pilots - they will run over a small boat in LA Harbor like as if it was not even there - they always say they did not see it. The big shipping companies pay the fines when they smash small boats - they don't care - it's just pennies to them and most are not even Americans.

[NiceAft]

Every d•nm light on the boat. I want to be seen, no matter what the regs state what minimums are. Running lights, anchor light, any lights on your spreaders (if you have them), etc.

Ray

Well, not so good an idea.

There's see and there's interpret.

If an approaching tanker sees your anchor light on, they may think you are not moving, when in fact you are closing/crossing - until it's too late to avoid a situation.

If one is foolish enough to float at night in shipping lanes, then it is imperative to be as visible as possible. To say those big tankers might think you’re at anchor while heading straight towards you, and not blowing a horn to get you’re attention, is silly. Sorry, but that’s what I believe. The reality is they don’t see you, and all of the lights you can muster won’t make you visible.

The questions was what lights would you use (my paraphrasing), and I answered. I would not intentionally place myself in such a foolish position as a shipping lane . So, since I would not place myself floating at night in a shipping lane, and if in a scenario where there are no big ships (inland lakes per say) I would do as previously stated.

No matter where you are (day or night), there is always the possibility of encountering the dumb b@$t@rd who endangers all around him/her by reckless speed, or not paying attention to the water around them. No matter what precautions you take, there is always that one exception to the rules. We go out boating anyway

Ray

[Seapup]

I thought of this thread this weekend. We went through a channel with breaking waves coming out of the Atlantic Friday evening. A dredge was docked inside with the big rack of black markers. I had no clue what the marker meant. I checked surfline and found the video which I thought was cool. We had some surfers cheering as we caught a wave and jumped from 5 to 13 as we surfed in.







The clip is at 8:40min on the 5:40pm surfline video from 9/22.
http://www.surfline.com/surfdata/video- ... fm?id=4407

[sailboatmike]

I think you will find that small recreational boats must give way to commercial vessels no matter if you are under sail, motor or rowing, at the end of the day they wont engrave "He had right of way" on your tombstone.

Its hard enough to get boats that are required to give way to you to give you a wide berth

[DaveC426913]

I think you will find that small recreational boats must give way to commercial vessels no matter if you are under sail, motor or rowing, at the end of the day they wont engrave "He had right of way" on your tombstone.

Indeed. "Might makes right" is an unofficial law of the shipping channels.

[Tomfoolery]

Well, it's not a 'vessel not under command', which flies red over red all-round lights from a mast in addition to standard sidelights and stern light, with red over red in place of masthead (steaming) light, or round over round day shapes. 'Not under command' means you can't control the vessel, not 'you choose not to control' the vessel, like drifting.

Another scenario would be a sailboat sailing with no motor (or it's there but not functional, aka 'broken'), so you can't do anything to change course and/or avoid a collision even if you wanted to.

So other than sailing with no wind and no mechanical propulsion, that would seem to let out the NUC scenario for our small boats.

"Red over red: the captain is dead." Stay far away from any vessel showing those lights or shapes, obviously.

[BOAT]

Well, it's not a 'vessel not under command', which flies red over red all-round lights from a mast in addition to standard sidelights and stern light, with red over red in place of masthead (steaming) light, or round over round day shapes. 'Not under command' means you can't control the vessel, not 'you choose not to control' the vessel, like drifting.

Another scenario would be a sailboat sailing with no motor (or it's there but not functional, aka 'broken'), so you can't do anything to change course and/or avoid a collision even if you wanted to.

So other than sailing with no wind and no mechanical propulsion, that would seem to let out the NUC scenario for our small boats.

"Red over red: the captain is dead." Stay far away from any vessel showing those lights or shapes, obviously.

RED OVER RED! CAPTAIN IS DEAD!!
COOL! That's a great one tom!! I can add that one to my list!! But still, even if I forget I'm okay because I always know the RED MEANS STOP!! STAY AWAY!! So if I forget that one I will still be okay.

Because of my limited intelligence yet again I must reconsider my list:


Always give way to red lights or:

RED MEANS STOP! Green means go.

Navigating a waterway:

RED RIGHT RETURNING

Stay away from the balls:

BALLS ARE BAD!

A ghost ship approches, stay away!

RED OVER RED! CAPTAIN IS DEAD!!

Excellent - thanks for the help tom!

[Tomfoolery]

Well, it's not a 'vessel not under command', which flies red over red all-round lights from a mast in addition to standard sidelights and stern light, with red over red in place of masthead (steaming) light, or round over round day shapes. 'Not under command' means you can't control the vessel, not 'you choose not to control' the vessel, like drifting.

Another scenario would be a sailboat sailing with no motor (or it's there but not functional, aka 'broken'), so you can't do anything to change course and/or avoid a collision even if you wanted to.

So other than sailing with no wind and no mechanical propulsion, that would seem to let out the NUC scenario for our small boats.

"Red over red: the captain is dead." Stay far away from any vessel showing those lights or shapes, obviously.

RED OVER RED! CAPTAIN IS DEAD!!
COOL! That's a great one tom!! I can add that one to my list!! But still, even if I forget I'm okay because I always know the RED MEANS STOP!! STAY AWAY!! So if I forget that one I will still be okay.

Because of my limited intelligence yet again I must reconsider my list:


Always give way to red lights or:

RED MEANS STOP! Green means go.

Navigating a waterway:

RED RIGHT RETURNING

Stay away from the balls:

BALLS ARE BAD!

A ghost ship approches, stay away!

RED OVER RED! CAPTAIN IS DEAD!!

Excellent - thanks for the help tom!

I've also seen it written as RED OVER RED: SKIPPER'S IN BED.

I'm pretty sure flying red over red does not excuse a skipper from not keeping a watch, though, and a freighter with an engine room fire or loss of rudder is going to have a full watch on duty, attempting to warn off any other vessels. Potentially a problem for solo sailors, though. Which is the whole point of Part 2 of this little 'quiz'.

You can also add RED OVER GREEN: SAILING MACHINE!

Not to be confused with a tri-color at the top of a sailboat mast, its an all-round red 1m or more over an all-round green, in addition to the other required side lights (red and green, or a bicolor at the bow) plus white stern light.

So from the side, you'd see either red or green near the water, depending on which side you look from, plus red over green high up. From the stern, white near the water, and red over green high up. No masthead (steaming) light, as 'red over green' is only when under sail alone, and is intended to give early warning to other boats, especially when heeled hard over and/or in heavy seas which makes the sidelights harder to see.

You sail in open ocean waters a lot, as I understand from your posts, so that's something you may actually see in your travels. Tri-colors at the top of the mast are more common, I would think, especially on small boats like ours. But that's used instead of the side lights and stern light when under sail (only), and has to be switched off when the engine is started, with the 'normal' nav lights burning instead.

[BOAT]

I do sail in the oceans EXCLUSIVELY (I have no where else to sail) and at night most everyone here uses a steaming light. On the 4th of July lots of sailing boats come out of the harbor to watch the fireworks at night and because the steaming lights can't be seen from the rear it makes the all those lights look like they are twinkling like stars just above the horizon as the boats tack back and forth - it's really cool. I don't have the red and green lights on my mast (they did not come with the boat from the factory) but I have seen them on other boats - I did not know what they were but because there was red in there I try to stay away. They guys that sail at night on a regular basis have extra stuff like radar. Radar seems like overkill to me, but maybe not? Do you think a MAC26 should have radar?? I suppose AIS is okay. but radar? Is that going too far? (I figure sailing at night might be safer with AIS or radar instead of just relying on lights, right?)