I DIDN"T plow through the racing fleet! Geez!Sorry, trying plow through the racing fleet was just bad seamanship and manners.
I DIDN"T plow through the racing fleet! Geez!Sorry, trying plow through the racing fleet was just bad seamanship and manners.
You and others seem to have an inability to appreciate the situation - where you are motoring slowly into a harbor, and suddenly a fleet of fast moving sailboats cuts you off. I assure you, despite my best intentions to give way, I had a difficult time avoiding hitting them.You are hanging your hat on "constrained by draft".... You were not constrained by draft. You boat has less than 6 feet of draft. You could have easily gone to the land side of that red buoy. Plus the channel is plenty wide where you are talking. You were motoring, you were not showing a constrained by draft indications (which you shouldn't have) - those sail boats were the stand on vessels but apparently you are complaining you had to look out for them... I'm recalling a saying my mother used to use - "You're looking for sympathy? You'll find it right in the dictionary between sh!t and syphilis.."
dj
View attachment 226816
No, I'm not looking for sympathy."You're looking for sympathy? You'll find it right in the dictionary between sh!t and syphilis.."
Yup. The Duck just came down!The sailboat being the stand-on vessel is not absolute! Everyone has an obligation to mitigate the chance of a collision.
Thanks you, I'm glad you appreciate it. Traffic in the bay was not an issue at this time, though there was a 675' freighter coming south when I got there. But not an issue. It was just that this fleet came up so suddenly, right across the harbor entrance, that it was startling and dangerous, in my experience.I once had a similar incident entering Newport Harbor. It's a busy place and you can have real ocean swells with an afternoon wind chop superimposed on the swells. Add to that a lot of traffic and a fleet of YNG's racing out of the harbor, some. AC 12's circling around and you could have a pucker situation. Did I mention the car carriers coming down the bay?
A quote from Hamlet comes to mind: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"You and others seem to have an inability to appreciate the situation - where you are motoring slowly into a harbor, and suddenly a fleet of fast moving sailboats cuts you off. I assure you, despite my best intentions to give way, I had a difficult time avoiding hitting them.
Alright, never mind. Never got the answer to my question regarding the legality of using navaids as racing marks, and no harm was done.A quote from Hamlet comes to mind: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"
dj
Navionics puts it at 0.3 miles between the buoys. If I were a race committee I would probably not hesitate to use buoys at that spacing. The fact that these are sport boats going 20+ knots does complicate things though, and like you said “you probably just had to be there.” I’m sure it’s no consolation but the racers are probably used to much closer passes than you and probably didn’t think you were too close.View attachment 226815
The total width of this entrance, from the point at Fort Adams, on the left, to the bottom Goat Island, on the right, is 2,300'. Between the buoys is probably 1,500' or so.
The small arrow is me, entering. The longer arrow is that fleet coming at me. I don't know where exactly they were coming from, probably from the East side of Goat Island, as I didn't see them until they were on top of me.
I’ve also heard that rumor but I’ve never seen it codified anywhere. If nothing else it’s not a regulation that’s enforced to any significant extent. The Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association publishes all of the marks that it uses for every race on the bay at CBYRA RACING MARKS. Almost all of them are government ATONs, and they’re not some little beer can racing club.Never got the answer to my question regarding the legality of using navaids as racing marks
Alright, never mind. Never got the answer to my question regarding the legality of using navaids as racing marks, and no harm was done.
I'm glad no harm was done to you or anyone else.I’ve also heard that rumor but I’ve never seen it codified anywhere. If nothing else it’s not a regulation that’s enforced to any significant extent. The Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association publishes all of the marks that it uses for every race on the bay at CBYRA RACING MARKS. Almost all of them are government ATONs, and they’re not some little beer can racing club.
Ask me how I know, no better not go there.Hahaha - that's for sure!!!!
dj
I won't, if you don't.A 1000' is plenty of room and there is plenty of depth outside the red buoy. Slowing down or even stopping for a couple of minutes shouldn't be an issue. The chanel is 20 times the length of your boat. Sorry, trying plow through the racing fleet was just bad seamanship and manners.
Yes, they are big and heavy. If you hit them on a glancing blow it will get your attention and you will have some gelcoat work to do, but they won't sink you. Hitting head on, might be a different story. Don't ask how I know this.
From a racer's point of view, this is an interesting situation. It's been a few years since I actively participated in racing, so I may be a little off on my analysis.The OP was not constrained by draft. That's not just him, but many or most larger sailboats traveling from marker to marker. The approach to my harbor is in someways similar, and I've had boats make that claim when they had 500-1000 feet of water on either side. They get tunnel vision regarding their course. As boaters we also forget that we can slow down, like we would in a car. There is always reverse; firmly applied, even heavy yachts can stop rather quickly. It's surprisingly easy to forget these things. But let's move on.
In this case a large number of targets approached at the same time. Given the distances and probable speed, I can see that this situation could have evolved in not much more than a minute. The racing boats are likely not running straight lines. I can see how a cruising boat's pilot could could suddenly find himself saturated. Even if the OP sees the situation and starts to avoid, short of doing a U-turn early, he could get in a situation where his options disappear. The racers could have seen this was occurring, which would give them a duty to avoid (rule 17b. When, for any cause, the the vessel required ...).
The pilot should know that races are allowed to be set around ATNs and that racing is not mentioned in COLREGS.
Racers commonly try to draw fouls, or at least impede others through application of the rules. This is not part of the game for vessels not involved in the race, and the race and the racers did much to create the situation (rule 2). I would argue that the OP should have slowed early and probably set a course farther towards the center to give more room around the mark, but once the situation evolved and if a collision occurred, I wouldn't be surprised in the judge gave some responsibility to the racers for not acting in a seaman like manner and creating the conditions for a collision; rule 2 would, in some measure, seem to apply. The race contributed to the situation and racers should be wary of this sort of evolution.
But yes, this is just part of sailing, like watching out for squalls on the horizon.
Sounds correct to me.From a racer's point of view, this is an interesting situation. It's been a few years since I actively participated in racing, so I may be a little off on my analysis.
If a boat is motoring through the race course, then the boat under power is the give way vessel and the usual rules apply. However, if the vessel is stopped and no longer under power, the vessel becomes an obstacle on the course. Somewhere in the rules I recall, the racers must give room to other boats when there is an obstacle. We used to run into this when one of the starting marks was on a wharf and the other a ball or buoy.
In this situation, coming to a dead stop and becoming an obstacle might have been preferable to trying to motor through the fleet. Or better yet, turn around in the safest direction possible and get off the course for a few minutes while all the boats passed by. What would it take, maybe 3 or 4 minutes?
Trying to motor through the course was probably the worst option, all it did was create a difficult situation and make people angry. I assure you, if you were in the middle of the course, there were unkind words being spoken by the racing crews.
I went back to read the original post, because I didn't remember it as a complaint, but rather as a question of whether buoys could be used as racing marks. Having had some experience both cruising and racing, I wondered more at the inherent naivety of the question than the attitude. After all, @jviss has been on this boating forum for a long time and now has at least his second boat since we've "known" him here.If @jviss had started this thread asking if there was a better way to have handled this situation rather than starting it as a complaint, I think we would have gotten to the bottom of that question easier.
What was he upset about? Other boats being on the water and having the effrontery of being close to him and moving faster than he was?I was so pissed!