If your dead, it doesn't matter who was right.
from what I've read about this incident. i am guessing that with 3 people on board and 4 am that 2 were below and the one on the helm was probably half awake. or maybe even dozing and not realizing it, you know the old nod off and thinking it was only a moment when in fact it was several minutes. as to the ships radar, could have been lax attention to it due to the lack of traffic, also remember it just shows up as a blip and could have been missed. my suspicion is lack of attention on both cases. when my wife and i made our passage from montauck,ny to cape may,nj a few yrs ago we had what we called our 360 rule. since we had only the two of us, only one could be on the helm at night. every 5 minutes we always did a complete 360 deg scan around us to make sure there wasn't anything coming our way. if in doubt as to what something was, we called the other topside to confirm. quite surprising was that there where quite a few fishing boats out there 125 miles off shore. a watch is always a must. especially at 4 am. this is the most difficult time of the night to keep watch. s/v Que Pasa?
from what I've read about this incident. i am guessing that with 3 people on board and 4 am that 2 were below and the one on the helm was probably half awake. or maybe even dozing and not realizing it, you know the old nod off and thinking it was only a moment when in fact it was several minutes. as to the ships radar, could have been lax attention to it due to the lack of traffic, also remember it just shows up as a blip and could have been missed. my suspicion is lack of attention on both cases. when my wife and i made our passage from montauck,ny to cape may,nj a few yrs ago we had what we called our 360 rule. since we had only the two of us, only one could be on the helm at night. every 5 minutes we always did a complete 360 deg scan around us to make sure there wasn't anything coming our way. if in doubt as to what something was, we called the other topside to confirm. quite surprising was that there where quite a few fishing boats out there 125 miles off shore. a watch is always a must. especially at 4 am. this is the most difficult time of the night to keep watch. s/v Que Pasa?