The fog of shore
- Thread starter Tiffany
- Start date
Pay attention, be alert, listen and sound fog horn every few minutes. You can usually hear other boats while under sail. Just be vigilant and be prepared for a quick maneuver. I've had a few close calls, but nothing harrowing.
I've told this story in several different places but I'm not sure I told it here.
We bought our new to us boat in February in Kemah, Texas. We were told when we signed the deal that the boat couldn't stay in the broker slip any longer. Hey, no problem. I programmed in a couple of waypoints into the GPS so we could get out and stay out of the Houston Ship Channel on our way to Offats Bayou in Galveston. GPS, compass, standard below deck VHF radio and no radar. So we take off and head down Clear Creek to Galveston Bay.
Crossing under Texas Hwy 146, we find fog. Thick fog. Can barely see the bow of the boat fog. The Admiral goes up to the bow while we motor across the bay towards the HSC. She points directions so we can avoid obstacles in our path. One time she frantically points to starboard so I spin the wheel and an oil platform comes out of the fog. We finally find the the little cut on the west side of Redfish Island and squeak through as we are not sure about the depth finder on this old boat. But we made it with a foot to spare.
Now, though, I am starting to sweat bullets as we are approaching the Galveston RR and freeway causeways and the fog is still thick. What's the issue you ask? Just before you get to the causeway, you have to navigate the 5 way. The Galveston Ship Channel splits into the Texas City Ship Channel and the Houston Ship Channel and crossing all of that is the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway. All busy channels during normal times. But lo and behold, just as we arrive, the fog clears out and we can see for miles. We scoot across this busy stretch of water and join the GICW heading west. Once we go under the I-45 causeway and find the entrance to Offats Bayou the fog socks back in and visibility drops to under 200 feet. We manage to get to our overnight stop without getting run over or running aground and gladly drop anchor for the night.
The next day was so much better as there was no fog and we got to sail most of the way to our new marina in Freeport, TX.
Checklist:
1) New VHF radio with RAM Microphone and AIS - Done
2) Radar - Done
3) Current century navigation equipment - Done
4) Radar reflector - Done
The old time sailors did not have to worry about tankers doing 10 knots in the same space as they are doing 2.
We bought our new to us boat in February in Kemah, Texas. We were told when we signed the deal that the boat couldn't stay in the broker slip any longer. Hey, no problem. I programmed in a couple of waypoints into the GPS so we could get out and stay out of the Houston Ship Channel on our way to Offats Bayou in Galveston. GPS, compass, standard below deck VHF radio and no radar. So we take off and head down Clear Creek to Galveston Bay.
Crossing under Texas Hwy 146, we find fog. Thick fog. Can barely see the bow of the boat fog. The Admiral goes up to the bow while we motor across the bay towards the HSC. She points directions so we can avoid obstacles in our path. One time she frantically points to starboard so I spin the wheel and an oil platform comes out of the fog. We finally find the the little cut on the west side of Redfish Island and squeak through as we are not sure about the depth finder on this old boat. But we made it with a foot to spare.
Now, though, I am starting to sweat bullets as we are approaching the Galveston RR and freeway causeways and the fog is still thick. What's the issue you ask? Just before you get to the causeway, you have to navigate the 5 way. The Galveston Ship Channel splits into the Texas City Ship Channel and the Houston Ship Channel and crossing all of that is the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway. All busy channels during normal times. But lo and behold, just as we arrive, the fog clears out and we can see for miles. We scoot across this busy stretch of water and join the GICW heading west. Once we go under the I-45 causeway and find the entrance to Offats Bayou the fog socks back in and visibility drops to under 200 feet. We manage to get to our overnight stop without getting run over or running aground and gladly drop anchor for the night.
The next day was so much better as there was no fog and we got to sail most of the way to our new marina in Freeport, TX.
Checklist:
1) New VHF radio with RAM Microphone and AIS - Done
2) Radar - Done
3) Current century navigation equipment - Done
4) Radar reflector - Done
The old time sailors did not have to worry about tankers doing 10 knots in the same space as they are doing 2.
A professional captain once told me recreational boaters should stay at the dock in fog. The recreational traffic is a hazard to the professionals. He had a low opinion of GPS and Radar for recreational vessels as those would encourage non-professional vessels to go out when they shouldn't.
But there's times when you get caught out in fog. It can be terrifying. In Eastern Long Island Sound hearing the hum of large diesel engines nearby but unable to locate the vessel is scary.
Stories I could tell about. But one was how I almost hit the Watch Hill buoy. It was in my GPS as a Go To and we went to it. Almost hit it. To finally see this buoy come out of the fog as I had to look up at like it was an apparition The fear of missing it was replaced with the fear of hitting it.. I missed it by a few yards. The visibility was maybe 50 feet. Those who have seen New England "Pea Soup" know. I then had to nose my way into Stonington Harbor finally anchoring to get my handheld Garmin GPS II and a chart aligned. The chart was in minutes and seconds and GPS was decimals. I hadn't done extrapolation since high school. But I did then. Only yards from a rocky shore which we couldn't see, we used the fix to find the anchorage by the jetty protecting the Stonington Harbor. We anchored. Endured a thunderstorm and when the fog lifted found us way too close to that jetty. We moved. Dinner was a liquid.
The lesson was simple. Travel in nice weather. In bad weather find a movie theater.
But there's times when you get caught out in fog. It can be terrifying. In Eastern Long Island Sound hearing the hum of large diesel engines nearby but unable to locate the vessel is scary.
Stories I could tell about. But one was how I almost hit the Watch Hill buoy. It was in my GPS as a Go To and we went to it. Almost hit it. To finally see this buoy come out of the fog as I had to look up at like it was an apparition The fear of missing it was replaced with the fear of hitting it.. I missed it by a few yards. The visibility was maybe 50 feet. Those who have seen New England "Pea Soup" know. I then had to nose my way into Stonington Harbor finally anchoring to get my handheld Garmin GPS II and a chart aligned. The chart was in minutes and seconds and GPS was decimals. I hadn't done extrapolation since high school. But I did then. Only yards from a rocky shore which we couldn't see, we used the fix to find the anchorage by the jetty protecting the Stonington Harbor. We anchored. Endured a thunderstorm and when the fog lifted found us way too close to that jetty. We moved. Dinner was a liquid.
The lesson was simple. Travel in nice weather. In bad weather find a movie theater.
Milwaukee to Racine back in the 70's. There was no GPS or Loran. RFs were being used by some, but not by us. We had a depth sounder, charts, a speed log, and a compass and that was it. It was a trip down the coast so we simply stayed in 30 ft of water all the way. The fog was thick and then we heard a freighter's engine. We were not in the lanes. We could hear the freighter, but never saw it. Fortunately I had bought the crystal to give me the vhf station I needed to call freighters. They told us we had gone inside of their radar and as such they could not detect us. They gave us a compass course to travel and we made it, but it was a very tense situations. I had visions of the bow of the 572ft EW Holloway popping out of the fog and crushing us.
jssailem
SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John
- Oct 22, 2014
- 22,746
I have always maintained a healthy respect for fog. It was ingrained in my youth. My dad, returning from a deployment, was delayed arriving home when the ship he was on hit the Oakland Bayin San Franciscotment in the fog.
I wrote about my experience in 2017 when a fishing boat emerged from the fog and nearly sank me. Fortunately, I survived, and my boat repairs were covered.
My story is in the attached PDF file.
Our cruise started out simple and got very complicated. I am attaching my story of a fateful event as I cruised to Roche Harbor for a rendezvous and fun-filled San Juan Island weekend.
As with these experiences, you think you are doing everything right, and then...
Here is what I saw coming out of the fog. Note the missing round light on the starboard bow. There were four headlights before he struck me.
He looked like this while coming back to give me his info. Mahalo is in the background, marshaling him back.
Attachments
I wrote about my experience in 2017 when a fishing boat emerged from the fog and nearly sank me. Fortunately, I survived, and my boat repairs were covered.
My story is in the attached PDF file.
Our cruise started out simple and got very complicated. I am attaching my story of a fateful event as I cruised to Roche Harbor for a rendezvous and fun-filled San Juan Island weekend.
As with these experiences, you think you are doing everything right, and then...
Here is what I saw coming out of the fog. Note the missing round light on the starboard bow. There were four headlights before he struck me.
He looked like this while coming back to give me his info. Mahalo is in the background, marshaling him back.
Attachments
- Hadley Cruise Adventure Report.pdf
43.2 KBViews: 188
I dunno, I used to enjoy shooting ILS approaches to minimums. I'm a little weird that way.
I ran motor barges out on the Great Salt Lake, day and night in constant fog with zero training and zero incidents. The channel to shore base was around 90 feet wide and 3 miles long. The barges were 120ft and 240ft long, so no turning around once you committed. Navigation was by compass and radar only. Granted, there were few other vessels out there except for the other motor barge and the twice daily crewboat to and from the rig.
With that experience, I gained enormous respect for low or no viz conditions, though I don't fear them. I run my foghorn, radar, the Mark 1 eyeballs, and both ears.
On our foggy trip out the Strait last week I was still surprised by an unexpected fishing boat passing within a quarter mile. There's always room for improvement and it takes practice in real conditions to stay sharp.
I ran motor barges out on the Great Salt Lake, day and night in constant fog with zero training and zero incidents. The channel to shore base was around 90 feet wide and 3 miles long. The barges were 120ft and 240ft long, so no turning around once you committed. Navigation was by compass and radar only. Granted, there were few other vessels out there except for the other motor barge and the twice daily crewboat to and from the rig.
With that experience, I gained enormous respect for low or no viz conditions, though I don't fear them. I run my foghorn, radar, the Mark 1 eyeballs, and both ears.
On our foggy trip out the Strait last week I was still surprised by an unexpected fishing boat passing within a quarter mile. There's always room for improvement and it takes practice in real conditions to stay sharp.
Practice with your radar before you have to use it "for real" in the fog. Learn how far away boats need to be for detection noting their size and configuration. Learn how to translate what you're seeing on your screen to what's going on with other vessels. Also, adjust your radar's heading alignment (located in settings) so that it lines up with your boat's 0 degree heading. Have a horn or emergency signaling noise maker at hand.
When traveling back from Maine this year in thick fog about 10 miles offshore, a heavy contact showed up on my screen. It was closing quickly on our position from dead ahead. I adjusted course substantially to avoid it. A few minutes later, the contact, a sailboat, passed by us about a tenth to a quarter of a mile away (just close enough to ID them through the fog that was starting to lighten up a little).
The fog was very sporadic that day, closing in to nearly 0 visibility then opening up to beautiful, sunny skies. I radioed in to them asking if they would like to follow us since we had radar. They were headed in the opposite direction with no radar and wanted to continue picking their way along. I got it, but felt for them; not a comfortable situation.
I've noticed that sailboats and lobster boats generally show up on radar well (they have metal parts on board that help with radar signature).
Small, fiberglass powerboats hardly show up at all or give a trace that can be hard to ID as something real or just noise. '
Reduce speed, travel slow, keep a sharp lookout, and have radar. Radar is a godsend in fog.
When traveling back from Maine this year in thick fog about 10 miles offshore, a heavy contact showed up on my screen. It was closing quickly on our position from dead ahead. I adjusted course substantially to avoid it. A few minutes later, the contact, a sailboat, passed by us about a tenth to a quarter of a mile away (just close enough to ID them through the fog that was starting to lighten up a little).
The fog was very sporadic that day, closing in to nearly 0 visibility then opening up to beautiful, sunny skies. I radioed in to them asking if they would like to follow us since we had radar. They were headed in the opposite direction with no radar and wanted to continue picking their way along. I got it, but felt for them; not a comfortable situation.
I've noticed that sailboats and lobster boats generally show up on radar well (they have metal parts on board that help with radar signature).
Small, fiberglass powerboats hardly show up at all or give a trace that can be hard to ID as something real or just noise. '
Reduce speed, travel slow, keep a sharp lookout, and have radar. Radar is a godsend in fog.
Fog tips: Have, understand, practice, and use RADAR.
AIS is a nice add-on, but not all boats run it.
Slow down and try to run within your visibility range - not always possible.
Run your fog horn.
If you can avoid it, stay out of the fog.
Running up the Newfoundland coast, there were two notable events. The first one was the middle of the night - don't know if it was fog or just totally overcast with very low hanging clouds, but you couldn't see anything. We were several miles off-shore and could see we were coming up to a cluster of fishing vessels. I don't recall how many, about a dozen. Most of them were running AIS but several of them were not. They were all clearly fishing in this one region spread across several miles but since there were so many of them, it was like a huge blockade. To go outside of them would have meant a couple of hours out of our way so we decided to go through the bunch, a bit more off-shore from what appeared to be the center of the group. The fishing boat there were running in a large diameter circular pattern, very slowly. It was really interesting to see the lag in position from the AIS signal and the RADAR position. We relied on the RADAR signal for better positional accuracy. No close calls, but quite a learning experience comparing the AIS signal to the RADAR signal.
The second event, also no close call, but really interesting, at least to me. We were about a day out of St. Johns, Newfoundland, our final destination for that leg. We were several miles off-shore, it was early in the morning and the fog had rolled into the coastal region of Newfoundland. We were just outside the fog limit. So we were sailing in this beautiful bright sunny day but to our port side about 100 yards away was a "wall" of fog. It was stunningly beautiful! I didn't have my RADAR on as I didn't feel I needed it in the bright daylight as it takes power to run. We are sailing along and then hear a fog horn coming out of the fog, north of us. It was the kind of fog horn that large ships have - you know the sound.
I powered up the RADAR and while waiting for it to come alive, I decided even though I'm not in fog, running my fog horn might be a very good idea. I had no idea what that boat was or where it was heading, it was not running AIS. Once the RADAR came on-line, I could "see" a huge ship off my port side with apparent rumbe line parallel to mine, off my port side. We kept a close watch on that ship and kept running our fog horn until well past each other. We finally passed each other at maybe 1/4 of a mile off our port sides. It was amazing that at no point could we see that ship, not even a shadow, as we passed port to port - it was running inside that fog bank.
dj
It’s (of course) generally wise not to go out in fog, just as it’s wise not to go out in a thunderstorm. But sometimes you find yourself in a situation where it’s unavoidable, and weather closes in around you. A schedule is not a good justification to violate this rule.
like many things, preparation is key, and having the right equipment can improve your safety, especially if you know how to use it. Radar and AIS transceivers, and GPS chart plotters are tremendously helpful and (if you know how to use them) improve your safety immeasurably. The way to learn them is to read the manuals, and go out and practice in clear weather so you can see what’s on screen versus what you see with your eyes.
Also, regulations require a bell or horn to be sounded every 2 minutes in fog. A short handed crew can easily meet this requirement by upgrading to a VHF that has a foghorn function, with a mast mounted loudspeaker.
like many things, preparation is key, and having the right equipment can improve your safety, especially if you know how to use it. Radar and AIS transceivers, and GPS chart plotters are tremendously helpful and (if you know how to use them) improve your safety immeasurably. The way to learn them is to read the manuals, and go out and practice in clear weather so you can see what’s on screen versus what you see with your eyes.
Also, regulations require a bell or horn to be sounded every 2 minutes in fog. A short handed crew can easily meet this requirement by upgrading to a VHF that has a foghorn function, with a mast mounted loudspeaker.