Sleeping While at Sea

[dirkdig]

Originally Posted by GrowleyMonster

That is most unusual. Typically, all nav lights have built in redundancy. There is an upper and a lower lamp. There is also usually an alarm light notifying the bridge watch that a nav light is out, and then the other one is switched on. The electrician or a QMED changes the bulb in the morning. When doing gear test, nav lights are part of a normal checklist. The mate on watch normally has to sign a sheet or make a log entry that gear was tested as per master's standing orders. These guys were running a very slipshod operation, even for a foreign flagged vessel.

It had just left the dock and had traveled about 45 mins through the channel, we got them just about at the point of open ocean.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

The coast guard was originally founded to stop the rum runners (smugglers), then changed to search and rescue...

The U.S. Coast Guard is an amalgamation of five formerly distinct federal services. The following timeline reflects the establishment of those services and when they became part of what is now the United States Coast Guard as well as changes in the organizational structure of the Coast Guard itself.

7 August 1789: The service, eventually to be known as the US Lighthouse Service, was established under the control of the Treasury Department (1 Stat. L., 53).

4 August 1790: Congress authorized the Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, to create a maritime service to enforce customs laws (1 Stat. L. 145, 175). Alternately known as the system of cutters, Revenue Service, and Revenue-Marine this service was placed under the control of the Treasury Department.

7 July 1838: Service to provide better security of the lives of passengers on board of vessels propelled in whole or in part by steam is established under the control of the Justice Department (5 Stat. L., 304). This "service" later became the Steamboat Inspection Service.

14 August 1848: Congress appropriates funds to pay for life-saving equipment to be used by volunteer organizations (9 Stat. L., 321, 322).

30 August 1852: Steamboat Act established Steamboat Inspection Service under the control of the Treasury Department (10 Stat. L., 1852).

9 October 1852: The Lighthouse Board, which administered the nation's lighthouse system until 1 July 1910, was organized. "This Board was composed of two officers of the Navy, two officers of the Engineer Corps, and two civilians of high scientific attainments whose services were at the disposal of the President, and an officer of the Navy and of the, Engineers as secretaries. It was empowered under the Secretary of the Treasury to "discharge all the administrative duties" relative to lighthouses and other aids to navigation. The Secretary of the Treasury was president of the Board, and it was authorized to elect a chairman and to divide the coast of the United States into twelve lighthouse districts, to each of which the President was to assign an army or navy officer as lighthouse inspector."

18 June 1878: U.S. Life-Saving Service established as a separate agency under the control of the Treasury Department (20 Stat. L., 163).

5 July 1884: Bureau of Navigation established under the control of the Treasury Department (23 Stat. L., 118).

14 February 1903: Department of Commerce and Labor is created (32 Stat. L., 825). Bureau of Navigation and the Steamship Inspection Service transferred to new department.

28 January 1915: President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the "Act to Create the Coast Guard," an act passed by Congress on 20 January, 1915 that combined the Life-Saving Service and Revenue Cutter Service to form the Coast Guard (38 Stat. L., 800) ...

Much More ➥ USCG: Frequently Asked Questions

[GrowleyMonster]

Originally Posted by dirkdig

It had just left the dock and had traveled about 45 mins through the channel, we got them just about at the point of open ocean.

Not doing gear test prior to undocking is a horrible lapse and should have resulted in someone being FIRED, at the very least. This is simply not done. Gear test is extremely important. It is done both before getting underway from a berth and before arriving at the pilot station on the way in. There is a checklist and all systems are checked thoroughly. Steering is checked port and starboard on both pumps and both control units in followup and nonfollowup modes. Astern propulsion is checked. Whistle, lights, all checked. This is a rigidly enforced requirement. And by the way, even a small recreational vessel should have an established gear test routine. It is prudent seamanship and if you aren't exercising prudent seamanship to the extent of your capabilities and resources, you should not be on the water at all. Don't let yourself be caught by surprise by a gearbox that won't go into reverse, when headed for your slip. Don't find out too late that you have no way to make a fog signal or your anchor light is burnt out or your tiller is dry rotted or whatever. Gear test not only is professional and reflects well on you in court, but also significantly reduces yoru chances of being involved in a mishap in the first place, which is the whole point, isn't it?

[captain58sailin]

I have a checklist that the OOW is required to perform before getting underway, which does include physically checking the navigation lights prior to getting underway, The nav light panel does have an alarm if the bulb burns out, however since the master switch on the navigation light panel is switched off when secured to the dock, it is possible that it gets overlooked prior to getting underway, usually this happens because the company is asking you to do 40 different things just prior to getting underway at the same time having their foot up your behind to get underway, and the check list gets pencil whipped. That is no excuse, it is just the way things happen sometimes, that is why when I come on watch, I personally check the nav. lights and radar tuning, every time.
Thanks for the history lesson Gord, the service is very interesting, how they came to be and their different roles that they have played as they have evolved.

[zeehag]

ye gotta love checklists.

do the checklists tell you what is going to break while out in ocean??
do they let you know how to repair at sea??
do you have plenty of back up plans for WHEN your stuff craps out????

is better to be able to back it up and repair it than to count on anything working all the time, because it WONT.

charts do not keep one from running aground...not at all..what is the chart going to do --callyou to look at your equipment>??? rodlmao....
eyeballs and depth sounding equipment keep you from grounding, as long as you are aware of what your boat depth is....LOL....

[captain58sailin]

What checklists for getting underway do for me, is to insure I don't overlook something simple in the rush to get underway. They do help in that arena. We also have a pre-arrival check list of things to check before getting to port, to make sure everything is working before getting into shallow water. If there is a problem then we have time to address it before proceeding ashore. Same with nav. watch handovers, etc... Things are far more complex than getting underway aboard a yacht, and not, as you have pointed out Zee, if you don't watch the depth sounder you can go aground. If your chart corrections are not current, you could unknowingly run into a hazard that you could have avoided.

[zeehag]

even when charts are updated, many times in a sandy shoal harbor, things change between visits...so, without eyes and depth sounding , is difficult challenge--i have 2 sounders--one in stern, one at downturn of keel, forward, under my bunk.

gggrrrrmmmbblllegggrrrr---i checked it before leaving. lol....i will have to leave here even sans gps, pretty soon, as summer starts inmay, named storms have been known to form in mid may off shore of here.

[mcarling]

Originally Posted by Viking Sailor

This case is cited whenever someone wants to project the argument that a singlehanded sailor has no legal standing if he is unable to stand a continuous watch. The truth is that in this often cited case the court enter a judgment in favor of the singlehanded sailor even though he was equally at fault by not standing a continuous watch.

Close, but not quite correct. The judge did not suggest that a single-handed sailor must keep a continuous watch. He found the Plaintiff (the single-handed sailor) should have maintained watch often enough to see the ship before a collision occurred. The judge noted the expert testimony indicated that the yacht should have been able to see the container ship's lights from 14nm, reduced that to 10nm to be conservative, and calculated 33 minutes at the ship's speed of 18 knots. The judge concluded that the sailor either didn't look for other vessels during a period of greater than 33 minutes or failed to see the container ship when he looked. Either way, that was the basis of his fault, not any requirement to keep a continuous watch. The judge's opinion seems to have been that watching once every 30 minutes would have satisfied the single-handed sailor's obligation.

[John A]

Now if we could just get people to stop talking or texting on the cell phone while driving, or get a bicyclist to obey the rules of the road or maybe do something about jaywalkers.
Maybe we could also do something about motorist who don't stop and check if anyone is in the cross-walk before making a right turn.

Life's a jungle out there! (sarcasm)

[slowshoes]

You never know what's going to happen out there, even in broad daylight with good visibility:

Fishing Vessel hits large Sailing Vessel in Good Visibility 20/8/2010 - YouTube

[DumnMad]

Yesterday I was talking to a couple who have taken 4 months to get from South Africa to NZ and never saw a ship but still went on 4hour shifts all that time. No wonder they are still afloat after 33 years cruising.

[SaltyBard]

Counting Barbary Sheep, they sailed fast asleep...

[John A]

Originally Posted by slowshoes

You never know what's going to happen out there, even in broad daylight with good visibility:

Fishing Vessel hits large Sailing Vessel in Good Visibility 20/8/2010 - YouTube

Could anybody come up with a good reason why the sailboat shouldn't alter course to avoid the collision?

As a singlehandler, I had to dodge around all sorts of vessels while having the right of way.

[Geoduck]

Originally Posted by John A

Could anybody come up with a good reason why the sailboat shouldn't alter course to avoid the collision?

As a singlehandler, I had to dodge around all sorts of vessels while having the right of way.

Read the story on page one.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by Geoduck

Read the story on page one.

I went through the thread and couldn't find it.

It all seems very weird. The sailboat crew were dropping sails afterwards, so apparently they were under sail. the fishing boat wasn't dragging nets or anything. They seemed to have full maneuverability as they backed off after the collision.