Singlehanded passage making, Best Practices

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Viking Sailor

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2) Why would a ship, that is in compliance with rule 5, collide with any observed/detected vessel? (The implication here is that only two single handed vessels should ever collide.)

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Seems like an academic question. Why not make passages more efficient by saying ALL north or west bound vessels shall keep a watch, South and east bound can sleep. Still no chance of a collision

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by conachair

. . . A properly run solo boat should be indistinguishable from a crewed boat to other vessels IMHO. . .

How is that even possible? If the whole crew is asleep it is not indeed indistinguishable from a vessel under command with alert crew making the required full appraisal of the situation and ready to maneuver as required.


Once another vessel is close enough to see the NUC signals, then obviously any measures the "properly run solo boat" has taken to wake up the crew have failed.



So this is really just not an argument against showing NUC!


Show them, but take them down once you've been wakened by your "properly run" radar alarms and so forth.


You've got it backwards Conachair -- a properly run solo boat should show NUC, but the NUC signals should never be seen by anyone, if the systems work as they should!



If something goes wrong with your systems, and another vessel gets close enough to your "properly run solo boat" that you need to be taking his bearing and evaluating your maneuvers, but instead of doing so, you are still asleep, it is a far more benign violation to be showing the signal without justification, than to running on heedless on autopilot, with no one in command of the vessel in a risk of collision situation!




I don't sail long distances single handed, but I do sail long distances -- more than 800 miles last week alone. I use electronic aids very intensively to enhance watchkeeping, and I believe (as Conachair does) that they are great boons to safety. But they are not panaceas! Last week, on the last night of a four day passage from the Faroes, I was on watch and passing Rattray Head in Scotland. It was a pitch black night, about 03:00, and I was trying to be especially careful as we were close to land for the first time in four days and there are lots of fishing boats around. I just about jumped out of my skin when I got a call on the VHF from a fishing boat, asking my intentions. 1/2 a mile away! No AIS alarm -- he wasn't broadcasting, like many f/v's. Somehow got through my excellent radar guard zone which even detects many fishing pots -- but it was tuned up a bit due to clutter from rough seas, so maybe that was it. And despite doing my best, I didn't see it with my eyes. He was calling me, because he saw me on his own AIS, but not visually! I was using my tricolour. But after the call, quickly switched on deck-level nav lights and a deck light.



The point is that while this technology is tremendously useful, it is not infallible. Nor are our eyes infallible! But even more to the point -- nor are the eyes of vessels we might cross with!! If you are sailing along with no one awake, with no one looking out and no one assessing the situation and ready to maneuver when required, I think you owe it to other vessels to at least let them know that this is the case.

[TeddyDiver]

Dammi*, I'll register my boat as a fishing vessel and set the trawl out and the lights when going sleeping (might forget to close the cod-end)

[Suijin]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

The point is that while this technology is tremendously useful, it is not infallible. Nor are our eyes infallible! But even more to the point -- nor are the eyes of vessels we might cross with!! If you are sailing along with no one awake, with no one looking out and no one assessing the situation and ready to maneuver when required, I think you owe it to other vessels to at least let them know that this is the case.

Amen. I’ve had two close calls with large ships, in bad weather at night, far from land and not in well travelled shipping lanes. Both times the ship failed to respond to hails on VHF (although I did not have AIS at the time, so did not include ship name). When you’re hundreds of miles from shore and you hear your VHF light up, you would listen you would think. Unless you don’t speak English or are asleep, both of which I consider to be very possible in both cases.

In one case if I had been asleep there’s a very good possibility I would have been run over.

It’s about risk mitigation, which is like halving the distance to a destination, you can never really get all the way there. But the two pillars of it with respect to collision avoidance are 1) never assume that an effective watch is being kept on an encountered vessel and 2) technology is tremendously useful but a long way from infallible.

Setting your AIS to NUC when hove to and sleeping? Probably could not hurt (ethics and legality aside) but I think the practical boost in safety approaches zero. Someone has to be paying attention to the AIS screen in the first place, and if they are, they probably won’t hit you regardless of what your displayed status is.

I’m reminded of the sinking of the Nantucket lightship in 1934 in fog by the HMS Olympia, Titanic’s sistership. Anchored, fog horn going, radio blasting for RDF, two 14” lanterns lit, she was cut in half and sunk in under a minute by a ship doing everything it could to figure out where she was.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Suijin

Amen. I’ve had two close calls with large ships, in bad weather at night, far from land and not in well travelled shipping lanes. Both times the ship failed to respond to hails on VHF (although I did not have AIS at the time, so did not include ship name). When you’re hundreds of miles from shore and you hear your VHF light up, you would listen you would think. Unless you don’t speak English or are asleep, both of which I consider to be very possible in both cases.

In one case if I had been asleep there’s a very good possibility I would have been run over.

It’s about risk mitigation, which is like halving the distance to a destination, you can never really get all the way there. But the two pillars of it with respect to collision avoidance are 1) never assume that an effective watch is being kept on an encountered vessel and 2) technology is tremendously useful but a long way from infallible.

Setting your AIS to NUC when hove to and sleeping? Probably could not hurt (ethics and legality aside) but I think the practical boost in safety approaches zero. Someone has to be paying attention to the AIS screen in the first place, and if they are, they probably won’t hit you regardless of what your displayed status is.

I’m reminded of the sinking of the Nantucket lightship in 1934 in fog by the HMS Olympia, Titanic’s sistership. Anchored, fog horn going, radio blasting for RDF, two 14” lanterns lit, she was cut in half and sunk in under a minute by a ship doing everything it could to figure out where she was.

Yep. That pretty much sums it up.


I agree that showing NUC is not likely to have a decisive effect on the risks of the situation, but I think it definitely helps, and in a situation where you can use all the help you can get. Confusion as to another vessel's intentions or status is a frequent cause of collisions, after all.



I think heaving to, however, has a BIG effect on safety. A stationary vessel presents are far simpler collision avoidance situation to other vessels, and is far less likely to run into something else itself. It is far less likely that another vessel will assume that a hove-to vessel will be maneuvering and participating in collision avoidance. I realize that many single handers will not want to give up the miles by heaving to, but I do think that it makes a huge difference in safety of being asleep.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

How is that even possible?

Hopefully I've managed close to that for many miles. Well offshore radar/ais alarm picks pretty much everything up in plenty of time, the need for any collision avoidance basically close to zero, ships see you (steel hull so very good radar return) and generally give room, nothing much else out there. So no one knows if it's crewed or not. If the waves are up and many false alarms then not much unbroken sleep for a day or so, no one knows it's just you.

If something goes wrong with the systems then it's short catnaps. Not fun but possible.

Coastal or on the shelf not much fun, short cat naps if needed and very little traffic. No one knows it's just you.
Like your fishing boat example - you didn't spot it in a well crewed boat! In those a tiny tweak of radar settings can make all the difference.

That's been the experience so far round the north and south Atlantic anyway- so how does anyone know you're solo?

[botanybay]

Originally Posted by Toaster

I've done two Pacific crossings. First from Seattle to Hilo, we saw zero sailboats. Once offshore, we saw four fishing boats and one container ship.

Second crossing from Honolulu to San Fran, we saw one sailboat, but this was because it was another racing boat on the return delivery after the TransPac that had set off a couple days after us (and was faster). That was the only boat we saw until we got close to the mainland.

The Pacific is a big, big ocean!

You do see a lot of garbage though. On the second crossing, we snagged an old fishing net while we were motoring through the Pacific High. A single hander would have to deal with this on their own - diving off the boat to cut it free. With crew it was no big deal.

Interesting topic and perhaps worthy of a thread of it's own. While most of my passagemaking is double handed or triple handed I have always been amazed at the generally sparse but locally dense traffic.

From memory once off the shelf/costal:

Los Angeles to Honolulu: two ships within 6 hours of each other crossing our track heading for Panama; no private vessels seen -- double handed, pre AIS, no Radar -- 21 sea days, headed south first due to Dec/Jan passage

Honolulu to Marshall islands: no ships; no private vessels after first 12 hours and before final 12 hours. Double handed, pre AIS, no Radar - 15 sea days

Marshall Islands to Midway: no ships; no private vessels after first 12 hours, none at end. Double handed, pre AIS, no Radar - 14 sea days

Midway to Los Angeles: many ships 15 NMI to north during second half of passage, 3 to 4 per day, one fishing factory ship and associated vessels, no private vessels until within 12 hours of coast. Double handed, pre AIS, no Radar - 35 sea days... probably 50 ships seen over last 15 to 18 days. All to the north of our track. Later part of voyage was near Japan to long beach, CA great circle route.

Chesapeake to Abacos: offshore route one tack 450nmi off the coast, buddy boating with other sailboat. No ships seen, no private vessels seen (other than buddy boat) after 12 hours and 12 hours prior to arrival. Triple handed, pre AIS, no Radar -9 sea says offshore

Abacos to NC ICW: significant shipping traffic and private vessels seen. Was busy plotting them a considerable amount of time. Triple handed, 4 sea days if memory serves.

I may just have to go pull the logs for these trips to check my memory. Sitting on mooring in Catalina at the moment.

So, upshot is that even in the modern era of electronic navigation the ships are pretty concentrated in specific areas. Pretty sparse in other areas.

Now I have a class A AIS and do use the persons aboard setting to note if I am short handed or alone. I doubt anyone pays any attention but it would be possible to parse that message and have a warning if there is a single handed nearby.... perhaps a new feature for open Captain?

If we are looking for a way to tell the world that we are alone that would be a nice way to do it.

[john61ct]

"Pulling over" - heaving to / lying to a sea anchor to get a decent sleep (say six hours) - does not change the "illegality" of your failing to keep watch.

But A. does it make you more or less likely to be involved in a collision in an unpopulated spot middle of the ocean?

B. More generally, is it overall more or less safe **to you** than continuing on course while sleeping?

Finally, C. in the event of a collision, would doing so decrease your share of the blame percentage?

[hpeer]

Good question I was pondering yesterday.

A - should not change the likelihood of collision any appreciable amount
B - should not be more or less dangerous dangerous depending upon conditions
C - don’t know

[GILow]

A - increases the time you are exposed to risk.

[hpeer]

Yes, good point.

[John A]

During a very difficult long passage, with short naps, I found myself connecting my tether to the jack line to go forward and chase that damn elephant off of my boat!

I went below and slept for 3 hours.

[hpeer]

Had a similar experience when driving home after working like six continuous shifts without sleep. Slammed on the brakes to miss the circus train coming out of the corn field. Never had as bad an experience singlehanding. I do get stupid 3-5 am. That’s my personal really tough time.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by GILow

A - increases the time you are exposed to risk.

In general cruising single handers are already at increased weather exposure risk over typical cruisers. There boats are shorter, ie slower, and they generally don't push these smaller boats hard, preferring to sail very conservatively. So you'd expect significant number of days added to a passage.

[Viking Sailor]

How about defining a proper lookout for a single handed vessel as scanning the sea 360 degrees around the vessel out to the horizon, by sight and sound, at the following times: For a course between 0 and 89 degrees magnetic within the first quarter of the hour; For a course between 90 and 179 degrees magnetic within the second quarter of the hour; For a course between 180 and 269 degrees magnetic within the third quarter of the hour; For a course between 270 and 359 degrees magnetic within the forth quarter of the hour. The scan should include a sound signal consisting of one long blast followed by two short blasts in each quadrant of the scan at 2 minute intervals. When available, the lookout shall observe AIS and/or Radar equipment to assist in establishing situational awareness. Additionally, a single handed vessel should be equipped with a radar reflector and/or a radar transponder to enhance radar visibility.