The link below tells about a young Australian lady of 16 yrs running into a ship within 24 hours out on a shakedown for her solo voyage around the world. Nothing that is likely to come up in an enquiry will convince me that this is not outstandingly farcical in the first instance. Right of way or no right of way, seen or unseen, this young lady is clearly out of her depth it appears. However maybe the 13 year old Dutch girl could be smarter? I seriously doubt it though. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,26047955-661,00.html Peter Sheppard

She is in contact with the ship, although there is a language barrier. They know she's in the area and MAY have seen her "beacon", but she remains below and does not attempt to avoid the ship. The "family publicity agent" talks about how long it would take the ship to stop, etc. What are she and her organization thinking? In the US, small boats do not normally insist on their rights under the International Rules, rather, we avoid large ships. In general, off the US East Coast, if a ship sees a boat and makes out her lights, the ship obeys the rules - the ship always being faster than the yacht. VHF communications are used to arrange accommodations to least inconvenience both vessels. Tugs and tows behave in the same manner when encountering ships (which are usually making 18 or more knots.) Her attitude and that of her publicity agent seems to be, OK he knows I'm here so I can stay below and he will avoid me because I'm a sailboat. Well, for one thing, close-in, ships, especially loaded container ships cannot see you if you are under a mile ahead (give or take). Their vision is blocked by the cargo and at sea, they are unlikely to have a lookout forward and there are likely only two people on the bridge. We can safely say that she was failing to maintain a watch if she was below as the article stated. Unless a ship acquires you as an AIS target at say 15 to 30 minutes at closing speed, you can't really expect them to do anything except sound 5 blasts - period. You cannot rely upon their seeing you on their radars, but she appears to have a small radar mounted aft which would certainly permit her to see a 63,000DWT ship. Finally, this happened in a shipping lane, what I assume to be a coastwise lane. There is no reason for her to be in the lane as opposed to running parallel to it. I've gone into this detail for one reason - to demonstrate that she and her family are operating on the erroneous assumption that she will be or can be treated as an equal on the water. Wrong in actual practice. She thinks that as a sailboat, ships will see her and avoid her - wrong. Both she and the family require retraining. Ron Rogers

Great points, Ron, all of which I agree with. This really comes back to the question that we discussed earlier... should governments allow obviously incompetent (not to mention very young and inexperienced) people to put their lives and others at risk for stunts. Personally, I think cruising around the world solo is dumb at any age, given that the list of things that can go wrong are so large. Not the least that people have to sleep and allow the boat to continue without anyone on watch for many hours every day. Might be marginally OK in the open ocean, but in a shipping lane??!! I recall being on a military landing craft back in 1971, traveling between the island of Terceira and Pico in the Azores, and we had to change course to avoid a sailing catamaran that was cruising by with no one on deck. The Navy couldn't raise anyone, and the sailboat just kept going. Weather was good and the Navy guys said it was probably being single-handed and the sailor was sleeping. I've often wondered if the poor devil missed the Azores altogether. Anyway, I think of that encounter whenever I consider people single- handing long passages. John Marshall On Sep 9, 2009, at 12:25 AM, Ron Rogers wrote: > She is in contact with the ship, although there is a language > barrier. They > know she's in the area and MAY have seen her "beacon", but she > remains below > and does not attempt to avoid the ship. The "family publicity agent" > talks > about how long it would take the ship to stop, etc. What are she and > her > organization thinking? In the US, small boats do not normally insist > on > their rights under the International Rules, rather, we avoid large > ships. In > general, off the US East Coast, if a ship sees a boat and makes out > her > lights, the ship obeys the rules - the ship always being faster than > the > yacht. VHF communications are used to arrange accommodations to least > inconvenience both vessels. Tugs and tows behave in the same manner > when > encountering ships (which are usually making 18 or more knots.) > > Her attitude and that of her publicity agent seems to be, OK he > knows I'm > here so I can stay below and he will avoid me because I'm a > sailboat. Well, > for one thing, close-in, ships, especially loaded container ships > cannot see > you if you are under a mile ahead (give or take). Their vision is > blocked by > the cargo and at sea, they are unlikely to have a lookout forward > and there > are likely only two people on the bridge. We can safely say that she > was > failing to maintain a watch if she was below as the article stated. > > Unless a ship acquires you as an AIS target at say 15 to 30 minutes at > closing speed, you can't really expect them to do anything except > sound 5 > blasts - period. You cannot rely upon their seeing you on their > radars, but > she appears to have a small radar mounted aft which would certainly > permit > her to see a 63,000DWT ship. > > Finally, this happened in a shipping lane, what I assume to be a > coastwise > lane. There is no reason for her to be in the lane as opposed to > running > parallel to it. I've gone into this detail for one reason - to > demonstrate > that she and her family are operating on the erroneous assumption > that she > will be or can be treated as an equal on the water. Wrong in actual > practice. She thinks that as a sailboat, ships will see her and > avoid her - > wrong. Both she and the family require retraining. > > Ron Rogers > _______________________________________________ > http://lists.samurai.com/mailman/listinfo/passagemaking-under-power > > To unsubscribe send email to > passagemaking-under-power-request@lists.samurai.com with the word > UNSUBSCRIBE and nothing else in the subject or body of the message. > > Passagemaking Under Power and PUP are trademarks of Water World > Productions, formerly known as Trawler World Productions.