Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
Last week while exiting the Ocean City Fishing Center marina, I noticed a small skiff with two people aboard blocking the cut that allowed access to the bay. The man at the tiller of the outboard saw me approaching and I could see that he and the lady aboard with him were making moves to cast off from the pilings they were fastened to so that I could pass. The fellow had a little trouble jockeying his boat to get out of there and I pretty much had to stop to give him time to get his vessel under control and finally clear the cut.
We all get flustered sometimes while maneuvering our boats in tight situations and this wasn’t a big deal, so I didn’t mind waiting. But what got me was that except for when he first saw us coming, the guy running the boat never once waved, nodded, or even looked my way to acknowledge that he saw us coming and planned to move out of our way. If it wasn’t that I saw him look our way when I first came around the corner, I would have thought he didn’t even know that 40-feet of boat was looming down on him and I would likely have given him a big blast on the horn to get his attention if I hadn’t noticed earlier that he had seen us.
It was as if by looking at me in the eye he’d have to concede to the lady aboard his boat and to me that he’d goofed-up. Like I said - it wasn’t a big deal, I waited, he moved on, and the incident was over without a mishap. But it could have been much different. If I didn’t know that he had seen me from the start, when he began backing towards me I might have gone into reverse to get away from him, which could have put my boat in a spin and into the rocks or the shallow water I had on either side. Even minor mishaps with a boat can cause personal injuries and sometimes costly repairs.
Though not thoroughly understood by many boaters, the inland and international navigation rules or “rules of the road” as they’re so often called are designed to keep boats of all sizes and boaters safe by preventing collisions. Among other things, these rules address the conduct between two vessels that are meeting, crossing or overtaking one another and most boaters probably have at least a basic understanding of what these rules involve; such as passing another boat port-side to port-side, or that a vessel being overtaken has priority over the one coming up from behind, or that when one boat is going to cross in front of another, the vessel to port must not cross in front – it’s all basic boating stuff that every skipper simply must know.
Anytime two boats interact one of them is known as the “stand-on” vessel and the other is the “give-way” vessel. The stand-on vessel is often described as the one which has the “right of way”, while the give-way vessel is supposed to maneuver around it. But while the term “right of way” is often used to describe the advantage of being the stand-on vessel, the term is misleading because the operator of a stand-on vessel is not free to do as they please. By the rules, in crossing and overtaking situations the stand-on vessel is required to hold course and speed until the give-way vessel has passed and is clear of the engagement. So, in a crossing situation, while the give-way vessel must not cross in front of the stand-on vessel, the stand-on vessel is required not to change speed or direction, therefore, it’s skipper does not have “right” to do as they please. It’s easy to imagine how a collision could occur if a stand-on vessel were to slow down just as a give-way vessel attempts to cross behind it! Of course the rules also state that if it is deemed that the action of the give-way vessel is going to cause a collision, the operator of the stand-on vessel must take whatever action is necessary to avoid the collision.
The use of various forms of communications such as lights, day shapes, whistle signals, flags and radio transmissions were written into the navigation rules to help the operator of one vessel recognize what the operator of another vessel is doing or is intending to do. This understanding between captains is critical to safe boating because it dramatically reduces the risk of collision. Ever wonder how and why the tradition of waving to other boaters got started? While I have no proof, I can only assume a lot of it has to do with captains wishing to ensure that the other captains are aware of their presence and that everything OK.
This brings me back to the incident at the cut. Because the guy who was fumbling around in the little boat was either too ashamed, or arrogant (or something) to turn around, look at me in the eye and acknowledge that he knew I was there but was having a little trouble getting his boat out of the way, the simple incident could have escalated into something ugly. The moral of the story is that boaters should make every effort to always ensure that those in nearby vessels are well aware of their intended actions, even if it’s as simple as a mutual (five-finger) wave.
Captain Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.