Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
One morning last week while proceeding down the marked channel towards the inlet, I noticed a deck boat to my port side headed in our direction. The fellow was on an intersecting course with the channel and if he maintained his course and speed we’d soon be trying to share the piece of water. In other words, we’d collide! With six clients aboard who wanted to catch a few fish that morning, more so than to be spending their time filling out Coast Guard accident reports and helping to pry aluminum pontoons from the side of a charter boat, I figured I’d pull back into neutral and let the guy pass off our bow, which he promptly did. The scary thing about the incident was that the fellow never really knew we were there because as he sat behind his little padded console, his little padded swivel seat was spun 90-degrees to the left. At that angle he could see to his port side and straight ahead, but “apparently” had no idea that a 40-foot vessel was bearing down on him from his starboard side!
Avoiding the accident was as simple for me as slowing way down and letting the “ding-dong” pass in front so the incident would come to a simple and uneventful end without any shouting, name-calling, or whatever else occurs when you hear about “road-rage,” or I guess in this case it would be “channel-rage.”
Afterwards someone aboard asked me who had the “right of way” in that situation, which prompted another passenger to speak up and claim that “we did” because we had the bigger boat. I was quick to point out to both of the fellows that their navigation rules were a bit skewed, and we spent the next 15 minutes dissecting what was done right and wrong as the two vessels tried to share the same slab of water that morning.
For one thing, just because my boat was 40-feet and the other about 24-feet made no difference. Under inland rules (at least in this situation) the difference in size between the two vessels had nothing to do with who should do what. However, because this was a situation where one boat would cross in front of the other, and since he was looking at my port side, he was required by the rules to avoid crossing in front of me. Similarly, because we were traveling along a marked channel and the fellow in the other boat was attempting to cross the channel, again – by the rules this was yet another reason for him not to cross ahead, or as they say “not impede the passage of the other vessel.”
So we had the right-of-way, right? Well, not exactly. The terms “right-of-way, privileged or burdened” are really not the way the rules describe the conduct between two vessels anymore. Instead the rules now describe boats as either being a “stand-on” vessel or a “give-way” vessel. A “stand-on” vessel is what once was known as the boat that had the “right of way” or the “privileged vessel.” But “stand-on” is a more appropriate term because when two boats meet, both are required to follow certain protocols. There’s never a time when either vessel is totally free to do as they please, as the old terms suggest.
In our incident last week the other vessel was not supposed to cross in front of us. But that didn’t mean I could just do as I wished, because by the rules the stand-on vessel must “hold course and speed”, meaning that I was required to keep going straight and not speed up or slow down, thus allowing the give-way vessel a chance to make the appropriate maneuvers to avoid collision, which in this case should have been for the deck boat to slow down, stop, or turn to starboard and pass behind us. The stand-on vessel is not supposed to do anything
but “keep-on-keeping-on”, because if both boats start making evasive maneuvers there’s a chance they could end up maneuvering right into each other since neither one would know what the other is doing.
But there’s a caveat in the rules that states that if it’s apparent that the give-way vessel is not taking appropriate action to avoid collision, that the operator of the stand-on may alter course and speed. The rules also note that if it becomes obvious that a collision will occur, that the operator of the stand-on vessel “must” take action to avoid collision, which is exactly what I did.
But failing to yield to the stand-on vessel was only one of the rules the fellow broke that morning. Another important rule he neglected is one that requires all vessels to maintain a proper look-out at all times. If the fellow had someone (anyone!) aboard who was actually watching 360-degrees around the boat, they would have seen us bearing down on them. Instead, they just went about their merry way, totally oblivious to what could have happened.
The entire incident lasted no more than a couple minutes and “fortunately” turned out to be no big deal. In describing what occurred, some might think that I made all the right moves. But actually I also made a mistake by not following one of the rules of the road. When I first suspected that the other captain was not paying attention I should have used my horn to alert him of our presence with five or more short-blasts which is the “danger-doubt” signal. Had I done this right from the start it should have given the other fellow time to maneuver his vessel safely around our stern.
The International and Inland Navigation Rules were not written just for understanding and use by professional mariners or those trying to pass Coast Guard exams – they were crafted to keep all mariners safe whether they drive super tankers across the ocean, ride jet skis across a bay, or a deck boat across a channel. For their own safety, that of their passengers, and other boaters, everyone who operates any size or type of vessel should know and follow the Navigation Rules. Not even some “ding-dong” on a deck boat should have a wonderful day on the water turn into a disaster. Copies of the US Coast Guard Navigation Rules can be purchased at most marine supply stores and certainly learned in any safe boating course.
Captain Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.