Anyone use handheld laser rangefinders made for industrial or sport-hunting use to figure out distances when landing or leaving the dock? Where I work our boats are always landing and departing from congested docks, quite often in strong winds. The captain will have ABs on the bow and stern radioing him distances from other boats and the dock, to avoid allision. Because ABs are rarely accurate at judging distances, the captain usually takes the distance with a grain of salt. As one captain put it, “I’m not listening to the distance they’re telling me. I’m listening to the amount of panic in their voice”. Seems to me there must be a tech solution to the problem these days.
Range finders will end up lost or broken. Teach your ABs to gauge distances. It’s not that hard.
The ship I was on before this one had the mates on both the bow and stern use range finders every time when docking. The Capt. keeps one by his chair all the time too.
This ship almost always anchors out, so not needed so much.
Estimate range by bollard distances. Even the worst AB can count how many bollards between you and the vessel ahead or astern. Other than that, my rule of thumb while calling distances to the captain was always to go with a worst case estimate. If it looks like 50 meters, it’s 40 meters. Never used a range finder but know some that did.
Not much when docking, but I’ve found it pretty useful working around rigs/platforms.
[QUOTE=freighterman;193041]Anyone use handheld laser rangefinders made for industrial or sport-hunting use to figure out distances when landing or leaving the dock? Where I work our boats are always landing and departing from congested docks, quite often in strong winds. The captain will have ABs on the bow and stern radioing him distances from other boats and the dock, to avoid allision. Because ABs are rarely accurate at judging distances, the captain usually takes the distance with a grain of salt. As one captain put it, “I’m not listening to the distance they’re telling me. I’m listening to the amount of panic in their voice”. Seems to me there must be a tech solution to the problem these days.[/QUOTE]
I know one captain that tried using one, he was unhappy with the inaccurate distances and maybe not capable of using the “voice panic gauge”. I don’t think he ended up using it much.
There are a couple different situations, one is the parallel parking situation which is simple and the bollard counting method works.
In the case of coming off the dock and having to turn 180 degrees in a tight spot it’s a little more difficult. In that case getting a distance off from a person on the bow is not as useful. A distance from the bridge would be more useful to gauge if the swing was clear or not.
So the laser rangefinder was verified to be inaccurate? Just curious.
[QUOTE=Slick Cam;193103]So the laser rangefinder was verified to be inaccurate? Just curious.[/QUOTE]
No, my post was poorly worded, one captain was unhappy with the inaccurate distance reports he was getting and tried using a rangefinder.
Had a new third mate one time, reports “one hundred feet to the ship astern”. I told him to report distances in meters. He says “Ok captain, one hundred meters to the ship astern”
Our Second Mate brought a laser range finder, used in archery, cost about $340. Magnified monocular has cross hairs so you know what you are targeting for a distance. Reads yards or meters, he tells me the device also has a tilt meter to help determine horizontal distance from actual line of site distance, ex, when on a high deck looking down at a low pier, the unit can determine the angle you are looking down at, and use that to extract the horizontal distance from the longer line of site.
But like most, we already have too many gadgets and gizmos, and too much to train crew on, to be excited about requisitioning additional equipment, that I would have to train the new Mate how to use, etc.
I usually tell Mate’s, when standing on one corner of the stern, that the opposite corner of the stern is about 50’ away, so they should use that as a gauge. Our visibility is terrible from the Bridge, and with the Bridge Fwd, the stern feedback is necessary, but not always accurate.
one of our mates uses his hunting rangefinder on occasion. I’m not sure of the model, but it seems to work pretty well out to 500yds. His distances have become a lot more accurate, which comes in handy when trying to get into king cove in the dark with the current rippin out of the lagoon. Not all guys will need it, but I would think it’s a handy tool to have, especially for some of the places Coastal goes into.
I always tell guys to imagine a 40’ container something relative in size to judge a distance, seems to help some.
gps on bow and stern and a good charts and a giant ecdis screen is how cruise ships do it
Laser range finders might be good if all your deck crew each get one eye of their eyes gouged out by a massive octopus in heat, and they can no longer judge distances.
[QUOTE=lm1883;193123]When listening to crew calling off distances I am listening for not just the distance off but the rate of closure, if any. Nobody can expect accurate distances over 200’ but they can tell if the available space is increasing and decreasing. It’s like an old captain I sailed with used to say: “every bodies 100 feet is different, their zero is pretty much the same.”[/QUOTE]
Exactly this. Rarely do I need to know an exact distance, I’m more concerned with rate of closure. The only times I’ve ever cared for precise calls were backing into C-Port 1 but then the distance was in inches anyway…
In regards to the specifics of one operation in which accurate distance estimation can be helpful. Other operations in other trades will be widely different:
In terms of landing a boat at a dock: Imagine a U-shaped basin of docks. Imagine each side of the “U” is two boats longs. Maybe 600 feet on a side. Imagine near one of the corners of the “U”, where a side meets the “bottom”, there is a berth open. Maybe one boat-length long plus 10 feet. The skipper has to land his boat in that berth, with a vessel moored ahead and astern, with five feet to spare from each boat. Skipper probably has a single thruster. But maybe not. Maybe twin screw. Maybe single screw. Never a tug. If it’s one of our house forward boats, the skipper can’t see the stern from the wheelhouse because of the raised poop. Imagine the wind at 40 knots, setting the boat down into the basin, and it’s driving rain. Imagine plenty of boats milling about the basin, and it’s the middle of the night. The skipper has himself, one mate, maybe a couple of trusted ABs to shoehorn the 260’ boat in the 270’ slot. A few other hands to handle lines, but no one else to rely on to conn the boat in.
That’s a fair description of the environment our boats land and depart in, and the context in which I was inquiring about rangefinders Not the worst conditions, but fairly challenging. Throw in Dutch Harbor williwaws, where storm force winds can completely reverse directions within a matter of minutes and close-quarters boat handling can become difficult. A near sighted AB, simultaneously talking on the handheld and fast-coiling his heaving line before it gets sucked in the wheels, after missing the dock, in pouring rain, can be excused not getting distances exact, when the relative positions of docks and boats, both fixed and moving, are changing fast. But after an internet search I can’t find any technology that would help in this case. There is a saying we have “Dutch Harbor is where technology goes to die”. All the electronic devices which seem so rugged elsewhere usually expire after a day or two of Aleutian winter.
[QUOTE=freighterman;193704]In regards to the specifics of one operation in which accurate distance estimation can be helpful. Other operations in other trades will be widely different:
In terms of landing a boat at a dock: Imagine a U-shaped basin of docks. Imagine each side of the “U” is two boats longs. Maybe 600 feet on a side. Imagine near one of the corners of the “U”, where a side meets the “bottom”, there is a berth open. Maybe one boat-length long plus 10 feet. The skipper has to land his boat in that berth, with a vessel moored ahead and astern, with five feet to spare from each boat. Skipper probably has a single thruster. But maybe not. Maybe twin screw. Maybe single screw. Never a tug. If it’s one of our house forward boats, the skipper can’t see the stern from the wheelhouse because of the raised poop. Imagine the wind at 40 knots, setting the boat down into the basin, and it’s driving rain. Imagine plenty of boats milling about the basin, and it’s the middle of the night. The skipper has himself, one mate, maybe a couple of trusted ABs to shoehorn the 260’ boat in the 270’ slot. A few other hands to handle lines, but no one else to rely on to conn the boat in.
That’s a fair description of the environment our boats land and depart in, and the context in which I was inquiring about rangefinders Not the worst conditions, but fairly challenging. Throw in Dutch Harbor williwaws, where storm force winds can completely reverse directions within a matter of minutes and close-quarters boat handling can become difficult. A near sighted AB, simultaneously talking on the handheld and fast-coiling his heaving line before it gets sucked in the wheels, after missing the dock, in pouring rain, can be excused not getting distances exact, when the relative positions of docks and boats, both fixed and moving, are changing fast. But after an internet search I can’t find any technology that would help in this case. There is a saying we have “Dutch Harbor is where technology goes to die”. All the electronic devices which seem so rugged elsewhere usually expire after a day or two of Aleutian winter.[/QUOTE]
I use refrigerators. I’ll sit the crew down and tell them to imagine a line of refrigerators laid end to end. 4 fridge, 5 fridge, 2 fridges. It’s alot easier for someone to visualize than just distances, and I find when you really need it you want to know distances under 30 feet or so. It’s easy to muff 10 or 20 feet but it’s a lot harder to think you could fit 4 fridges in there when you can only fit two. Anything that helps them project an actual distance onto the water.
Freighterman google RangeGuard manufactured by Guidance Navigation. There are a few videos of the sea trials for it on the internet. We did the Gulf Of Mexico trials and it was a nice useful piece of equipment. Exactly what you’re looking for.
Cool. I like to use Birkin Bags to measure distances. 4 Birkin Bags, 5 Birkin Bags, 2 Birkin Bags. My ABs find it a lot easier to eye ball using this method over any other.
I use rangefinders hunting. My experience is you can’t range animals figure out your shot and pick the gun up before he moves very often. I mostly use them in a stand to pre range distances to points. Identify what’s too far to shoot so I will know what to pass on what to go for.
Have docked a lot of boats assistance towing many relying on the disabled vessels crew or my seaman when I can’t see well. I can’t imagine a range finder is going to be fast enough to give any useful information . It’s just like hunting in reverse. Target is stationary you are moving, by the time he’s figured it out distance has changed. They don’t pick up small targets well either. Range the edge of a pier it’s probably going to find the building on the pier
I asked for distances in boat lengths or widths and made it a point to have the seamen call it even when not needed. That’s the way I was trained as a young seaman. New situation tow or dock best practice is to go slow real slow. Close slow less chance of trouble.
. Boats3
Thanks for this! Would provide one solution for our new vessels so much appreciated!
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