Okay, story time: Many winters ago, I was making an alongside tow into port, with the towed vessel’s displacement in the same ballpark as my own. That’s a whole category of fun and games, as will be apparent to anyone who has tried it. So there I was, making just shy of three knots, very obviously RAM, when a Nidelv 26 (semi displacement family boat) came screaming around the point somewhere close to its cruising speed of 12 knots. I noticed that it was going to be close, but didn’t think much of it, since it was a clear morning, nobody else around, and the fairway is over half a mile wide at that point.
Five minutes later he had taken no evasive action, and I was starting to get concerned, so I tried to hail him. No response. Next came a long blast of my whistle, which I’ve been told is embarrassingly loud, but there was still no sign that he was aware of the situation. We were closing very fast now, so I started giving short blasts, which I continued doing until impact. He was only a boat length away by the time it dawned on him that he was headed straight for an unyielding wall of steel, and threw her in reverse so hard I heard the bang through all the commotion. Thankfully nobody got hurt, but his bow and chain locker formed a slick of fiberglass dust afterwards.
When I got into port with my tow (thankfully untouched), I explained what had happened to the local harbor tug driver. He put the blame of the accident squarely on me, for failing to take evasive action as I watched the situation develop. I tried pointing to Rule 17, to which his answer was: “Colregs, Schmolregs, who has a dent in his bow now?” I disagree with his assessment, mostly because there was little I could do in extremis, but this episode may have influenced my thoughts on how to act as the stand-on vessel.
Oh, and the look on the other guy’s face in those last two seconds before he, his wife and their breakfast were thrown into the windscreen? Almost worth that dent, which the old girl carries to this day.