I concur. Also with the USN. In my training days we didn’t have AIS, ARPA, GPS, nor even VHF. We couldn’t talk to merchant ships or port authorities for some strange reason of communications security or somesuch.
We avoided collisions primarily by taking and recording visual bearings, observations of aspect and on reflector plotter on radar. I’ve seen near misses caused by reliance on VHF when ships thought they were talking to the vessel in sight but weren’t. I’ve had merchant ships call up (when we got VHF) and ask what those funny coloured lights meant when only showing COLREGs nav lights (minesweeping, under sail). So I don’t regard naval nor non-naval collision avoidance standards as at any particular consistent standard worldwide. There are good and bad in both.
Just another old method not mentioned anywhere above is why no sound signals accompanied by flashing light. I would have been on the whistle very early on SOLA. I suspect the flashing light is stored in a museum somewhere though. I think the frigate didn’t see him and thought he was talking to another ship in sight and that that officer was not being fed information that might have conflicted with his perception from lookouts, other officers, and the radar operators below in the Ops Room/CIC.
And I note “conn” is a US variant of the Queen’s English “con” we Aussies use. I learn new stuff daily.