I concur entirely. Sorry for any misunderstanding on my part. The FITZ was utterly in the wrong and I can’t understand why John above would have received ANY grumbles from anyone in the navy. I also had many years OOW as plane guard.
My naval experience at sea was that we almost invariably avoided merchant ships by early, bold course changes regardless of our right of way. In this way we showed our intentions and didn’t chatter about it.
For many years - you would have had the same I presume - we had no VHF whatsoever and had no voice communication with merchant ships. We used flashing light and they mostly replied. Those were the days.
I was more insistent on maintaining my right of way when commanding a (naval) sailing ship - pre AIS. I had one or two VHF disagreements with some merchant ships. Some asked what red over green lights meant. One harbour pilot insisted he was constrained by draught having exited any such channels to sea. I was later told by a fellow pilot (listening in) he needed just such a stiff response to obey the rules and stop arguing about it. Worst of all, I was asked by a naval ship whether I was going to get the hell out of his way. “No.”
Nice to reminisce.