If you guys think 2nm CPA’s are unreasonable, I’ll tell y’all about the fun of having ships cut and tangle with streamers on seismic vessels when they didn’t listen to how far away they needed to pass astern and we couldn’t dive them fast enough… sometimes that CPA you plug in as a request on AIS is there for the other person’s protection and not your own boat.
IDK, most ships I worked on required 2 miles, on paper at least.
Sailing the shipping lanes from off Sri Lanka to Rondo Island it’s obvious that compliance is better during daylight hours. Starting around 2000 or 2200 hrs till about 0600 or 0700 it’s yippee-ki-yay. Things tighten up after the old man goes to bed.
If there’s more compliance now could it be because more masters monitoring CPAs in their rooms after working hours?
EDIT: It’s seems unlikely that the company or charters would be pushing 2 miles. In the last 20 years vessel traffic has increase four-fold, it’s getting more and more difficult to find 4 mile wide gaps in traffic.
This is from a P&I.
“The CPA in pre-ARPA days on board most ships was generally never less than 0.5 mile in open waters”
That paper uses 0.17 miles as an example of using an ARPA for too close a CPA.
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Seismic ship to tanker in GOM: " we are towing gear and require a 5 mile CPA"
what tanker hears: " guy wants me to go to Houston via Havana "
Joking of course - we would give seismic ships what they wanted if we could, if we could not we would tell them so and tell them to drop their gear.
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I used to work in the GOM on ATBs and the standing orders–if I remember correctly–were 0.5nm in the fairways.
I work on ships now and the standing orders clearly state 2nm CPA. If we’re in a heavy-traffic area where we anticipate the 2nm requirement to be unrealistic, the captain will put out night orders stating that 1nm is acceptable; anything under that I need to call him and also put the AB on the wheel.
Yes, 2nm in the GOM, especially in the fairways, seems excessive and might cause a lot of unnecessary headache. On the other hand, in open-ocean, why not? The more the merrier as far as I’m concerned.
At the end of the day, the answer to your question, for most people, I think is that “because that’s what the captain wants”.
I remember a drillship near SW Pass that used to always get nervous on the way towards one of my waypoints; I would be pointed right at the rig and then at about 3 or 4 miles away make my turn. Like clockwork they’d call to confirm their 2nm CPA. I started calling them ahead of time and they always seemed at ease. On the other hand, I remember going like .25nm away from the Boxer rig or the Enchilada Platform without a peep from anyone.
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There was a short movie going around in which a Navy Skipper threateningly demands that his target open up to a 2 mi CPA.
The target responded by identifying itself as a Lighthouse.
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