paddling doesnt exist in the col regs, banned in most ports.
In the history of sailboat racing, there were different times and places where they tried to prohibit the use of radar, loran & gps as navigational aids while racing. A few early close calls and maybe a few serious incidents that could have possibly have been prevented by the prohibited technology, perhaps augmented by the advice of lawyers stopped that. Electronic nav aids were greatly welcomed by those of us who’d been on plenty of night races where we spent hours wondering exactly where we were before we picked up a certain light or landmark in the dawn twilight. Those of us who’d done it both ways laughed at the idea that we’d be lost without the electronics. But now the perspective has changed a bit for the young people out there doing it without us old timers in the after-guard any longer. For the sailors, the only answer is to start out in small boats without any tech and learn to do it some with a compass, watch, knotmeter & hand tools. So maybe some scaled up parallel to that is the answer for early training you ship handlers.
I’ll exercise my experience as a former holder of the Merchant Marine Staff Officer license of Surgeon, and briefly former PHS doc to say that the OP has it wrong about appendicitis & MRI. The old way was to exercise your clinical skills in interpreting symptoms & feeling a belly to decide if you needed to “go in.” But inevitably a fairly high percentage of those would turn out to not be appendicitis and, in fact, to be something for which the belly would have been better NOT being opened. In the old days we called that an “exploratory” and considered it a routine matter done for diagnostic purposes. But any surgery like that has risks and sometimes the risks showed up! Today, there is rarely ever a need to go into a belly just for a diagnosis or to rule one out. (for biopsy maybe). That is thanks to the absolutely wonderful imaging tools we have available nowadays!! So don’t sell your surgeon short if he sends you for a CT or MRI. (PS: sorry, I don’t think it was the OP who said a surgeon was incompetent if he got an MRI before operating for appendicitis, but a later poster, but that doesn’t affect my point)
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Confident in the technical part, by which I mean the procedural memory stuff, being able to switch the ARPA to display true or relative vectors, change vector length, turn on and change the target trails true/relative and so forth. Almost all the deck officers are very good at this. It’s a requirement, the very few that can’t or are not good sometimes have to be fired.
Absolutely not, we prioritize by range, relative bearing, speed and vessel type. 24-knot container ships and big tankers/bulkers have to be ID’d early so we can stay well clear. That’s 90/10% radar/visual. For squid boats and the like (almost all DIW, at times frequently passing inside 1/2 mile) its more like 90% visual. Small coasters are somewhere in between
Here’s a screen shot from my IPad running INavX which I usually kept in my cabin - Leaving Pusan:
Range scale lower left.
The issue is for inexperienced or poorly trained deck officers - to a person with only a hammer everything looks like a nail. New officers don’t even know they have a tool missing.
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10 posts were split to a new topic: Vessels under oars and COLREGS
After cruising a 32 foot sloop over a period of forty years, before going on a UK narrowboat cruise in 2014 I found it very advantageous to study shallow-channel shiphandling videos from the tanker school in Grenoble.
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I agree with @texastanker that a large sailboat under power more closely mimics the handling characteristics of a ship than any anything else (Absent a trip to Grenoble 
)
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If the junior deck officer has poor visual skills, when heavy traffic is encountered they will become less effective because of high workload and may “lose the plot”. The captain will have to be called to the bridge
When the junior officer has no experience or skills conning the vessel the captain is left with few choices. They can simply relieve the mate. But while the captain has far more experience they are still subject to similar limitations with regards to the cognitive workload of shifting back and forth from visual to electronic (one of significant factors BRM s intended to address).
If the captain takes over the (simpler) task of conning the ship that leaves the watch officer the more difficult and complex task of monitoring and interpreting the displays.
On the other hand if the watch officer has some experience with handling the ship in traffic the captain can delegate the watch officer that task. The captain can then focus on the longer range by monitoring the ARPA, AIS, and ECDIS systems, interpreting (in the context of COLREGS and the limitations of the vessels involved etc.) the more complex data these systems provide, with an occasional glance out the window to keep an eye on things.
That way the watch officer can maintain a continuous watch out the window while the captain provides advice (“use more rudder”) and instructions (“steer for that tanker’s stern”) as required.
I think you are confusing me with someone who thinks radar should not be used. Both flight instructing and sailing instructing, I expect the student to know how to make effective use of every piece of equipment on the boat/plane AND be able to do without it if it fails.
- when I sold Raytheon radars after the initial “how to use it” lessons I suggested the new owners use it a lot in nice weather and keep track of what they saw and what the radar looked like to get a good mental picture of what looked like what.
As for running over unlit boats, I did manage to hit a guy rowing a back rubber dinghy wearing a dark jacket with no lights on a pitch-dark night. Once he stopped cussing and got his oars organized I told him the next person that comes by might be doing 30 knots instead of 6 and donated an old flashlight
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I posted a sketch on the other thread but I redid it distances closer to scale.
Own ship’s course is north the other ship’s (CBDR - Constant Bearing Decreasing Range) course is west. CPA of the F/V is 1/2 mile and is DIW (Dead in the Water). If the other ship does not change course it will pass 4 miles north of the F/V.
3/m has the watch, captain and AB helmsman/lookout on the bridge, daylight in clear weather, no other traffic of concern. Both radars/ECDIS on and working.
Both vessels have been acquired and selected - course, speed, CPA, TCA is all available
Captain instructs the watch officer when abeam of the F/V to make a turn 1/2 miles off and steady up on a heading just aft of the other vessel.
Should the watch officer be able to follow those instructions without being 100% dependent on the radar? Should they be able to at least initiate the turn and adjust to the appropriate RoT using rudder commands?
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Is this a trick question? Are you constrained from seeing the boats for some reason?
Wouldn’t one hold steady until past the fishing boat and then aim to take the stern of the crossing traffic from starboard? Assuming they don’t suddenly stop, if aimed right behind them from some distance away they’ll be well clear to the west by the time you cross their wake.
- I would likely hail them on the VHF so they knew I was doing that, YMMV
Now do the give way vessel in a crossing situation while being over taken to Starboard -
That is a bit of a mess, you have rights over the overtaking vessel, but you could possibly force him into the fishing vessel and then the faster vessel runs up on the crossing vessel and does something to get in your way like back way off and now you are overtaking him.
Assuming that my ship actually slows up noticeably, I would probably pull back to idle for a bit and let the SS Overtaker get well ahead of me to prevent a traffic jam up ahead. Maybe a big diesel doesn’t do that very well???
forget exactly how they set this up, an a bit too busy now to go through it - but it is a usual interview question - and the answer is " done early enough - a little left can save a whole lot of right" -
Oh they stop just fine. How you maneuver without water moving over the rudder is the real conundrum. Best to pull back to Dead Slow Ahead and maintain control while letting the other traffic clear, or the old trusty round turn if the situation allows it. Will eat up 30 minutes or so and keeps you in control.
One would hope that any watch officer could do this simple task, with or without electronics.
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Turning port gets you away from the fishing boat but now you are aimed at the crossing traffic. Not sure that makes sense.
Agree, but that wasn’t the captain’s orders.
To me, the F/V is a Murphy Field generator, and it will decide to no longer be DIW at a more inconvenient time. Assuming we’re traveling at ~25 knots, that means the future debris field is only about 10 minutes away and the other vessel may be starting to get concerned.
@yacht_sailor turning to parallel a vessel can buy time and avoid risking a close quarters situation. For example, if the other ship isn’t giving way and you’re about to take action under 17(a)(ii). It can certainly feel odd compared to taking someone’s stern, but avoids the “uh oh, looks like they’re turning after all” scenario.
You’d think, but try telling that to the typical junior watch officer. You’d have better luck convincing them the horse and buggy is superior to the automobile.
The watch officer is essentially working in the virtual world of screens. They obtain the required course from the ARPA and relay it to the helmsman. In that case it’s actually the helmsman that initiates the turn and controls the Rate of Turn (RoT).
The course change in this scenario needs to be a bit on the snappy side to make own ship’s actions “readily apparent”. The crossing vessel needs to see that red side light. That means the watch officer should be using rudder commands instead of of leaving control of RoT to the helmsman.
That might be true if the officer is just watching the display on ARPA, there’s going to be a delay between when the F/V starts moving and when the vector updates. By eye any change in bearing drift will be seen immediately. The ARPA also does not show information on aspect, type of boat, gear in the water and so forth.
Are these junior officers brand new to any kind of boat?
I am really not trying to be obnoxious and probably am missing something, but this would have been a trivial problem for me back when I was too young to drive a car.
The inexperienced officer in traffic is typically already feeling the stress, they realize how important it is to make the right move the first time.
Having to do the job of the lookout in addition to collision avoidance and navigation seems like more work not less.
Another good thread about it here: Good P&I Bulletin on Bridge Watchkeeping and Collision Avoidance