Te c h n i c a l & S a f e t y
The boat needs to be in a position to get out of their way in good time when it begins to seem likely they are ignoring it .
Institute ’ s MARS scheme . Or you could put it down to experience , reflect on your own possible past misdemeanours and get on with your sailing .
Technology can help make a boat more visible . But as described above , almost all the systems available have some failings . The good thing is that although the ship cannot or does not see the boat , the boat can almost always see the ship , by eye in good visibility and by AIS or radar in bad .
What can you do when such an incident has occurred ? A recent unrelated article on the RYA ’ s website about ColRegs points out that failure to comply with them is a criminal offence . You could report it to the MCA who are responsible for enforcement in UK waters and have an enforcement policy . You could bring it the attention of a body like CHIRP or the Nautical
Your correspondent has said before that in the busy waters of the Solent we are lucky to have very skilled seamen in charge of the ferries and other vessels that we interact with nearly every time we go out . They are certainly more sinned against than sinners as they make their ways safely through the fleets of small vessels .
When we go further afield the vessels we meet may have had less experience of the ways of small boat sailors and we should perhaps be more wary in our interactions with them .
Easy Tide Double High Tides
Thanks to David Suttle for suggesting this topic would be useful to cruising members .
Your correspondent recently arranged to arrive at such a stand and was rewarded with relatively easy berthing .
There are a number of locations around the Solent where berthing is difficult at certain stages of the tide but where extended stands of high tide give long periods of slack water .
The Hamble and the Beaulieu River are two such examples .
The latest incarnation of the UKHO ’ s free tide prediction website , EasyTide , now gives the times of the double high tides , as can be seen in the attached output which can make planning ones arrival time much easier than working it out from the tide height graphs .
The Hamble also has a mid-tide stand on some days which show up well on the EasyTide graphs .
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