I Always Use One Of These

[ChrisB]

Marshman, I was the one who first posted. Please read that post! I am not saying it would have prevented this accident which I made more than clear if you had read it first.

What I am saying is a lit boat is easier to see than an unlit one, even you must see that is fact.

All I know about the tragic events of Thursday evening is what has been told to us all by Peter.

But one thing is patently clear the poor fellow did not see that boat until it was too bl**dy late.

[ChrisB]

I would like to add one more observation and then I think I am fatigued with this thread even though I was the OP.

Oulton is unique in it is a Broad in the centre of a town with all the back scatter of lights you get in towns. These are reflected in the water and make navigation difficult. If you have ever come into a town harbour from the sea on a dark night you will know what I mean. You lose you leading lights and bouyage against McDonalds, Bet Fred and zebra crossings.

I think it was entering Newhaven in my Sussex days when one of my leading lights on the mole turned amber then green it was a traffic light. Luckily we had proper visual by that time.

[JennyMorgan]

The event happened in the Borrow's Ham area of North Bay, the sky was relatively clear, half moon and that area of the Broad is thankfully lacking in light pollution. 

I do now know that the collision was witnessed and that the crew were catapulted into the side of the moored boat, horrifying. 

As for anchor lights, unless their use becomes universal on the Broads, in anycase not practical for boats that lay to a buoy and sometimes receive scant attention, then some boats will and some boats won't be illuminated. I wonder if this won't then create confusion for those navigating at night? 

As one who frequently navigates at night I consider the loss of night-sight due to a proliferation of anchor lights to be positively negative and wouldn't welcome it. The best thing that can be said for an anchor light is that it is something to aim for when coming back from a 'lock-in' in the shoreside boozer!

[JennyMorgan]

30 minutes ago, ChrisB said:

I think it was entering Newhaven in my Sussex days when one of my leading lights on the mole turned amber then green it was a traffic light. Luckily we had proper visual by that time.

Christchurch for me!!

[ChrisB]

I think most folk who make night passages especially at night have picked up a traffic signal by mistake. Thankfully they tell you that you are wrong fairly quickly.

The incredibly bright and very high lights at ferry port and container depots are what gets me. Passing Truckline in Poole harbour on a moonless night was a nightmare when I moored at Ridge Wharf near Wareham, you could not see a thing afterwards.

[BroadScot]

I seem to remember Timothy Spall narrowly avoiding contact with something on his barge when entering a port in the evening for that reason the lighting !

Iain

[Viking23]

Years ago my father and I got up early to catch the tide coming from the south to go up the swellies, between Anglesey and the mainland.

It was pitch black, and my father was sailing by the compass, I went below to cook breakfast and plot our position using the Radio Direction Finder and hand bearing compass on an odd lighthouse. No Sat navs in those days.

A quick check, and we were way off course, we were heading South towards the Llynn peninsula, I checked with my father and the compass and our direction was completely wrong.

What happened is my Father was bored with following the compass, and noticed some lights on the shore that were in the right direction, so he didn't bother checking the compass again.

He had been following the deck lights of a trawler going out from the Caernarfon area. we were nearly 8 miles from where we should have been, needless to say, we missed the tide for the swellies, so we were stuck for around 4 hours.

The swellies are quite unique, they have approx 4 tides a day, as the tide times are different between the North and the South. This makes the water quite challenging and turbulent. A bit like white water rafting lol.  So never assume.

An interesting point, regarding night navigation, if some people collide with stationary craft in good visibility in broad daylight, I'm not sure anchor lights will of be any great use lol.

If you recall the out of control inflatable boat, he was fined £2000 in total, £1000 for exceeding the speed limit, and another £1000 for a marine technical term for being "stupid" lol.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/14/norfolk_broads_idiot/

Prosecutions and fines with court cases do happen on the Broads.

 

 

[BroadAmbition]

A few points here that have been aired:-

'But we don't have a clue what happened'  -  Actually we do have quite a few clues as to what happened courtesey of our PW, we also know the wx conditions / visibility

Nav lights haze on the water to stop you seeing the river correctly - That's just about total opposite to what I find when I'm night navving - the Port and Stbd lights often aid me to see the river bank if the river is narrow enough, if it's wider they have never hindered my night vision

What I find odd in all this discussion - Nav Lights are not there for the benefit of the skipper / crew onboard, they are there so that your vessel can be seen by others, they also give out proper and firm information as to what course you are on i.e which way is the bow / stern etc, another vessel can also work out the CPA (Closest point of approach).  This last paragraph I have just posted is not my opinion, it is factual for mariners the world over.

So assuming the above is agreed as fact by readers,  If deciding to mudweight overnight why then for goodness sake would you want to then make yourself invisible to other waterway users by not showing any kind of light whatsoever?  To my mind it's crazy.  We can come up with all the excuses / reasons we collectively want as to why to use a cloaking device when mud-weighted but they won't override common sense imho.  The simple fact is, if you know the whereabouts of a vessel at anchor / mudweight, even if not fully accurately, at least you know there is something there even if not 100% sure of which way it is lying, this should install some sort of awareness / caution, which in turn should reduce the risk of collision

Griff

[Wussername]

The last post made by Griff embrace's two very important factors regarding this issue. Both of which are derived from the standards, professional standards from an institution which unquestionably is the finest in the world. The Royal Navy.  

The other important factor is that the experience gained from this discipline is such that those who question it's validity have little to question it's undoubtable contribution to common sense.

[BroadAmbition]

Further to my previous post (Which was not a rant BTW)  I would very probably lay the last £1 in my pocket, that when that very unfortunate husband / farther is interviewed by the investigation team, if he doesn't say owt else I would bet he will say

'I didn't see the boat at anchor / mudweight and didn't know it was there'

The point about bright lights and loss of night vision, valid but not from anchor / mast lights, they are designed to show other mariners of your whereabouts not illuminate up the whole anchorage and by their very nature are not designed to be 10" carbon arc spotlamps.

As for confusion with regards to background lighting from shore / other craft - Fine agreed but only to a point, the human Port and Stbd lookouts, fortunately  were designed to be able to function in 3D, they are also conveniently connected to the finest computer in the world - a human brain, which after a bit of reckoning is more than capable of working out which is background and foreground, which is fixed and which isn't

I rest my case your honour

Griff

[JennyMorgan]

Annual firework extravaganza over Oulton Broad tonight and inevitably there were a few boats out there displaying anchor lights. Never put much thought to it before but what real use are they? A single light is of little value, is it a forty five footer lying abeam to you or a twelve foot wide boat pointing directly towards you? Then just how far away is it? The Broads is not the open sea, it's the Broads. The speed limit is six miles per hour, stick to that, or under, & you'll be able to see all that you need to see.

[BroadAmbition]

The Broads is not the open sea, it's the Broads. The speed limit is six miles per hour, stick to that, or under, & you'll be able to see all that you need to see.

That I agree with PW

 

There were a few boats out there displaying anchor lights. Never put much thought to it before but what real use are they? A single light is of little value, is it a forty five footer lying abeam to you or a twelve foot wide boat pointing directly towards you? Then just how far away is it?

=

The simple fact is, if you know the whereabouts of a vessel at anchor / mudweight, even if not fully accurately, at least you know there is something there even if not 100% sure of which way it is lying, this should install some sort of awareness / caution, which in turn should reduce the risk of collision

 

Griff

[quo vadis]

HMS Challenger I say no more

[JennyMorgan]

If boats need anchor lights then what about the bank, street lights? Just a thought!!

[BroadAmbition]

If boats need anchor lights then what about the bank, street lights? Just a thought!!

My thoughts on this one are, if a helm really needs bank/street lights to get about safely during night navving then they are most definitely out of their comfort / safety zone and he/she should not be underway and should mudweight (Showing an all round light)  or tie up to a bank immediately.  That's if they can find it !!!!

Griff

[JennyMorgan]

25 minutes ago, quo vadis said:

HMS Challenger I say no more

Or even HMS Nottingham!

http://img.bemil.chosun.com/nbrd/files/BEMIL085/upload/2006/02/ HMS Nottingham D-91 returns home on the back of a Swan after hitting Australia_01.jpg

[BroadAmbition]

Here's an interesting scenario PW - Take your Drascombe right out into 'your' Broad one winters evening when it gets dark early, preferably an evening with full heavy cloud cover no moonlight, no winds forecast.  Drop a mudweight over the pointy bit, get her secured, then row back to your gaff, shut the curtains for the evening then eventually retire to bed.  Sleeping soundly? In the morning the first thing you will do is open the curtains and with your binoculars through bleary lack of sleep eyes and she if she is still ok. Not that it matters because your craft is under 50ft long and you have therefore complied with the stupid dangerous out of date byelaw

Now do the same on another evening with an all round white light on display

Yes I know there are various craft left overnight on mud-weights  / buoys all over the Broads but they are generally kept in known anchorage mooring areas.  There are a couple that regularly do this on Barton Broad, but they are well over close to the reeds and those of us that night nav know they are there.  Local knowledge of course does help.  I recently saw a few hire boats only last week mud-weighted in the main channel on Barton Broad.  Hire craft skippers (Well the newbies anyroadup) don't have local knowledge that there are safe areas outside of the main channel that you can safely mudweight in so I don't suppose they were doing owt wrong.  I have often night-navved over Barton Broad, Craft in the main channel mudweighted overnight are a hazard to the likes of me.  If they were showing an all round white light it would help but again that out of date stupid byelaw states in a roundabout way that they are safe.  I fortunately have local knowledge

The disused rail bridge up river of St Olaves, the central support in the middle of the river shows a light on it as does the one approaching Beccles. Now isn't that a strange one? Neither of them are over 50ft long or a craft for that matter but they are lit at night - wonder why that is?

Griff

[kfurbank]

It seems to be the general consensus on here that anchor lights are not required on pleasure vessels according to the byelaws, yet in certain cases they are!! According to byelaw 40 if anchored in or near a channel than an anchor light is required. Probably not applicable to Oulton Broad which doesn't have a marked channel, but Barton does. As with most of the byelaws, there is some ambiguity, as in "near" is not defined. Is it 1ft, 10ft or a 100ft? 

With reference to Griff's post above, about hire boats mooring in the main channel on Barton, this is also forbidden by byelaw 64 Vessels not to anchor in a channel.

[ChrisB]

When RA  was based at Gays. Mike and the other skipper would always go over and ask them to move outside the stakes if they saw a boat anchored in the channel.

[MauriceMynah]

5 hours ago, kfurbank said:

According to byelaw 40 if anchored in or near a channel.......

 

5 hours ago, kfurbank said:

about hire boats mooring in the main channel on Barton, this is also forbidden by byelaw 64 Vessels not to anchor in a channel.

...and that's the problem with byelaws! They're so badly written that nobody knows what is allowed and what is not.

[kfurbank]

Maurice, I agree that some byelaws are vague and not very well worded, but in the two examples you just quoted above, I don't see anything wrong. You shouldn't moor in a channel, but if you do, which could be because of a breakdown, then you should have an anchor light. In the example above it's just a case of do you break one byelaw by mooring in a channel?, or both of the byelaws by mooring in a channel without an anchor light?

The badly worded part is where it says you need an anchor light if mooring "near" a channel. Define near?. 

[MauriceMynah]

Keith, I don't want to de-rail this thread ( yet    ) but in fairness I feel that what you describe is how you have interpreted the byelaws. I have interpreted them differently. I have interpreted them as being mutually exclusive.

Now we could argue all night as to who is right here, but had they been written properly, there would be no confusion. Lets face it there was a long drawn out argument elswhere as to how long a boat could remain at a 24 hour mooring if that boat was disabled, and indeed what constituted 'disabled' purely because the byelaws didn't make the matter clear. This facilitated  'cherry picking' of the byelaws..

If a byelaw is to be written and adopted, it should first be checked that it is not in itself ambiguoius and that it doesn't contridict, or appear to contridict any other byelaw.

[JennyMorgan]

I wonder just how many people have actually managed to ram an anchored boat on the Broads? I would guess rather less than have managed to hit boats moored alongside! 

Perhaps all boats should now be required to hoist a black, round day signal on the forepart of their boat when mud weighting for the day?  Perhaps a sound signal too, just in case there is a fog?

Deffo a lot of boats should fly this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Code_of_Signals#/media/File:ICS_Delta.svg

[Poppy]

JM, I have learned from here (and elsewhere) some boaters just love toys and gadgets. Nothing wrong with that, just so long as they don't expect everybody to follow suit.   After all, we might just want them all to have to learn to sail

[Vaughan]

5 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

I wonder just how many people have actually managed to ram an anchored boat on the Broads? I would guess rather less than have managed to hit boats moored alongside! 

Evening Flight was once rammed amidships on her buoy on Wroxham Broad by a Broads Tours launch. In this case the skipper was a seasonal apprentice and it was in clear daylight. Other than that, I can't think of any.

By the way as to signal flags, I would prefer flag X-ray.

"Stop carrying out your intentions and watch for my signals."

This can be backed up by whatever other gestures you feel appropriate.