Keeping the hell out of the way of big ships is a good idea.
It’s tricky though when they’re actually aiming for you.
The second morning of a three-day Biscay crossing, Captain Ben stirred for his 8am watch. And as any good watch-keeper knows, the first priority is to put the kettle on.
My offer of a choice of hot, tasty beverage to the poor sod I was replacing did not yield the normal cheery, obscene response. The note of distraction in his voice didn’t bother me. The note of genuine concern did.
Bearing down
I did not, of course, deviate from my high-priority task of putting the kettle on, but I did decide to poke my head above deck once the gas was lit.
“Everything okay mate?” I sleepily offered while my eyes adjusted to the sun-kissed ocean.
“Er …. Yeah … I’m just trying to work out what this guy’s doing” he replied in a slightly higher pitch than I was accustomed to.
Ahead of us, perhaps a few miles off, I could see a fairly sizeable freighter, northbound, a little to our port but nonetheless pretty much heading straight for us.
“I thought he was coming straight at us so I altered to starboard … you know … he seems to be coming straight at us again”.
A few miles may sound like a lot but for a large ship that’s a matter of minutes. And it can take the same matter of minutes for a small boat to cover the size of a big ship.
I understood his concern.
Bear down
Rule 14 of the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea basically says that in a head-on situation you alter course to starboard. If only one of you does this, then you avoid a collision. If both of you do it, you both steer to starboard (i.e. both to your right) and so avoid a collision.
Simple.
Well, not quite that simple. There are all sorts of caveats. Rule 18 for example, in this case, says that since we’re under sail and he’s under power, he is the one who has to stay out of our way. However, given the visibility of a small sailboat at sea coupled with the knowledge that, in a collision, our utter annihilation would barely scratch his paintwork, few sailors are demented enough to rely on it. To enjoy being in the right to its fullest one really needs to still be alive.
Was our dark nemesis being piloted by some spotty adolescent buzzing small sailboats for kicks? Was this some nautical serial killer, hell bent on wiping pleasure sailors from the face of the earth because he wasn’t breast-fed? Had one of my (many) enemies finally caught up with me?
Possibly, though more likely perhaps he just hadn’t seen us.
We could alter again but if he’s in the middle of some planned manoeuvre we’d just be playing with the odds of survival while our range was steadily closing, closing, closing.
A little chat on the radio seemed in order. After all, if it did turn out to be one of my enemies, I could always offer to buy him a pint.
Bearing fruit
He had seen us.
And he was steering straight for us.
This was no testosterone crazed, sniggering teen or murderous, cackling fiend on the other end of the radio though, but a friendly, good-natured Dutch sea captain.
Long sea voyages are by their nature a monotony of sea and sky which, for the part-time, recreational mariner is their hobby. On the other hand the full-time, professional mariner needs a hobby, and it just so happened that this particular professional mariner liked to brighten his days by taking photographs of small sailboats at sea. He was just getting in a little closer for a better shot.
Panic over. Voices returned to their normal pitch. And if this story has a point it is this. It’s good to know how to rattle off your email address in the phonetic alphabet otherwise you might miss a chance to get a photo like the one at the top of this post.
Ah, is that the kettle boiling…
