A Question for Sailors

[Wagtail]

Well, to spin a 'salty sea ditty' (true, as I was there ath:

Scenario; Destroyer cruising in the inbound sea lane Strait of Juan de Fuca off of Victoria, BC. Afternoon. Very calm. A small 'cabined' sailboat apparently adrift and drifting into the sealane - no skipper or crew visible.

We (destroyer) slowed and observed... eventually we sounded our horn!!!

Two heads 'popped up' from the sailboat's cockpit. The female crew(person?) SMACKS the skipper and scrambles her bare arse down into the cabin. The sailboat skipper laughs, waves to us, and manoeuvres his vessel out of the channel.

Navigational crisis avoided.

 

[buickanddeere]

Now days most crucial navigation systems that use GPS have back up inertial systems...inertial systems do not need any outside data i.e., satellites, radio direction beacons etc., etc...as far as I know the military is fully invested in the inertial (back up) systems...

Obama killed the funding that kept LORAN C going which was always primarily a civilian use system...even after the chinese demonstrated they could take out all the GPS birds...

That past president did not have the best intentions for his country.

 

[RichM752]

That past president did not have the best intentions for his country.

I seriously doubt Obama was to blame for this accident. Loran C has been outdated and obsolete for 30+ yrs. Loran C has absolutely nothing to due with the safe navigation and adherence to the 'rules of the road'. A seaman 'looking out of the window', AND the naval vessel making itself visible while 'not under command' would have prevented this incident.
"That past president did not have the best intentions for his country" show your ignorance of the facts.

 

[/pine]

I seriously doubt Obama was to blame for this accident. Loran C has been outdated and obsolete for 30+ yrs. Loran C has absolutely nothing to due with the safe navigation and adherence to the 'rules of the road'. A seaman 'looking out of the window', AND the naval vessel making itself visible while 'not under command' would have prevented this incident.
"That past president did not have the best intentions for his country" show your ignorance of the facts.

The discussion you replied to was on a totally different tangent...go back and read the thread in a comprehensive manner and you will see that the discussion had canted to alternative navigation systems in the event of electronic espionage etc., etc...

The military rarely used LORAN regardless...a private or commercial vessel reporting a position to the USCG would always have to convert a LORAN waypoint to Lat/Lon for the coasties...

but obsolete for 30+ years...I don't think so...

Obama Seeks to Eliminate Loran Funding
By: Roy Mark | May 15, 2009

President Obama's 2010 federal budget proposes cutting all funding to the nation's Loran navigational system, claiming GPS has made the system obsolete. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, though, are making a case to keep Loran in light of recent reports the GPS system is faltering.

http://www.eweek.com/mobile/obama-seeks-to-eliminate-loran-funding

 

[dmccarty]

That sounds reasonable to me.

How close would you guess that the pleasure vessel was to the ferry as the "potty mouth" started recording? My guess is less than 100 yards. The only evidence I see (hear) that the ferry captain did anything was to sound his horn and judging by prop wash, reverse engine(s) near the time of the collision.

Steve

I saw a chart showing the course the ferry was following and the ferry should have seen the smaller boat much earlier than when the video started. Plenty of time to do something other than sounding the horn blasts and reverse. If the ferry had simply slowed down earlier then the small boat would have just gone on by.

Later,
Dan

 

[Garandman]

That past president did not have the best intentions for his country.

The last person I know using LORAN retired the unit in 1995.

I know this because I broke the antenna on the stern rail of his sailboat. Offered to replace the antenna, or give him a new handheld GPS - a Garmin GPS45 Personal Navigator, which was already lower cost than even the replacement antenna. He took the GPS, happily.

Funding for LORAN C ceased, not because of who was resident in the White House, but because the Coast Guard announced a finding in 2009 that it was no longer needed. It was shut down in 2010 and the Europeans and Brits shut down their network a few years later.

 

[dmccarty]

There are other factors that may come into play, such as the general category of "Vessels limited in their ability to maneuver."

If the ferry was in a dredged channel to the landing, for example, the pleasure boat would be obliged to keep clear. Without knowing what waters they are in, not sure how you can decide the ferry is at fault.

The pros who operate the ferries, pilot boats, harbor cruise boats etc. have seen us and taken action to avoid us long in advance. It's the other pleasure boaters you can't be sure about.

The collision I posted was heavily discussed on the boat forums I read. People who cruise in the area of the collision, as well as charts, showed that the ferry was not restricted in any way nor was it privileged by local law. Apparently in some places ferry's can be granted privileges over other vessels which makes sense to me but something I did not know.

USUALLY the professionals avoid small boats long in advance of smaller vessels but the key word is USUALLY. There are plenty of collisions that killed people where the professionals messed up. My dad had a small cargo ship cruise by him while he was sailing and they could not see a single person on the bridge. I am sure many a small boat has been run over by ships and eventually reported missing at sea for some unknown reason. If my dads boat had been run over by the cargo ship, they would have been just another victim of The Bermuda Triangle.

SOOOO many operators of pleasure boats are flat out crazy! :shocked: The stuff I have seen.... Now a days with YouTube so much of this craziness is recorded for all to see. :laughing: There is a video of a bunch of small sail boats sailing in front of a huge cargo ship in a channel. No way for the bridge to see the sail boats much less do anything to avoid a collision... I which we could have recorded the stuff I have seen.

Later,
Dan

 

[RichM752]

The discussion you replied to was on a totally different tangent...go back and read the thread in a comprehensive manner and you will see that the discussion had canted to alternative navigation systems in the event of electronic espionage etc., etc...

The military rarely used LORAN regardless...a private or commercial vessel reporting a position to the USCG would always have to convert a LORAN waypoint to Lat/Lon for the coasties...

but obsolete for 30+ years...I don't think so...



Obama Seeks to Eliminate Loran Funding

I base my statement on Loran C from personal experience. I believe the last time I used it was in the mid 80's? I sailed the high seas for 38 yrs before coming ashore two years ago. I do apologize for not reading the whole thread.

 

[dmccarty]

Well, to spin a 'salty sea ditty' (true, as I was there ath:

Scenario; Destroyer cruising in the inbound sea lane Strait of Juan de Fuca off of Victoria, BC. Afternoon. Very calm. A small 'cabined' sailboat apparently adrift and drifting into the sealane - no skipper or crew visible.

We (destroyer) slowed and observed... eventually we sounded our horn!!!

Two heads 'popped up' from the sailboat's cockpit. The female crew(person?) SMACKS the skipper and scrambles her bare arse down into the cabin. The sailboat skipper laughs, waves to us, and manoeuvres his vessel out of the channel.

Navigational crisis avoided.

Many, many years ago I was on a boat patrol with two other people, one of whom was a ranking officer out to observe. It was the Fourth of July and we were patrolling the Inter Coastal Waterway and other nearby water ways in south Florida so it was going to be day of chaos and interesting events. :shocked::laughing::laughing::laughing:

We were put putting along and were passing a series of docks that were running perpendicular to the waterway when I noticed something strange out of the corner of my eye. I really did not see anything that registered with me other than what the heck was that movement. I said something along the lines of what the heck was that and we turned the boat around and eventually saw a man sitting in a chair on the shore line and a woman doing something in public that would be illegal. :laughing::laughing::laughing: They noticed us about the time we noticed them and that was that. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Different day but same area there was a woman laying face down on the fore deck of a rather large power boat. Her head was facing the stern and her legs were facing the bow. All I can say is that if you are going to wear a thong, you REALLY need to be in shape to carry it off. Some things should not be shown in public. :shocked::laughing::laughing::laughing:

Later,
Dan

 

[Garandman]

With the USS McCain collision, even Navy tech can’t overcome human shortcomings | Ars Technica

Based on the course followed by the ship [Alnic MC, a 600' chemical tanker], several sources Ars has conferred with suggest it's highly likely that the ship was on auto-pilot at the time of the collision, en route to pick up a pilot to bring the ship to an oil-handling terminal or to an anchorage to await unloading. The crew may have not even been paying attention when the McCain–which, based on the point of collision, would have had the right of way—passed in front of the ship.

The bow bulb really did a number.