Sailing a boat offshore is a bit like walking down railroad tracks. You are trespassing on the right of way of the railroad. While they don't necessarily mind, and are not going to kick you off, they do expect you get out of the way of the trains. When you sail a small boat offshore for pleasure you are trespassing in the domain of commerce, war, and piracy. You must accept this as reality, and accept the consequences.
sailaway21, no doubt the courts have found what ships engaged in commerce are required to do. What we have here is a situation not addressed by the Admiralty courts: recreation, pleasure. These things do not exists according to COLREGS, everyone at sea is subject to the same 'regulations.' In this sense when you are called to an admiralty court you are being treated as a commercial entity, engaged in commerce when the incident occurred. Of course common sense will usually prevail. "Mr. Supertanker driver, what do you mean you have a choice to run over the sailboat or hit the rocks a spill a million gallons of oil? " What damages can a sailboat actually do to a ship, at sea, offshore? Thats right, nothing. A bit like a train vs. a bicycle. This whole going to sea for pleasure thing is a foreign notion to the courts, the I.M.O., and to the maritime industry. While its great to think and ponder that you can somehow hold yourself to
their standards putting across the ocean at 3-4 knots the reality is you can't. You don't have the power available to keep your
radar, your
VHF, AIS on 24 hours a day. You don't have the visibility a look out on a bridge wing has, and you don't have the speed to get out of the way if you needed to. If you posses a vessel that can, aside from ocean racers you likely won't be single handing anyway. Most ships are foreign flagged, have one man on the bridge who may or may not know what he is doing. For this reason attempting to follow the guidelines of rule 5 is in your best interest, as it is every vessels duty to do everything in their power to avoid a collision. If a ship doesn't see you, your
lights, or your
radar signature they have screwed up. Not its your turn to alert them with every means possible your position and try to get out of their way, if you can. It should also be noted that at least here on the west coast and Alaska commercial fisherman will often set their
autopilot in a circle or cloverleaf pattern, or just lock their helm and forget it, sometimes sleeping the entire night like that. They know they are violating rule 5, but they don't really care. This is the reality. Their are unmanned fishing boats, freighters with hardly a soul on deck, and then there is the lowly singlehander...
About Boasun's comments about not waking up to a
radar proximity alarm, or AIS. Most single handers, including myself sleep very, very lightly. This is because (if they have sense about them) even their subconscious knows it is in their best interest to observe every change in their environment. Human perception is geared towards recognizing change, and your body will adapt very well to life at sea as a singlehander. You can hear, feel, smell, and dare I say 'sense' the proximity of other vessels. If you do not posses these traits it probably isn't a good idea to single hand long distances, while at the same time you can't let your guard down. Be on the defensive too. Use DSC 'all ships' on your
VHF. It sets off an alarm on their bridge which they will hear, that at least lets them know to look for you.
My personal policy regarding sleep singlehanded involves some relative distances. 24 hours from land = no sleeping no matter what. 48 hours from land = sleeping in cockpit with
radar on 5 min proximity sweeps and a 15 min egg timer. Further out, single handers should consciously avoid shipping lanes and known fishing areas. Eventually the 15 minute thing stops working and you need a real sleep. This is, as mentioned before a calculated risk, but in any event this sleep period should look nothing like normal sleep on land. Unless you are becalmed the boat and the ocean will prohibit any long periods anyway. But it doesn't really matter. If a freighter doesn't see you, and is on a direct collision course even the 15 minute rule is enough to get you killed. I know it has been discussed at length here before, but this is good exercise. Worst case, approximate reciprocal collision courses bring the two vessels together at 1/2 Nmi per minute. This doesn't give you much time. So you take your risks.. that is what life is about. I don't worship some set of regulations... Don't need to. If it isn't common sense then you shouldn't go to sea. For that matter you probably shouldn't drive either.. but thats a different website
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