(sorry in advance if anyone saw this elsewhere - shoulda put it here first, SN is probably the better place to get an answer)
So we're fed up with winter and we're relocating this summer to an unnamed country on the eastern med starting with "i". Of course, first things first, before we have an apartment rented or job or schools sorted, I got on the bone with a nice South African lady from a sailing club to find out about joining, and she asks me what kind of certs I have. Uh, an Ontario boating license? Yeah right, that's not going to fly - I have to take like 6 exams covering coastal nav, electronic nav, mechanical, local maritime law & habours, plus one exam covering day shapes and one covering nav lights. I imagine a CG license over here would cover similar stuff.
Fortunately their Ministry of Transportation publishes sample question banks for each exam, and a cute supplement with 75 sample navlights and 16 day shapes ... I printed out the nav lights and made flash cards. My colregs reference is Wikipedia (is that a dumb idea?): International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Most of them I can figure out pretty easily, for example:
49 is a vessel constrained by draft, underway to port. 50 is a vessel with restricted manoeuvreability, engaged in underwater operations approaching and showing safe passage to its port (viewer's stb'd). 51 is a vessel trawling underway stb'd.
But what's this:
A vessel under pilot, underway to port showing no safe passage on port side for some reason? Didn't seem obvious to me that lights were meant to be combined that way. Or is it a vessel under pilot, but not under command (is that a contradiction)?
And this:
A vessel fishing (not trawling) underway approaching, but why the extra green light to the vessel's port (viewer's stb'd)? A white all-around there would show equipment/outrigger on that side ... what's this mean?
And this:
A power-vessel to viewer's port underway approaching hip-towing a sailing vessel?
So we're fed up with winter and we're relocating this summer to an unnamed country on the eastern med starting with "i". Of course, first things first, before we have an apartment rented or job or schools sorted, I got on the bone with a nice South African lady from a sailing club to find out about joining, and she asks me what kind of certs I have. Uh, an Ontario boating license? Yeah right, that's not going to fly - I have to take like 6 exams covering coastal nav, electronic nav, mechanical, local maritime law & habours, plus one exam covering day shapes and one covering nav lights. I imagine a CG license over here would cover similar stuff.
Fortunately their Ministry of Transportation publishes sample question banks for each exam, and a cute supplement with 75 sample navlights and 16 day shapes ... I printed out the nav lights and made flash cards. My colregs reference is Wikipedia (is that a dumb idea?): International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Most of them I can figure out pretty easily, for example:
49 is a vessel constrained by draft, underway to port. 50 is a vessel with restricted manoeuvreability, engaged in underwater operations approaching and showing safe passage to its port (viewer's stb'd). 51 is a vessel trawling underway stb'd.
But what's this:
A vessel under pilot, underway to port showing no safe passage on port side for some reason? Didn't seem obvious to me that lights were meant to be combined that way. Or is it a vessel under pilot, but not under command (is that a contradiction)?
And this:
A vessel fishing (not trawling) underway approaching, but why the extra green light to the vessel's port (viewer's stb'd)? A white all-around there would show equipment/outrigger on that side ... what's this mean?
And this:
A power-vessel to viewer's port underway approaching hip-towing a sailing vessel?